The Invisible Wall

by Harry Bernstein

  When it was at last time to go, and I began to turn away with them, I noticed that my father had finally stopped working and was now unwrapping the bread and butter and picking up the tea can. I caught this last glimpse of him as I followed the others through the door and down the rickety stairs. They were all in high spirits, racing and yelling at the top of their voices. I went quietly, and there was a heavy feeling inside me.

  GROWING UP THAT SUMMER, but still very young, I could not have been conscious of the darkening clouds hanging over England, over the entire world in fact, as war broke out. I was much too absorbed in myself, in other things that were happening to me, and in how sorry I used to feel for my mother—that more than anything else, especially when I saw her crying quietly to herself and trying not to let us see—and how it used to upset me. The war, the Germans, the men being sent off to fight, were still more remote to me than the discovery of how poor we were.

  I was still young enough to go shopping with my mother, and to hold her hand as we went along King Street. It was a busy street. Horses and carts rattled by, and occasionally a motor lorry lumbered along. A delicious aroma came from Owens’s bakery shop, and my mouth watered at the sight of the currant buns in the window. We passed Kemps’s fish and chip shop, and the aroma there. The sizzling sound of the frying taunted me. My mother didn’t stop at any of the shops until she came to Hamer’s shoe shop, and there she paused a moment before entering.

  Mr. Hamer was a lean, lantern-jawed man, stooped, with green suspenders over a collarless shirt. He wore spectacles that were shiny in the dimness of the shop. It smelled of leather, and there were white boxes on shelves, and two chairs to sit on with footrests in front of them.

  “I just came to ask how much you’d want for a pair of shoes for him,” my mother said, almost apologetically.

  “For him?” He pointed a finger at me, and then whatever it was he said made my mother gasp a little and shake her head.

  “I could never afford that,” she said.

  “Well, you’d better get ’im something,” Mr. Hamer said, casting a look down at my feet. I was wearing a pair that Saul had outgrown, and they were pretty far gone. “Otherwise,” he added, “those things are going to fall off his feet.”

  “I know,” said my mother. “But I can’t afford to pay that much.”

  “Well, what about clogs, then?” he said. “They don’t cost half that much.”

  But she was already shaking her head, and was halfway out of the shop. “I’ll just have to wait a bit,” she said, “until I have the money for shoes.”

  “Well, don’t wait too long,” he called after her. “Or that fellow’ll be going barefooted.”

  I was disappointed. I wanted clogs more than anything else. “Why can’t I have clogs?” I nagged her once we were outside.

  “Because you can’t,” she said. She had told me once before why I couldn’t have clogs, and refused to discuss it again.

  Besides, she was in a truly desperate situation that day, and couldn’t have had enough to even buy clogs. We crossed over to the kosher butcher shop. It was crowded inside. My mother stood back with me against the wall, not too anxious yet to be waited on until all the others had gone. The customers were mostly from up the park, the well-to-do, the wives of the tailoring shop masters, the jeweler’s wife, the landlord’s. She must have felt self-conscious among them.

  Behind the counter the butcher hacked away furiously at a haunch of beef. He was a big, heavy, muscular man with red cheeks and red snapping eyes. He wore a long white apron stained with blood. There was fury in his movements as he slashed at the beef, cutting expensive steaks that his wife beside him then wrapped. She was a tall, slender woman who wore no apron over her fancy dress and seemed quite out of place there behind the counter amidst all the blood and raw meat. In fact, there was a certain elegance to her manner and the way she wrapped packages, and keeping up a running conversation with the women, her speech feigned a haughty, aristocratic British accent that sometimes blended incongruously with her Russian accent.

  And yet, despite all her airs and aloofness, she was known as a sharp businesswoman, and always kept a pencil tucked in her hair behind one ear and a ledger book close beside her to record every transaction. It was she who caught sight of my mother standing in the back of the crowd, and immediately whispered something to her husband, who threw a sharp, ugly look in our direction.

  Craning her long, graceful neck, the butcher’s wife called out over the heads of the others, “Yes, madame, is there something I can do for you?”

  Everyone turned to look. My mother, flushing a little, stammered, ‘That’s all right. I’ll wait till you have more time.”

  “We always have time for our customers,” the woman said, smiling a little.

  “But it’s not my turn,” my mother protested.

  “Now it is.” Still the same smile as she continued, “I am making it your turn. So please tell me what it is I can do for you.”

  There was cruelty in every word, and in her smile. She knew full well what my mother had to say, and she was forcing her to say it in front of all the other people, and my mother had no choice.

  The flush growing deeper, she stammered, “I just wanted a pound or two of neck meat, and perhaps some bones for a soup.”

  “And you want it on tick, I suppose,” the butcher’s wife finished for her.

  “Yes. I thought perhaps, just for a few days.”

  She was wasting her time. In her best haughty British fashion, the butcher’s wife was saying, “Madame, unfortunately you are behind on your account too much already, so I cannot give you any more tick. After all, we are not a charity organization.”

  But now, suddenly, my mother was pulling at my hand and we were on the way out, with all the women staring. Outside, we walked swiftly. Her cheeks were flaming and she was looking straight ahead, and I’m sure she was struggling to keep back the flow of tears. We went back up the street, and we did not halt until we reached Levine’s grocery shop. My mother did not hesitate before she went in. She was truly desperate that day.

  Levine’s shop was untidy and always smelled of herring. The smell came from the large open barrel of herring standing near the counter. Customers could help themselves and dip their hands into it and pull out a herring, or the Levines would do it for you. Boxes and sacks of things cluttered the place, leaving hardly enough room to move about. The shelves had never been dusted, and cobwebs hung from the corners. Mrs. Levine sat behind the counter, nibbling on poppy seeds that she clutched in her hand. She was a short, fat, sloppy-looking woman with frowsy hair that fell into her eyes. Her husband, pacing idly up and down behind the counter with hands clasped behind his back, was equally short and fat, and bald, with a sickly complexion.

  It was, fortunately for my mother, empty of any other customers, and I could sense her relief. To spare herself any further humiliation, she got through with what she had to say quickly.

  “I must tell you right away,” she said, “I’m going to need tick. I know I owe plenty already. But I can’t help it. I’ve got to have food for my children. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get some money. I promise you.”

  At first, they did not say anything. They looked at one another. Then Mr. Levine muttered, “Give her.”

  Mrs. Levine put down her poppy seeds and stood up, and my mother told her what she wanted. Her voice trembled as she spoke, showing the emotional state she was in, and toward the end, as the big brown shopping bag was filled up, she broke down altogether, and wept.

  “How can I thank you,” she began, but she could not go on, and wept hard, while there was an uncomfortable silence from the other two and myself.

  After a while, apparently feeling she had to say something, Mrs. Levine sighed. “There is much sorrow in the world.”

  Mr. Levine had begun his pacing again, and then came to a halt in front of my mother, who was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Why don’t you open a little business
of your own?” he said. “You would always make a little.”

  “What could I do?” my mother asked.

  “You should go to the markets,” he said. “You go to the wholesalers and buy some dry goods. A few dozen bloomers, some drawers, stockings, camisoles—ladies’ things especially—they always sell good. Perhaps some towels, curtains. Then you rent a stall, in our market, in the Bolton market, in Manchester, Salford—there’s a different one each day. You go from one to the other. You’ll do all right, I tell you.”

  My mother listened with interest, but Mrs. Levine broke in suddenly, scoffing, contemptuous. “Meshuggener,” she said, “where is she going to get the money from to start the business? And how is she to go around to the markets? She has five children. Who’ll take care of the children while she’s running around to the markets? Stop dreeing her a kop.”

  Mr. Levine shrugged. “All I know is, a business is the only way to make a living. You can’t starve when you have a little business.”

  When we left, and were walking back home, my mother hugging the big brown paper bag to herself with one hand, and holding my hand with the other, she seemed lost in thought, and hardly aware of my presence, and she was walking so fast I had to trot to keep up with her. I didn’t say anything, but from time to time I looked up at her and wondered. She seemed far away. How was I to know that she was thinking of something then that would change our lives entirely in the years to come?

  THE APPROACH OF THE WEEKEND brought on a bustle of activity on both sides of the street. The Jews were preparing for Saturday, their Shabbos, the Christians for Sunday. It actually began on Friday morning with the arrival of a little one-armed man leading a donkey and cart, and bawling through the cupped good hand, “Beah, boo, ragbone!”

  Instantly, children came running out of houses carrying bundles of rags and bones. There were plenty of rags on the street, and more bones than meat. They clustered around the cart as he took their bundles deftly with the iron hook that protruded from his armless sleeve and tossed them onto the cart. Payment was made in the form of little slabs of colored sandstone used for coloring doorsteps.

  We were allowed to help ourselves, and amidst much excited chattering hands fought with one another as we scrambled for the gaudiest, brightest, newest colors.

  Soon afterward, the girls who were old enough, or the women, were on their hands and knees in front of each house, scrubbing the doorsteps and a small area of sidewalk around them. There were red, blues, greens, yellows, and a wild variety of all sorts of colors among them, so that by the time they were done two long rainbows ran down each side of the street. We were immensely proud. Other streets, less respectable than ours, did not bother. But we did, even in the worst of times.

  On that same day, toward evening, the Jewish houses began to exude the pungent smell of hot chicken soup, and later on, if you had looked through windows on our side, you would have seen women lighting candles and waving their hands in front of them, muttering something that was a prayer, a ritual that always mystified the Christians opposite us.

  Soon now, there began the calling of the fire goys. Once the sun was down and the candles had been lit, we were not allowed to touch the fires in our grates and lift a pot on or off the fire. A Christian had to be called in to do it for us, and we paid them a penny or two for it. Each family had its own fire goy. Ours for many years was Mrs. Green, and I was the one now who went out to summon her.

  A number of other boys and girls were doing the same thing. We stood at the curb and called across, our voices forming a chorus.

  “Oh, Mrs. Green,” I called, “will you please come over and do the fire?”

  A moment later her door opened, and she ran across huddled in her black shawl. She was always in a bad temper, and her breath always smelled of beer. She poked the fire into life grudgingly, and she put the pots on with a thump, angrily. The tuppence my mother gave her never satisfied her, and she looked at the coins in her hand as if she might want to throw them away and muttered something about “rich Jews.”

  “Batesky,” my mother said, after she had gone. It was the worst thing you could call a Christian. The male gender was Bates.

  But my mother had more important things to think about that particular Shabbos. Tomorrow was Saturday. It was the day we went to the synagogue, a converted brick house on Chestergate right opposite the India mill. We all went, tramping down the street in our best clothes, carrying the little velvet bags that contained our prayer shawls and siddurim. On Sunday the Christians would be marching down their side of the street to their churches, to St. Peter’s, the Protestant church, or St. Matthew’s, the Catholic church, and they too would be wearing their best Sunday clothes. But Saturday was our day, and this particular Saturday was to be a memorable one.

  My mother would have longed to go to the synagogue with us, to join the other women in the stuffy little balcony and say a prayer to her own dead mother and father. But she could not leave the house. Saturday was a big day for her, a day of anxiety. It was the day my father gave her the money for the week. Other fathers had already done that, turning their entire pay over to their wives. But my father would hang on to his until the very last moment, after his long Saturday sleep, after he got dressed up for his Saturday night, and then had his dinner, and it would only be a portion of his pay, and it would be dealt out sullenly.

  How much it was going to be, my mother never knew. A lot depended on his mood and how well he’d slept, and for this reason she was shushing us constantly from the moment we rose in the morning, putting her finger to her lips, and casting anxious looks upward for sounds that might indicate that he had been awakened. In the meantime, she did not dare leave the house for fear he might get up and leave without giving her anything.

  When we came home from the synagogue that day, he was still sleeping. Once again we had to tiptoe around and speak in whispers. Then she pushed us out of the house altogether, telling us to go and play with our friends.

  Outside, the boys began a game of cricket on the backs behind our row of houses. I was not able to swing the bat yet, and I could never catch the ball, so I was not put on either side, but was allowed to run for the ball when it fell a great distance and bring it back to the bowler. But after an hour or two of running, I grew tired of the game. It had grown cloudy and began to sprinkle as well, although this did not stop them from playing. But I decided I’d had enough and went back into the house.

  My mother was sitting by the fire when I came in, hands in her lap. Ordinarily, she’d have been sewing or doing some kind of work, but this was forbidden on the Sabbath. All she could do was sit here and wait for her husband to get up and worry over how much he was going to give her this week, and whether it would be enough to carry her through. The fire was very low, and the house was chilly, but she could not have afforded to send for Mrs. Green again.

  She started when she saw me, and asked, “Why did you come in so soon? Don’t you like to play with the boys?”

  I told her I didn’t want to play anymore. I wanted to be with her, and I don’t think she minded. She was perhaps glad of a bit of company. She made me a butty—a slice of white bread spread with butter—and I ate it sitting close to her side. It was like that other night when I’d had her all to myself. She stroked my hair, and we talked of this and that in very low voices, always mindful of my father sleeping upstairs, and somehow she began telling me of her childhood in Poland, and how she was a little girl when her parents died, one soon after the other, and how she was taken in by relatives and passed from one to the other, because none of them could really afford to keep her.

  It was a sad story, but she did not cry as she told it to me. I would see her sometimes when she thought she was alone, with a handkerchief to her eyes, and I would feel terrible about it, and wished there was something I could do. I felt that way now, even though she was not crying, and I reached for her hand and held it, and she seemed to appreciate that and kissed me.

  It
was just then that we heard the noise upstairs. He had gotten up and was dressing. His feet were thumping about. My mother sprang up from her chair.

  “’arry, go out and play,” she whispered. “Go on and join the others.”

  But I didn’t want to. Somehow, I wanted more than ever to be with her, even if he was there, and no amount of whispered urging on her part could make me budge. And then it was too late.

  He came clumping down the stairs and into the room, his face as dark and forbidding as ever. He was dressed for his Saturday night, all right. He wore his best suit, with a stiff white collar and tie, and had had his weekly shave. He ignored the two of us and sat down at the table with his back toward us. My mother hurried to serve him his dinner, the biggest part of the scrawny little chicken she’d bought for the Shabbos, saved for him after sharing meager portions among us, none for herself.

  He ate rapidly with his head bent low over his plate, with animal sounds, grunts and champing of jaws, and was soon done. He pushed back his chair with a flat familiar scraping sound, rose, and seemed almost ready to leave. My mother was frightened. She went up to him, as if to block his way.

  No, he had not forgotten her. His hand dug into his trouser pocket and he brought out the money, a small roll of banknotes. He peeled one off, then after a moment’s hesitation another, and then he dug his hand into his pocket again and brought out some change. He handed this to her. My mother looked at it in her hand, and said in a low voice, “Is that all you can give me?”