The Invisible Wall

by Harry Bernstein

  But one of them, a man, managed to call out, “Bloody Jews. Who killed Christ?”

  There was some laughter from a few, but for the most part they said nothing and continued on their way. We too said nothing, pretending not to have heard. The sun was setting behind the square brick tower of the India Mill. The sky would be red while we were in the synagogue.

  Korer, the treasurer, tall, thinner than ever, his face almost skeleton-like, stood in the doorway, silent and grim, greeting no one as the congregation entered. His eyes fell a bit sharply on my brothers and me, then turned away as he remembered that our dues had been paid.

  The synagogue was filled to capacity. Every seat was taken. Blood-red sunset showed at the stained-glass windows. It grew darker gradually. A Christian woman came in and lit the gaslights, moving swiftly from one to the other with a taper in her hand, seeming almost afraid and anxious to get this over with, then having lit the last one, scurrying out, just as quickly.

  A silence fell after she had gone. All eyes were on the door, and through the door came the rabbi, swathed in his huge striped talith, and then a gasp went up. For right behind him, wearing a smaller talith that came just over his shoulders, walked the rabbi’s son. Max, the godless one, the revolutionist.

  Whispers went back and forth, heads came together, and from the balcony over our heads we heard the gabble of voices. Then silence once more, and the services began.

  That Passover was a strange one in every way. Not only had the rabbi’s son shown up at the synagogue for the first time in months, and right after his talk at the cheder, but we too had an unexpected guest at the seder. It was our father. He was seated at the table when we came home from the synagogue, his head bent a little, the same glower on his face. My mother’s face showed some of her feelings. It glowed with happiness, but she hardly dared talk. None of us did. We whispered to one another. We took our places at the table, and lifting our glasses of wine we began the seder with the blessing.

  It was Joe who recited from the Haggodah. My father did not know any Hebrew, and even if he had I doubt if he would have conducted the seder, and we did not expect him to. It was enough that he was there. He had never attended our seders before this. For that matter, we could not remember any occasion when he had sat down at the table with us before this. Why now so suddenly? It was a bit of a mystery. Yet I have the feeling that it had something to do with Larry and the fight he’d had with him, and perhaps other things connected with our boarder.

  Something about that night was definitely different from all other nights, and these words that we spoke later from the Haggodah had a double meaning for us. There was a softness and a gentleness in our home that we had never experienced before. He said nothing to us all through the ceremony, and he ate in silence too, afterward, his head bent low over his plate. But he was there with us, and we felt an odd sort of happiness, and later, lying in bed, the sweet warmth of the wine I had drunk lulling me gradually to sleep, the house very still, a sense of peace came over me and I must have still been smiling as I fell asleep.

  FOR MY SISTER LILY, however, there was no peace and no rest that night or any of the other nights. The worry showed on her face, and in the shadows around her eyes. She had probably not slept since she had taken the exam. Throughout the day there was a strained look on her face. In school she went about her duties silently. She and the headmaster scarcely looked at each other. She had no news for him, and he had none for her. The notification was to come to both places, the school and the home. As soon as Lily got home, dashing into the house, her eyes went to the mantelpiece where the letter would be. My mother, coming out of the shop where she had been serving a customer, shook her head.

  “Not yet,” she said, and then added cheerfully, “Oh, it’ll soon come, and then you’ll see, you’ll have passed.”

  “No, I won’t,” Lily said mournfully. “If I’d passed they would have let me know already.”

  “How do you know that?” my mother said. “Has somebody told you that?”

  She looked at Lily suspiciously. Had Arthur been talking to her, was what she meant. But Lily refused to walk into the trap. She shook her head, though in a way that denied they had been talking. On the way to and from school, they had exchanged looks, with Arthur’s questioning, and Lily shaking her head slightly, barely perceptibly. No, she had not received the notification, was what she said. There was constant gloom and anxiety on her face. She was irritable with everyone. Rose, taking advantage of the situation, deliberately taunted and sneered and goaded her into a fight.

  It meant so much to Lily. One thing, it would save her from having to go to work in the tailoring shop—and be with him all day long. That fear must have haunted her more than anything else. It would have kept any of us awake nights, and we were all in sympathy with Lily—except perhaps Rose, whose perennial jealousy was at its height since the day Lily had been picked to take the exam. The rest of us wanted her to pass and go on to the grammar school, and we kept our eyes peeled for the postman just as much as Lily did, and dashed into the house when we came home from school along with her and searched the mantelpiece.

  Once, as we were coming home, Joe cried out, “There’s the postman.”

  He was late in making his rounds. He had usually delivered to our street before we came home. But there he was now, and he was stopping at our house. We raced madly toward him. Even Rose tore along with us, caught up in the excitement. Our mother was at the door, taking the letter from the postman when we arrived, and the expression on her face showed her own excitement.

  She could not read. Lily tore the letter from her, and immediately disappointment swept over her face. She handed it back to my mother, saying, “It’s from America.”

  Ordinarily, this would have been reason enough for the excitement to continue. It did in my mother. She did not get letters from America as often as she would have liked, and no matter how many disappointments there had been in the past, each one made her tremble with new hope. I saw the flush come on her cheeks and her hand shake as she gave the letter to Joe to read.

  I felt some of the hope rise in myself. I had caught the fever from my mother. I too wanted to go to America. Lily, uninterested, too disappointed to care, turned away. The rest of us, though, clustered around Joe as he tore the envelope open. Was this to be the letter that said they were sending for us? Lily was forgotten.

  This one proved to be from Uncle Abe, and it was ecstatic. But it had nothing to do with us. It was about himself. He had just got married. I have never forgotten this letter. “Yes, I have just got married,” he wrote, “I am working and making good money, and I have a nice home and a beautiful wife with electric lights and a bathtub.”

  At least, my mother was able to laugh. She had a good sense of humor that was not always shared by the women in her shop. She “read” the letter to several of them, remembering the words from Joe, and they stared at her, puzzled as she choked with her laughter. They could not seem to understand what was so funny, and my mother, wiping her eyes, folded the letter and gave up trying to explain. She changed the subject, becoming serious again.

  LATE ONE AFTERNOON, while we were in the midst of lessons at St. Peter’s, a wave of excitement seemed to sweep through the school. There was much whispering among the teachers, signaling to one another through the glass part of the partitions, and going into one another’s classrooms. The headmaster was striding back and forth, visibly excited, his ears very red. Then he went into a consultation with Cocky, and a few moments later they were pushing the partitions back, and old Mr. Bell came trotting in to lend a hand.

  We were mystified. It was not prayer or hymn time, and there was no holiday coming that we had to prepare for. But the excitement had communicated itself to us, and we twisted in our seats and chattered loudly, and teachers began shouting at us to be quiet. Then silence fell as the headmaster stood before us, stick in hand, face grim. Then he spoke.

  “Duffers, dullards, blockheads, thi
ck-skulled, unwashed ones, lend me your ears.” A wink to the teachers, and faint laughter among them, then in a more serious tone the headmaster went on. “Today is an important day in the life of this school. For the first time in the history of St. Peter’s a girl has won a scholarship to the grammar school. Two years ago a boy from this school won a scholarship. But never did we think a girl could win one. About the only thing girls in this school have ever done well is skip rope and sit in their seats in such a fashion that you could see their next week’s washing.” A little scream of laughter from Miss DuRose, the standard four teacher. Ignoring her, the headmaster continued. “The good Lord had pity on us this time. He gave us a girl with brains. Most of you wouldn’t know what brains are. Well, they’re the stuff you haven’t got, the stuff that helps you think. This girl has ’em. She not only won her scholarship, but she passed her exam top of the list. She beat out not only all the other girls who took that exam, but all the boys too. I suppose you all know who this girl is. She’s been ink monitor here for the past year, and I know we’ll never get another one like her, and so we’re all going to give her three cheers. Come up here, Lily.”

  They had to push Lily up to the front. She didn’t want to go. She was petrified. She clung to her seat until the others near her began pushing, and then Miss Penn and Miss DuRose had to go up to her and take her hands and lead her to the headmaster. He put an arm around her shoulders. Her head was bent and she was crying. I thought Miss Penn and some of the other teachers were crying a little, too.

  The headmaster also seemed to be affected. He had to clear his throat before he spoke again, then he said, “All right, you duffers and dullards, let’s have it good and loud. Hip, hip.”

  It was good and loud, all right. Everybody, children and teachers, joined in with three cheers, even though many of the children in the younger classes didn’t know what it was all about and cheered because the others did. It was a triumphant march home. The other kids clustered around Lily and chattered noisily. Not only the Jewish kids, but Christians as well. There was no danger of our being attacked on this trip. Everyone, even the worst of the ragamuffins, regarded Lily with awe. Who in our school had ever been given three cheers led by the headmaster himself? Even the cabbies, sitting aloft on their perches, sensed something different that day and did not flick their whips over our heads as we went by.

  Then, as we reached the Devil’s Steps, there was Arthur leaning up against a wall reading a book, waiting for us. As soon as he saw us he closed his book with a snap and sprang toward us. In his excitement he had forgotten all about the ban, as had Lily. He knew, of course. He had seen the list posted on the bulletin in the school.

  He explained this to Lily as they walked on together. He explained also that she would have to appear at the grammar school for an interview very shortly. But there was nothing to worry about about that; it was just a formality, especially in her case, being top of the list.

  “Oh, it’s just tremendous,” he said, his voice elated, his eyes dancing. “I let out a yell when I saw your name right up there on top. I threw my cap up in the air. People thought I was dotty. Well, I was for a while. I came nowhere near top when I took the exam, I was proud just to be on it—somewhere in the middle, I think. Nothing at all like you.”

  He kept this up all the way home, ignoring the ban, forgetting about it completely, probably in his excitement, and Lily forgetting it also, looking up at him as they walked along, hardly saying anything else, her eyes shining with her joy, not merely at the tremendous victory she had won, but at the praise that flowed ceaselessly out of him. It was a triumphant march home, with all of us tagging behind these two and jabbering among ourselves over the happening that day.

  When we had turned onto Brook Street and had come down some distance we saw our mother standing on the corner, shading her eyes with a hand as she scanned the street for us. She was holding something in her other hand, and as we got close and began to run up to her we saw that it was a letter. Yes, it was the letter that Lily had been waiting for all this time. There was scarcely any need to open it, but she did while we poured out the news to my mother, all of us speaking at one time.

  Lily read the letter as we all stood there. It confirmed everything we all knew, but there were other details in it. “You’re right,” she said to Arthur. “They want me to come down for an interview. Next Wednesday.”

  Arthur nodded, grinning, and then he turned to my mother and said reassuringly, “That’s one thing she won’t have to worry about. She’ll pass the interview with flying colors, like she did the exam.”

  But the words faltered on his lips, and the grin died on his face as he saw my mother’s expression. She was looking straight at him steadily, and she made no attempt to answer his remark. It was clear what her expression was saying and Arthur, after an awkward moment, turned and walked away from us, and crossed the street to his house.

  We were delayed going into our own house. People ran out of their houses to congratulate Lily. They’d all heard by now. A huge knot gathered around us, and it included even a few from across the street. Arthur’s mother came over, smiling, holding out a hand to Lily and telling her how wonderful it was, and saying to my mother, “Now that makes two from the street.” My mother gave a little embarrassed nod, but didn’t say anythiug. Then Mrs. Humberstone came walking across with her rolling, sailor-like gait, a large heavy woman, and when she reached Lily she gave her a resounding whack with the palm of her hand on Lily’s back, shouting out congratulations. And Mrs. Green, too, together with Annie carrying her baby, Annie quiet and smiling and proffering a hand, Mrs. Green cackling and showing her broken yellow teeth and saying maliciously, “Well, now and who said ye weren’t the chosen ones? Ye got everything, ye ’ave.”

  It was quite some time before we were able to go in. My mother’s face was flushed and she was in seventh heaven with all the praise and envy and the wonder of what had happened. She must have seen herself once more close to her goal, a few steps more up the ladder. But Lily was silent, and as soon as the door had closed after us she turned on my mother and said savagely, “Why did you do that to him?”

  My mother’s mouth opened. She looked at Lily, bewildered, all her joy crumbling. “Do what? To who?”

  “To Arthur.”

  “What did I say to him? What did I do?”

  “That’s just it. You said nothing. He spoke to you, and you ignored him, as if he didn’t exist. And the way you looked at him!”

  “How did I look? Oh, what are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You treated him as if he weren’t a human being, just because he’s a Christian.”

  She burst into tears then and ran upstairs, and my mother simply stood there looking down at the floor, an expression of sheer misery on her face, almost on the verge of tears herself.

  But all that was soon enough forgotten, and peace once more restored between them as my mother began to make a new dress for Lily to wear at the interview. It was the first new dress Lily had had in a long time and it added joy to the whole event. My mother had gone to the market and bought some soft white material and remnants of lace, and sat up still longer at night sewing. There were fittings and arguments between them over this or that about the dress, things I didn’t quite understand. But the excitement had communicated itself to all of us, all that is except Rose, who sneered and scoffed, and was bitterly jealous of all the attention paid to Lily.

  The neighbors continued to come in to congratulate Lily and to help or make suggestions about the new dress. It was still being talked of up and down both sides of the street, and Rose’s resentment rose still higher. She wore a perpetual sullen expression on her thin, pale face. More than anything, she was angry over the dress. It seemed to strike deeper even than the glory that surrounded Lily over her winning of the scholarship. I saw her look balefully at it as my mother sewed at the table. Once, while we were having our bedtime cocoa and reading our books and
magazines at the same time, Rose, accidentally or not, spilled some of her cocoa. My mother and Lily screamed as it ran over the table toward the dress.

  My mother was not quite quick enough in snatching the dress away, and the edge was stained. Lily began to cry, and in a fit of rage lashed out at Rose, catching her on the face. Rose sprang up screaming and struck back, and there was bedlam for a moment until my mother separated them.

  “She did it on purpose,” Lily cried, still weeping.

  “No, she didn’t,” my mother defended, though she may have suspected otherwise. “It was an accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident. She wanted to ruin my dress.”

  “She’s a liar,” shouted Rose. “She always lies. She lied to you about not talking to Arthur Forshaw. She always talks to him. Every day when she sees him she talks to him. She’s in love with him, and that’s the only reason she wants to go to the grammar school. So she can walk to school with him every day and be with him all the time.”

  “She’s a dirty liar,” screamed Lily. “It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true.”

  She would have dashed at Rose again if my mother hadn’t interfered and seized her hands, and pushed Rose away, Rose only too ready to engage in more battle.

  “Now stop this,” my mother shouted. “I’ve had enough.”

  “She’s not telling the truth,” Lily insisted. “I haven’t been talking to Arthur. Only that day when you saw us. But I wasn’t talking to him before then, and I haven’t since, and it’s not on account of him that I want to go to the grammar school. She’s just jealous. That’s why she’s saying these things and that’s why she ruined my dress.”

  “I know it’s not true,” my mother reassured. “And she hasn’t ruined your dress. There’s just a little cocoa spilled on it, and I can wash that out easily. Now go on up to bed, all of you, and no more fighting.”

  We trooped upstairs silently, and there was less gaiety than usual over the ritual of throwing our clothes down on her, both on our part and hers.