The Invisible Wall

by Harry Bernstein

  “Who’s there?”

  I must have flown out of the house. I know I put all caution aside as I dashed out, and the two Harrises, catching a glimpse of me as I went past them, must have been bewildered. They were probably never able to make out what had happened, or where I’d come from, or even who I was.

  All they saw was the small figure of a boy dashing across the street, disappearing into the Christian darkness.

  I TROTTED. I half ran. Perhaps this was due less to the hurry I was in than my fear of being on the Christian side. I had never been here alone, and certainly not at night. The doorways were open as I trotted along, and strange odors came from them, the odors of bacon and lard and ham and other forbidden foods. I caught glimpses of crosses on walls, and pictures of Jesus. Fires glowed inside, with kettles boiling on them. I could hear the Forshaws’ gramophone farther down the street.

  The people sitting outside glanced at me curiously as I went by. A Jewish kid running down their side at night. It must have seemed odd to them, but they said nothing. Christian children were playing just as noisily as the ones across the way. I wove my way among them, and hurried, clutching the empty bottle in one hand, the thripennybit in the other. The sound of the gramophone grew louder, and then I came to the Forshaws’ house and simply had to stop.

  The gramophone was near the open doorway on a small table, with the Forshaws sitting on either side of it. I had often stared, fascinated, from across the street, listening to the squawking sounds that came out of the big green horn. Close up, I found it even more intriguing. I could see the record twirling around and around, and the voice coming out of the horn, singing, was so real I thought perhaps there was a man inside. The two Forshaws were watching me, though they were pretending not to, with slight smiles. Mr. Forshaw held a mug of beer in his hand and took a sip every now and then, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand. Mrs. Forshaw simply sat erect with her hands clasped in her lap, a tall, slender woman with dark hair tied in a bun at the back of her head.

  It was rumored on our street that they’d once been well-off, and that Mr. Forshaw’s drinking had brought them down to our street. Anyway, they were decidedly a cut above the rest of us, and they seemed to have very little to do with their neighbors, though they were friendly enough with everybody, and nodded and smiled, even though they never said more than a word or two. They had just one child, a boy, Arthur, who’d won a scholarship to the grammar school. He was a nice-looking boy, about fourteen at the time, big for his age, and friendly like his parents, but one who minded his own business and studied all the time.

  He was sitting in the room behind his parents, reading at the table under the gaslight, and scribbling notes. My attention wandered over to him, and away from the gramophone for a moment.

  Watching him with his head bent under the gaslight coming from the mantel above, I couldn’t help thinking of the argument that had taken place between my mother and Lily, my older sister, earlier that day. It had been on account of Arthur. Lily, who was twelve, had never spoken to Arthur, but fairly worshipped him from a distance, chiefly because of his winning a scholarship—something no one on our street had done before, something she intended to do herself.

  Yet she must have spoken of Arthur once too often, and my mother lost her patience. She had been struggling against it all this time, saying nothing when Lily had mentioned him. Now she burst out, “That’s enough. I want you to stop talking about Arthur Forshaw. I don’t want to hear his name in this house again.”

  My sister looked at her in astonishment. Well, we all did. We had never seen our mother so angry before. “Why?” Lily asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “What’s wrong? He’s a Christian, that’s what.”

  Lily gaped in amazement for a moment, then spoke. “Of all the stupid things to say. What difference does it make if he’s a Christian?”

  Then my mother slapped her face, and Lily ran upstairs crying.

  I was thinking of all this and looking at Arthur when Mrs. Forshaw’s voice interrupted. “Would you like to sit down on the doorstep for a little while, ’arry, and listen to the gramophone?”

  “And have a sup of beer while you’re at it,” Mr. Forshaw put in, winking.

  “Oh, you shut up,” Mrs. Forshaw said to him. She turned back to me. “Go on, ’arry, sit on the doorstep.”

  “I’m going on an errand,” I said.

  “You are?” She seemed surprised. “All by yourself? Does your mother know you’re going?”

  “Yis,” I lied, and instinctively glanced across the street at our house, which was almost directly opposite this one. But my mother was not sitting outside.

  “Well, go on then,” Mrs. Forshaw said, smiling. “You’re going to Gordon’s for ginger beer, I can see. You’d better hurry before it gets too dark.”

  I hurried on. I ran, trying to make up for the time I’d lost standing in front of the Forshaws’ house.

  About to pass the Greens’ house, I stumbled and fell. Mrs. Green was sitting outside with her daughter Annie, who was holding her baby (the fatherless one that had caused so much whispering on the street). Mrs. Green was the toothless old woman who made up our fire on Friday nights and Saturday. Every Jewish family on our side had someone on the Christian side to do it for them, since Jews were forbidden to light a fire on the Sabbath, which began Friday at sunset. We called them fire goys, and Mrs. Green was our fire goy. Seeing me fall, she let out a cackle of amusement.

  But Annie, always a nice, quiet girl, who sometimes substituted for her mother on the Friday nights and Saturdays, sprang up at once to help me, holding her baby under one arm.

  “Did you hurt yourself, ’arry?” she asked, pulling me up with her free hand.

  “No.” I’d landed on my knees, but my only thought was for the bottle that had fallen out of my hand. Fortunately, it was one of those durable stone bottles and had not broken. I picked it up, and without bothering to thank Annie, ran on.

  The gaslight had been turned on in the Gordons’ shop, and it spilled out onto the sidewalk. I stood there in the light and looked through the window. Old Mr. Gordon was seated close to the window, dozing over his newspaper, his head on his chest, his glasses slipped down to the end of his nose. He was a very fat man with a huge, sagging belly that heaved up and down every time he wheezed and coughed asthmatically in his sleep.

  Otherwise the shop was empty. There were no customers inside, no Florrie, and certainly no Freddy. I had been warned by Sarah not to go in unless Freddy was there, and so I waited. I glanced uncertainly around the corner. There were two entrances to the Gordons’ place. The one around the corner led to the taproom, and it appeared to be busy. People were coming and going, some with jugs in their hands that they’d had filled up, and every time the door opened the noise from within came out along with the smell of beer.

  Freddy was almost certainly in there waiting on customers, but it was one place I would never have dared go in. It was a place where only Christians went. I turned back anxiously to the grocery window, and then suddenly, to my relief, saw the door at the rear that led to the taproom open. Freddy came backing out of it lugging a heavy case filled with bottles.

  I went in at once, the bell on the door ringing as I opened it. Mr. Gordon awoke with a start, and began struggling out of his seat, but Freddy, who had swung around at the sound of the bell, said quickly, “Don’t you trouble yourself, Da. I’ll take care of him. You just sit there with your paper.”

  The old man didn’t seem to mind staying where he was, and settled back in his chair, wheezing and coughing. Freddy’s hand reached out across the counter. In a low voice, he asked, “Did Sarah send you?”

  “Yis,” I said.

  “Gi’ it to me,” he said.

  I handed him the empty bottle, and I watched him as he half turned away from me with the bottle. Freddy, at that time, must have been about eighteen, a rather short, stocky fellow with thick blond hair. Ever since their mother had di
ed, he and his sister Florrie had been running the shop and the taproom, and it had kept them busy. The old man was too sick to be able to do much. Freddy’s face was flushed and covered in perspiration from the exertion of rushing about and lugging the heavy case. Although his back was partly turned toward me, I could see it clearly. I could also see what he was doing.

  I know it struck me as a bit odd. My mouth must have opened a little as I saw him take the cork out of the empty bottle I had given him, and slip a finger into the opening. He seemed to bring something out. It was a small slip of paper, which he unfolded and read. What he did next was even more peculiar. First he gave a swift look at his father, who had already dozed off again, then he bent over the counter and wrote something on another piece of paper, which he folded up into a strip. Now, he took a bottle out of the case he had brought in, opened it, and spilled a little of the ginger beer out of it onto the floor, and then began pushing the slip of paper into it.

  In the midst of all this, unseen by him but seen by me, the door leading to the taproom opened, and Florrie came bustling out. She stopped short at the sight of him and stood watching. Florrie was about two or three years older than her brother, a buxom girl with the same color hair as he. She had been engaged to a man from Birmingham for several years, the wholesale grocery salesman who serviced their shop, and it was believed that it was the responsibility she felt toward her sick father and the shop that kept her from getting married.

  She had entered in time to see all the strange things I had seen, the writing of the note, the spilling out of the ginger beer. Just as he was thrusting the note inside the bottle she burst out, “What the bloody ’ell are you doing, Freddy?”

  He swung around sharply at the sound of her voice, and the red in his face deepened. “What’s the matter with you, Florrie?” he muttered.

  “Oh, you bloody fool!” She had started to shout, but suddenly remembered her father, and glanced toward him. Seeing that he was asleep, she went on, but with a lowered voice that was filled, nevertheless, with passion.

  “I know what you’re up to, and maybe you think you’re smart, but I warn you you’re not messing around with any mill girl or with another Annie Green. The people across the street wouldn’t let you get off easy like Mrs. Green did.”

  “You shut up, Florrie,” hissed Freddy, glancing at his father also, and glancing at me, too. “You just shut your big mouth and mind your own bloody business.”

  “Mind my own business?” she said, her voice almost choking. “And whose business is it if you go to prison, which is what those people across the street are going to do to you if they catch you messing with one of their girls? Who’s going to have to run this place, and take care of Da? It’s me, that’s who. Me, who could be married by now and living in Birmingham with an ’ouse of me own if it wasn’t for this place.”

  Freddy didn’t answer her this time. He was afraid that I was hearing too much, and hurried to finish what he was doing. He put the cork back into the bottle of ginger beer and gave it to me. He took my thripennybit and handed me the penny change, and said, “Be sure you give that bottle now to the one sent you here, and be off with you.”

  I hurried out, and as I closed the door behind me I heard their voices again clashing sharply in anger. But I was no longer interested. I was in a hurry now to get back and spend my penny, which I clutched tightly in my hand. I ran back up the street. It had grown darker still and a few pale stars were visible in the sky. The lamplighter was going around with his tall tapered pole. He had lit the lamp on the upper corner of the street and was now marching down to light the one at the bottom of the street. The first lamp, right next to the Turnbull sweets shop, cast a thin glow of light around its base and hardly touched the buildings.

  The street was quieter, too. The children had disappeared. Fewer people were sitting outdoors. Yellow light showed at windows behind drawn shades. When I reached the Harris house it was empty there, too. My brothers and his friends had gone, and the chalk marks on the sidewalk were vague through the darkness. I was half afraid that I’d have to go inside again, but suddenly the window opened, and I heard Sarah whisper. “Right here, luv.”

  Eagerly, glad to see her, I turned toward the window with the bottle. She reached out and took it, asking in another whispered question. “Did you give the empty to Freddy?”

  “Yis,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much, ’arry. Here, let me give you a kiss.” She drew my face to hers with both hands and pressed her lips against mine, and held me tightly, smothering me in her lavender smell. She then let go of me and said, “You’d better hurry on home now, luv. I think your mother is looking for you.”

  Indeed she was. My whole family had been scouring the street for me, and Sarah knew that only too well, but hadn’t dared say anything to them for fear of getting involved. I hadn’t the slightest intention of going home yet, however. Not with that penny burning a hole in my hand. I ran back across to the Turnbull shop. Mr. Turnbull was still seated outside, and he threw me a beseeching look as I went past him into the shop. I don’t think I even noticed him.

  Inside, I stood uncertainly. The shop was empty. From the back room came the sound of men’s voices, hoarse guffaws, the clinking of glasses, and Mrs. Turnbull’s own hoarse, almost masculine voice dominating the others.

  I tapped on the glass counter with my penny to get her attention, timidly at first, then louder and bolder, until one of the men must have heard me and peered around the doorway, because I heard him say, “There’s a little Jew boy in th’ shop.”

  “The bloody little buggers.” Mrs. Turnbull’s voice came to me, bitter and complaining. “They’re always bothering me. I don’t get a minute’s peace.”

  She appeared in a moment, shuffling in slippers, a large, heavy woman with thick arms folded over a massive bosom, fleshy face creased with displeasure, her breath smelling of beer.

  “Now what do you want?” she snapped. “Y’ought to be in bed this time o’ night, instead of bothering me. You’re always bothering me, the whole lot of you. Go on and pick what you want, and don’t take all night at it. I’ve got lots of other things to do.”

  I gazed down through the glass case at the assortment of sweets, with the usual dilemma over what choice to make, but more frightened and flustered than ever at her impatience. My eyes went from one to the other, the clear mixed gums, the aniseed balls, the licorice allsorts, the Kali suckers (with a balloon included), the Devonshire caramels, the Turkish Delights, the bonbons, the humbugs, the big humbugs, the small humbugs, and the chocolate dragées. All the time she chafed and muttered, and finally burst out savagely, “I’ll gi’ ye five seconds more.”

  I jumped at the sound of her voice, and in sheer panic made a random choice, the humbugs, the large ones. She filled a bag with them, took my penny, and almost pushed me out, and as I left, her gaze must have fallen on her husband, and reminded her of him, because I heard her mutter, “There’s him, too.”

  Outside, I crossed back to our side, but paused to open the bag and pop one of the humbugs in my mouth. It was so big it caused both my cheeks to bulge, and I slowed my pace as I went on, because I wanted to finish it before I entered the house. I had no intention of letting my brothers and sisters know that I’d come into possession of a bag of humbugs and be forced to share it with them. I immediately thrust the bag deep down inside my trouser pocket.

  But by the time I reached my house I was in trouble. I’d only managed to whittle the humbug down to a fraction of its original size, and my cheeks still bulged. Yet I knew I could not delay entering much longer. Sounds came out of the house that were ominous, my mother’s angry voice berating my brothers, and the latter wailing protests. I knew it was about me.

  There was only one thing to do. I took a deep breath and swallowed it, nearly choking as it entered my throat. I managed to gulp it down, though, and it sank into my stomach like a rock. Then, wiping off the telltale marks from my mouth
with the back of a dirty hand, I went in.

  MY MOTHER WAS STILL SHOUTING at them, blaming them for letting me out of their sight. They were sniffling and protesting, and she was preparing to go out herself and search for me when I walked in. I stood for a moment blinking in the light, unseen as yet, and listening to the argument raging.

  It was Saul who saw me first. “There’s the bloody little sod,” he shrieked.

  All eyes instantly turned on me. Joe glared hatefully, then strode up toward me and gave me a clout on the side of the head. “You bloody little bugger. Why’d you run off?”

  Saul would have followed suit with another clout if my mother hadn’t stopped him, pushed both of them aside, grasped me by both shoulders, and said, “Where have you been? We were looking all over for you.”

  I hung my head and muttered, “I went on an errand.”

  “Who sent you on an errand?”

  “Sarah.”

  “That’s where we saw him last,” interjected Joe. “That’s where the bloody little bugger was standing when we were playing hopscotch outside the ’arrises’ house.”

  “Where did she send you?” my mother asked.

  “To Gordons’.”

  “What for?”

  “A bottle of ginger beer.”

  “She’s got some nerve, sending you there alone,” my mother said angrily. “I’m going to have a talk with her when I see her. And I’m going to tell her mother, too. She shouldn’t be sending you off to Gordons’ for ginger beer all by yourself at night. Now all of you go up to bed.”

  She was very angry, otherwise she might not have said that. On summer nights she always let the older children sit up a bit longer to read after they came in from play. Tonight’s order to stay in brought loud protests from my sisters and Joe, from Saul too, who considered himself an older one already, but especially Lily. She was the oldest, but besides that she had a lot of studying to do. She was always reading books and preparing herself for the scholarship exam.

  “It’s not fair,” she protested. “It’s just not fair.” Then, notwithstanding the argument she’d had with her mother earlier that day, and the warning that had been given her, she said, bitterly, “I’ll bet Arthur Forshaw’s mother didn’t tell him to go to bed early when he was studying for his exam.”