The Invisible Wall

by Harry Bernstein

  “It was very nice of your mother to send you over to tell us, though,” Mrs. Forshaw added. I’ve no doubt they were as surprised as I had been at the request. Perhaps, knowing my mother’s concern for other people, this should not have surprised them. But they seemed glad she had sent me. It could have been, for them, a sign of reconciliation and acceptance, and perhaps that’s what it was.

  Mrs. Forshaw made me sit down and have some tea and biscuits, and it was then that Mr. Forshaw, putting down his beer mug in favor of the tea his wife served, spoke again. “We’re having a little party here, aren’t we? But maybe we ought to do better than this. Have a regular big party. Invite the whole street. What d’you say to that, ’arry?”

  My mouth full of biscuit and gulping down the hot tea, I managed to say, “That would be real champion.”

  “Champion, eh?” He turned to his wife. “What do you say, Margie?”

  Her reply was a little more reserved than mine. “Do you think the people on the street would want to come?”

  “You give ’em enough beer and they’ll come if it means getting up in the middle of the night. I think we ought to have it. It’ll be for both sides. They don’t drink much beer on that side, so we can have pop. There’ll be eats, of course. I won’t mind spending a few pennies on this. It could mean a whole lot to Lily and Arthur too. They’d be able to show off their baby to everyone. It’s a fine baby. They say he looks like you, ’arry. I couldn’t tell myself.”

  “Yes, he does,” Mrs. Forshaw put in. “He’s the image of ’arry.”

  “Well, I’ve got nothing against that. But you speak to your mother and father about having a party here on the street. We couldn’t have it without them. We wouldn’t want to. That right, Margie?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I ran back across the street and blurted it out excitedly to my mother. “The Forshaws want to give a street party to celebrate the baby. But they want you to agree. They won’t ’ave it unless you agree.”

  She did not answer, just looked at me. Then she went into the scullery and busied herself in there. I don’t know what was going on in her mind, but she must have been very confused. A tug of war was taking place within her, between her religion and her heart. How could she agree to celebrate the baby with a party when she had not even seen the baby, when she refused to acknowledge that her daughter was even alive?

  I know she talked about it with my father when he came home from his pub that night. I am not sure just what went on down there that night, but as I lay in bed I could hear the familiar shouting, and I did what I had always done. I pulled the covers over my head to blot out the sounds.

  I am sure that it was over Lily and the baby, and the party too, that they had been arguing. My mother may have tried to get him to do what her heart and conscience were telling her to do, but he wanted none of it. If nothing else, drunk or sober, he clung tightly to his religious beliefs. Lily was to remain dead.

  In the morning my mother’s face looked drawn. The baby and I were the only ones home now on weekdays, and because there was no school that day for a reason I forget, a holiday of some sort, I was able to dawdle over my breakfast. My brothers and sister, already past twelve and considered grown-up, were at work, the two boys in the tailoring shop, my sister in her fancy dress shop.

  My mother seemed absent about everything, and did not pay much attention to me or the baby. I am sure she was still struggling as to what she should do.

  Suddenly her mind was made up. “I’m going to take the baby to Fanny Cohen to mind him while I’m gone, and you’ll take me to Marple. I want to see Lily and her baby,” she said, speaking abruptly, as if in a hurry to get the words out of her mouth before changing her mind.

  I was only too glad to go, even though I’d been there yesterday. The baby was delivered to Fanny Cohen, and we set out for Marple. We took the tram. The distance that I walked so easily would have been too much for her. As it was, the tram line ended quite a distance before our destination. There was still quite a bit of walking to do through fields filled with flowers, a brook to cross, and a farm with cows grazing in the pasture to pass. It was pleasant scenery. I’d always loved it and found it part of the pleasure of going to see Lily and Arthur, but I doubt if my mother saw much of it.

  She was lost in thought all the way, with her head bent a trifle. Somehow it reminded me of other walks we’d taken together, when we were intent on an errand, like the one we took to the market when the shop was in her thoughts, or the time I had my first pair of clogs and she took me to the school up the park. I was only about four years old then, held her hand when I walked, and sometimes had to trot to keep up with her. It was very different now. I walked briskly at her side, taller than she, and if any hand was held it was hers in mine when we had to cross over a stile and a row of stones that formed the bridge over a brook or if she stumbled.

  We finally arrived at the cottage, and I let her look at it from the outside for a moment to see the place our Lily now lived. How different it was from the row of houses in which we lived, with its thatched roof, and the garden of flowers all around the house giving off a rich scent. It was like something out of a fairy tale.

  How it affected my mother is hard to say. She did not speak, but she did look, and then we went inside. Arthur was home because of the school holiday, and looked startled when he saw my mother. But he quickly recovered and cried, “Well, well, well. What a nice surprise this is.”

  “I came to see my daughter,” my mother said, speaking in a flat tone and hardly looking at him.

  “Yes, of course,” Arthur said. “And you will see her, and the baby too. Let me take you upstairs.”

  We followed him up the narrow stairway whose treads were bent from centuries of footsteps. When he came to the door he leaned in and we heard him say. “Lily, I’ve got visitors for you. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised.”

  He straightened up and moved aside to let us in. My mother went first. I was behind her, aware of the shock Lily would feel. She was in bed with the baby in its cradle at the side of the bed. Her eyes were riveted on my mother, as were my mother’s on her. There was a brief and breathless halt when neither seemed to know what to do or say. Then Lily let out a cry.

  “Mam!”

  I heard my mother begin to sob, then their arms went out to each other, and they were together, weeping. It took them a long time to stop, and few words were said, though there was much unspoken between them. I stood watching, stirred myself by what I was seeing.

  When it was over, Lily said, “Don’t you want to see the baby, Mam?”

  “Yes.” She was still wiping her eyes, but recovered from the emotional outburst, and now turned her head toward the cradle and smiled. The baby was awake. It looked back at her. My mother laughed.

  “He knows me already,” she said.

  “Yes, he does.” Lily laughed too, happily. “Would you like to pick him up and hold him, Mam?”

  “Would it be all right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She had been wanting to do that all along, you could see. She bent over the cradle and took the baby into her arms and held him up close to her, and there was an expression on her face that I had seen before. It was the expression that we saw when she looked at her own baby, or any one of us, and it was one of deep love. I think Lily saw it too, and I noticed that her eyes filled with tears.

  “Do you like him, Mam?” she asked.

  “Who wouldn’t?” my mother said. “He’s a lovely baby. Have you picked a name for him yet?”

  Lily looked troubled for a moment, then she said, “We’re thinking of calling him James.”

  A little darkness crossed my mother’s face. James was not a Jewish name. She put the baby back into its cradle carefully, then sat down again. “Why James?” she asked.

  The troubled look remained on Lily’s face. She knew this was dangerous ground, and she did not want to spoil the reconciliation. “Of course,” she said
awkwardly, “everyone will call him Jimmy,” as if that made any difference. “James,” she said, “is the first name of our friend Ramsay MacDonald. Not many people know that. They all call him Ramsay, but his friends call him Jimmy. He’s the leader of the Labor Party, you know, and someday he’s going to be prime minister. We all admire him so much. That’s why we want to name the baby after him.”

  There was a brief silence after this. I don’t think my mother was happy about it. Jewish people named their babies after a deceased relative. We had named ours Sidney, after my father’s uncle.

  However, perhaps she felt the same as Lily about spoiling the occasion. She dropped the subject, but went on, unfortunately, to something even more controversial.

  “Are you going to have a bris?” she asked.

  Lily must have been dreading this question. It was the natural thing for my mother to ask. (A Jewish child, as had happened when my brother was born, was circumcised when he was eight days old. It was this that made him a Jew. The event was generally celebrated with a party.)

  She looked desperately toward the door, which Arthur was lolling up against. He had been saying nothing until now, simply watching and taking it all in. But now, seeing the look Lily gave him, he came forward to her rescue, smiling.

  “My father asked me a similar question,” he said. “Not quite the same, but very much like it. He wanted to know if we were going to have a christening.” He was speaking, gently, to my mother, although she was not looking at him. “I don’t suppose you know what a christening is,” he said. “In a way it’s very much like a bris. It admits the child into his religion. There’s a baptism and the minister sprinkles what is supposed to be holy water on the child’s forehead and by that ritual he becomes a Christian. Then he’s given a name, and all this is usually followed by a celebration of some sort, a party.”

  “We could have that, at least,” Lily said. “We could have a party for the families.”

  “Mr. Forshaw told me he wanted a big party for the whole street,” I blurted out, speaking for the first time.

  “Oh, did he now?” Arthur said, turning his attention to me. “And how did you find that out?”

  “I sent him in to tell them you had the baby,” my mother explained.

  “Well, they knew all about that,” Arthur said. “But it’s a good thing ’arry went in or we wouldn’t have known. A big party for the whole street. It doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. What do you think, Lily?”

  “I’m not so sure,” Lily said, hesitating. “I was thinking of a little party, for ourselves. I’m not sure all the people on our street would want to come.”

  She was saying pretty much the same thing Arthur’s mother had said, and Arthur’s answer was similar to his father’s. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. They’d come, all right. And there couldn’t be a better way to bring both sides together. The more I think of the idea, the more I like it. What about you, Mam? What do you think?”

  My mother spoke slowly, again without looking at him. “If there can’t be a bris then I suppose a party would have to do.”

  I think that settled it.

  WHEN THE ONE-ARMED PEDDLER came to our street the following Friday, with his cart and slow-moving donkey, bawling lustily through the one good hand cupped over his mouth, “Beah, boo, ragbone!” he may have been surprised at the swift response from both sides of the street. They had been waiting for him with their bundles of rags and meat bones for a week. Now they rushed out and surrounded his cart and began jostling and scrambling with eager hands for the newest, brightest colors of sandstone.

  As soon as he had gone, they were on their hands and knees in front of the doorsteps with buckets of water, the rectangular slabs of sandstone decorating the sidewalk in front of the doorsteps. When they were done, it looked like two rainbows running down on either side from top to bottom.

  And with that a current of excitement ran through every house. It was only the start of how our street was to be decked out for the party to be held on Sunday. They were all coming. There had been no question about that, and everyone lent a hand in the preparation, some with the decorations, some cooking special dishes, some baking cakes, everyone contributing what that family could to the party. The Forshaws would supply the beer, and my mother would practically empty her shop to bring the fruit, which was all she could afford. As for my father, having been finally won over to the idea, he promised to bring a bottle of whiskey, but never kept his promise. His presence alone, he said, was enough. Considering, he said, he was doing a favor just coming.

  Somehow, someone got hold of long strips of bunting and several flags of the Union Jack that had been used somewhere in Armistice celebrations. These were strung across the buildings on both sides, with the flags sticking up on the chimneys. Boxes and buckets filled with flowers were set out on windowsills. Never had our street looked so bright and beautiful and we were all ecstatic with the way it looked. People from other streets, like Back Brook and Bann and Wood, came to peer around the corners and look in wonder at the unusual sight.

  Old Mr. Bebb, our landlord’s handyman, who was so very good at climbing roofs and replacing missing slates despite his age and trembling hands, had brought out several sawhorses and placed old doors on them to make one huge table in the middle of the street on the cobblestones. There was a tablecloth made from leftover rolls of wallpaper with a flower pattern, and on this were piled all the goodies that people had contributed to the affair. Most prominent were the two kegs of beer that the Forshaws had bought—from the Gordon shop, of course—and right next to them their gramophone with its big green horn, something many people had heard but never seen until now. The music began playing immediately, summoning those who had not yet arrived.

  The weather was perfect. Everyone agreed on that. The sun had begun shining from early morning, and the sky was a deep blue. It was a Sunday sky, of course, the mills silent and no smoke coming from their tall stacks to darken the sky. It was early May and the air was soft and balmy.

  It couldn’t have been a better day, and yet I noticed there were some people who were slow in coming out of their houses. When they did come I noticed a tendency on the part of each side to stick together, the Jews on one side of the improvised table, the Christians on the other. It was still the same way, old Mr. and Mrs. Harris, he with his bowler hat on over his yarmulke, and right opposite them Mrs. Turnbull and several of her boarders, the latter noisy and laughing and half drunk already with the beer that Mr. Forshaw was pouring out liberally. Mrs. Humberstone was on that side too, along with Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Melrose, the two war widows. Mrs. Green and Annie were there and so was Florrie Gordon, and everyone noted how carefully she and Mrs. Green kept their distance from each other, the way it had been ever since they’d had their big fight several years ago.

  We clung together, also, the Harrises, the Blanks, the Cohens, the Finklesteins, and old Mrs. Zarembar, all of us pretending to be at ease sitting so close to the Christians from across the street, but still with the invisible wall between us, and a certain tenseness.

  Suddenly we heard the clop-clop of a horse and carriage as it came onto the street, and all heads turned toward it. A great shout went up, because this was Lily and Arthur arriving with the baby. Everyone rushed toward them, my mother and Mrs. Forshaw foremost in the crowd that gathered around the shiny black cab whose driver sat perched aloft with a silk top hat and the whip gazing down at us, aloof.

  There was just this one awkward moment as Arthur and Lily were alighting. Lily had the baby in her arms, and both my mother and Mrs. Forshaw reached up to take him from her. Lily, still standing on the step, hesitated, not knowing which one of them to give him to. Mrs. Forshaw solved her dilemma by taking him from her and then giving him to my mother, smiling. But she remained close while my mother proudly showed the baby to others.

  Eventually she came to my father. He had joined the party later than the rest of us. For a while my mother had feared that he woul
d not come at all. But he had come, without the bottle of whiskey he had promised. The moment he emerged from the house his eyes fell on the two kegs of beer, and he wasted little time striding to them.

  Just a few moments later the cab arrived. In the commotion that followed, both he and Mr. Forshaw remained seated, ignoring everything that was taking place, getting to know each other over repeated and quickly downed mugs of beer. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company tremendously, to judge from the talk and laughter between them, and the occasional toasts they made to each other.

  People were too busy cooing over the baby and shaking Lily’s and Arthur’s hands to notice the two men at the beer kegs. I did, though. I was looking and thinking that I had never seen my father laugh or talk with another man. I wondered if this was the way he was in the pub after he left our house at night—always quickly, still putting on his coat, in such a great hurry to get away from us.

  I did not have much time to think about all that before my mother reached them with the baby. Mr. Forshaw sprang instantly, though a bit unsteadily, to his feet and touched the baby with a hand and said, “Gaw, he’s a nice little fellow, isn’t he?”

  “What do you think of your grandson?” my mother said to my father.

  He had remained seated, his head turned away from the baby, and the beer mug in his hand. “My grandson?” he said. “What d’you want me to say?”

  “You can at least say hello.”

  “Hello?” He laughed. “You say it for me. I’m too busy.”

  My mother saw that he was drunk already, and did not bother any further with him. It did not, however, spoil by much the pleasure she was getting out of the event, the way things were going. For with the arrival of Lily and Arthur and their baby, a lively tone had sprung up in the gathering. The awkwardness had vanished. There was mixing between the two sides. They were talking and laughing with one another, the Jacksons and the Cohens, the Finklesteins and the Melroses, and certainly Mrs. Humberstone back again with everyone, going from one to the other slapping backs and shouting in ears. Even old Mr. Harris was joking with Mrs. Turnbull, though old Mrs. Harris continued to maintain her reserve and kept adjusting her wig more tightly.