The Invisible Wall Read online

  He must have complained to our headmaster a lot about it, because our headmaster several times warned us sternly against it. He never caned anyone for it, however, and there was obviously no love lost between the two of them. There were rumors that they quarreled frequently, our headmaster defending us staunchly against the other’s charges.

  One other thing that came out of the new arrangement was a new sport—watching the wounded being brought in. With our afternoons free now, we were able to go rushing up the park hill to the school turned hospital every time word came that a new load of wounded was being brought in. It was exciting to see them. We crowded as close to the gate as we could, where the ambulances with the big red crosses painted on their sides backed in. They did not go beyond the gate. The wounded were lifted off onto stretchers and carried in by nurses.

  As each one was lifted out, the crowd yelled, “Hi, Tommy.”

  They were all Tommy. They all waved to us if they could, and smiled weakly. Most of them had come right from the front. I waved to them too. I waved to one man who was being lifted out, his entire body covered with blankets, and only his face showing. I shouted, “Hi, Tommy,” as did all the others.

  But it was to me he looked and smiled. And, quite distinctly, said, “Hi, ’arry.”

  I stared at him, astonished that he should know my name. Then I gave a little gasp, and others around me who had recognized him at the same time began shouting, “It’s Freddy Gordon!”

  It was Freddy, all right. We were not able to say any more to him. They were carrying him into the hospital. We didn’t know it then, but they were only carrying half of him. The other half, both legs, had been left behind in France.

  IT WAS ALL OVER the street in no time. For once a casualty had preceded Emily’s telegram. There had not been time for the War Office to issue the usual message of condolence. The battle wounded had been rushed to England, to the various towns where there was space in the hospitals, and it was by sheer chance that Freddy had been shipped to his own town.

  By the time we got back to the street, yelling out the news to our parents, shrieking at the top of our voices, “Freddy Gordon’s been wounded, ’e’s in th’ospital!” both Florrie and Annie were flinging on shawls and rushing up the street. They did not speak to each other, though Annie would have if Florrie had spoken to her. Florrie, though, would have nothing to do with her or her mother.

  Mrs. Green watched them both go flying up the street from her doorstep, grinning and showing her toothless mouth and cackling to herself gleefully. She was rubbing her hands together, a sure sign that something pleased her. Had her hopes risen again?

  Other women came out into the street to discuss the matter. Mrs. Humberstone lumbered across with her rolling sailor-like gait and thick arms folded across her ample bosom, to talk to the Jewish women. Some of them had crossed over to the opposite sidewalk. Others met in the middle of the street. I have told you how this had happened before. Well, it had happened several times since then, whenever little Emily came riding onto the street. The war, it seemed, had almost completely destroyed the invisible wall that had separated us, bringing the two sides together.

  The women cried with one another, put arms around one another, and it didn’t seem to matter whether you were Jewish or Christian, you just mourned.

  As yet, when the news came that Freddy was in the hospital, there was only excitement. Nobody knew of anything to mourn then. Even when Florrie and Annie came back they knew nothing at first, though they were struck by the fact that the two women were walking together and talking earnestly. Florrie seemed suddenly to have developed a great affection for Annie, because she had an arm around her shoulders, and when they got to the Green’s house, Florrie invited Mrs. Green, who was standing outside on her doorstep, to come over and have a glass with her.

  It was all somewhat mysterious. Mrs. Green herself was puzzled—and suspicious. She went with Florrie to have a glass. Why not? Annie was probably relieved not to have to tell her mother—Florrie would do that for her.

  Bit by bit the whole street learned. There were shock, disbelief, whispered conversations held on doorsteps, and in the middle of the street.

  “The poor man.”

  “’e’d be better off if ’e ’adn’t come home ’tall.”

  “And ’e was such a good soccer player. ’e was.”

  “Yis. I saw ’im kick th’winning goal against Cheadle Heath, th’year before ’e left.”

  “Yis, I saw that too. Well, ’e won’t be kicking any more balls, the poor man.”

  “Not the way ’e is. I wonder what they did with th’ legs.”

  “Left ’em there, I suppose. Not much good to ’im anymore.”

  The conversations went on. In my mother’s shop they talked of nothing else. Mrs. Jacobs took advantage of the situation to tell once again, as she had done so often in the past, how she had suffered her injury, and how her eye had been knocked out, supposedly by a jealous suitor at a dance, who, seeing her dance with another man, had jabbed her in the eye with his elbow, knocking it out.

  “He claimed it was an accident,” Mrs. Jacobs said bitterly. “The bastard. He was supposed to be a gentleman.”

  The women were irritated and annoyed. They’d heard the same story so often, and they didn’t believe it anyway. It was Freddy they wanted to talk about, and Mrs. Mittleman broke in roughly, saying, “So your eye was knocked out. You compare that to two legs?”

  “A leg is worse than an eye?” said Mrs. Jacobs angrily. “Since when?”

  Then, seeing that they weren’t interested in her or her story, she stalked out in a huff. The other women hardly noticed. They went on talking, Mrs. Mittleman saying, “So what is the shaigets going to do now? What is to become of him?”

  “A terrible thing,” murmured Fanny Cohen. She was without a baby for once, but as bedraggled as ever, dangling limply over the upturned orange box she was sitting on. “What can a man without legs do?”

  “Florrie will have to take care of him,” said my mother. “He’ll not go hungry.”

  “Poor Florrie,” said Mrs. Berger, a short, fat woman who lived right opposite the Gordon shop. “She was only waiting for the war to be over and for Freddy to come back so that he could take over and let her get married.”

  “She’ll have to wait,” said Mrs. Mittleman grimly.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Berger. “I feel sorry for her. First, it was the mother, and now it’s Freddy.”

  “And what’s Mrs. Green saying?” asked Fanny Cohen.

  They all looked to my mother for this information, because Mrs. Green was, after all, our fire goy. My mother only shrugged. It had only happened this Monday, too early yet for Friday and Mrs. Green’s visit. “She’ll have plenty to say,” my mother said.

  “And Annie?” someone else asked.

  They all conjectured over that for some moments longer before the group broke up. Perhaps both sides of the street were wondering about it. Perhaps they’d all been curious about the strange friendship that had seemed to develop between Florrie and Annie when they came home from the hospital that day.

  We soon found out how Mrs. Green felt about the matter. She came scurrying over to our house in response to my call on Friday night, and as soon as she started poking at our fire with quick, short stabs of the poker her toothless mouth was chattering. She cackled as she talked. There was a triumphant glint in her eyes.

  “Oh, you’d think butter would melt in her mouth, the way she talks now. ‘And how are ye today, Mrs. Green? And ’ow’s Annie? And ’ow’s little Peter? Come on and ’ave a glass on me. And what’ll it be? ’Ow’s about some Guinness?’ Mind you, every time I come into th’ taproom afore this, she wouldn’t even look at me. Now, seems she can’t get enough of me company. And Annie’s become her best friend, all of sudden. And little Peter warn’t nothing but a little bastard and not fit to be looked at. Oh, it’s all different now. There was a whole man afore this. Now there’s only half a man, and a
man somebody’s got to take care of once he gets out of ’ospital. Poor man. He gave his legs for king and country, and I got to honor him for that, but it’s Florrie’s ’ard luck, not mine, and not Annie’s. Annie’s ’ad ’er share of ’ard luck, and there was no pity for her then, and I can tell you right now she’s not going to be saddled with a man who ’asn’t got legs. Nor me. I’ll take Florrie’s beer, but not her brother, not the ’alf that’s left of ’im.”

  “And how does Annie feel about it?” my mother asked.

  Mrs. Green looked up at my mother and gave a loud cackle. The flames were now shooting up in the fire, and their light danced across her face. “Once a fool, always a fool,” she said. “The girl’s daft. She’d take him without legs. It don’t matter one bit to her, she’s that much gone on him. And with Florrie cozening her all the time, she’d be willing to pick ’im up, what’s left of ’im, and carry ’im off to the preacher. But I’m not going to let ’er. Not on your bloody life. It’s Florrie’s troubles, not ours. She’ll just have to put off her own wedding to that man in Birmingham a bit longer, but she’ll not pile her troubles on my ’ead. Not if I can bloody well and ’elp it.”

  So that’s how the wind was blowing, and soon the whole street knew about it, and there was much speculation as to what was going to happen when Freddy got out of the hospital. In the meantime, the war went on. It was that year the Americans entered the war, and new hope rose among everyone. The headmaster’s face looked a bit more cheerful, and he even smiled now and then and came around to the classrooms to ask how many threepenny doughnuts there were in a dozen. At cheder, the rabbi puffed on his long cigarette holder, and paced up and down in front of the fireplace while we recited our Hebrew. His thoughts still seemed far away from us, yet there was less gloom on his bearded face, for the end of the war, which seemed in sight when the Americans came into it, might bring his son home.

  Yet the war was not over by any means, and little Emily came two or three more times to our street. Once it was to poor Mrs. Melrose across from us, bringing news that her husband, that quiet little stocky man whom everyone liked so much, had been killed. Once it was to the Bergers, their son Benny killed, and the other to some Christian family across the street, just a wound.

  There were also letters from the front, with Mrs. Finklestein shrieking out the news of new heroism on the part of her husband every time she got a letter, though she would never let anyone read it. The postman, an elderly man with white wispy hair showing under his beaked cap, and with a pronounced limp from the Boer War, went from door to door on both sides.

  There was one for us this day, and I was with my mother at the door when she took it. There was a foreign stamp on it. She jumped at once to the conclusion that it was from America, and became excited. It was a long time since we had heard from them, the transatlantic mail having been kept almost to a standstill by the war.

  “Open it, open it,” she said, clasping her two hands together in front of her as she always did when excited. “Read me what they have to say.”

  I did. I tore the envelope open, and there were several pages of writing inside. I was sure myself that it was from one of the relatives in America.

  “My dear sweet Lily,” I read, and then I stopped, and my mother and I looked at one another, and there was a long silence.

  “It must be from him,” she murmured. There was not only disappointment on her face, but something else, fear perhaps.

  “Do you want me to read it?” I asked.

  We looked across the street. The postman was over there now, and he was delivering a letter to the Forshaws’ house. We watched in silence for a moment.

  “No.” my mother said, finally. “It’s for Lily. Put it back in the envelope, and we’ll give it to her when she comes home from work. I’ll have to tell her we opened it by accident.”

  I did what she asked, though I was curious, and wished I could have read it. Lily had never told us what was in Arthur’s letters, though she always seemed happy after receiving one. Lately, too, she and Mrs. Forshaw had been comparing letters to each other, both usually coming at the same time. My mother had never asked Lily about them.

  She was silent now as we went back into the house. I put the opened letter on the mantelpiece to await Lily’s arrival, and then went out to play, and forgot about it. Lily came home, late as usual, looking tired, trailing after my father, and as soon as I saw her I shouted, “There’s a letter from Arthur.”

  “Where is it?” She gave a violent start, coming to life immediately.

  “Here.” I took it off the mantelpiece and handed it to her.

  As soon as she took it from me and saw that it had been opened, her eyes went accusingly to my mother. She didn’t say anything, though; nor did my mother. My father was in our midst, and we did not talk when he was there. Whether he had heard me mention the letter and who it was from, and whether he cared in the least, was hard to say. He was already seated at the table with his head bent low over his plate wolfing down his food, and it did not take him long to be done and to be scraping his chair back as he rose and went for his coat.

  The war had not changed his habits. He grabbed his coat off the hook behind the scullery door and strode out, as always with one sleeve on and the other dangling behind him as he groped for it. He clumped through the lobby and we heard the front door bang after him.

  Only then did Lily speak, and she said bitterly, “Did you have to open my letter?”

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said. “I didn’t mean to. But I thought it was from America. You can ask ’arry. Isn’t that true, ’arry?”

  “Yis,” I said, and to make matters still easier for my mother I said, “It looked like an American stamp.”

  She seemed satisfied with the explanation and started to go upstairs with the letter in her hand.

  “Where are you going?” my mother protested. “You haven’t eaten supper yet.”

  “I don’t feel hungry,” Lily said, “I’ll eat later. I want to lie down a bit first.”

  It was clear that all she really wanted was to get away from us for a while to read her letter. She was upstairs for about an hour, and then came clattering down the stairs. We had all finished our supper by now and were sitting around the fire, reading. We looked at her curiously as she came into the room. The letter was still in her hand, and her eyes seemed to be sparkling and her whole being was alive. She was in extraordinarily good spirits and, sitting down at the table, said, “I’m hungry now.”

  “Thank God for that,” my mother said, starting to bustle around her with the food, “Did you get some good news?”

  “Yes. They all expect the war to be over soon. They’re all talking of coming home.”

  “I hope so,” my mother said, and the conversation and the sudden change in Lily’s mood gave her courage to ask the question that had been preying on her mind all day, “When Arthur writes to you does he always call you ‘my dear sweet Lily?’”

  She was probably sorry she had said that when Rose, without looking up from her book, gave a scornful laugh. Lily flashed an angry look at her, then one at my mother. “You did read my letter.”

  “No, just the beginning. That’s how we knew it was for you. Then we stopped.” Then, as Rose continued to laugh, she shouted at her, “You be still.”

  “I wouldn’t like anybody to read my love letters,” Rose said.

  “It wasn’t a love letter,” Lily cried. “It’s just the way he talks to me. I’m much younger than he is, and he thinks of me as a little girl. That’s all it means.”

  “What does he say in his letters?” my mother asked, relieved perhaps, but not altogether convinced, and furious again when Rose gave another one of her little meaningful laughs.

  “Do you want to hear what he writes?” Lily asked.

  It came unexpectedly and surprised us all. Thus far she had guarded her letters from Arthur with the utmost secrecy, snatching them out of the hands of whoever had answered the postman�
��s knock, and keeping them hidden somewhere in her room. The offer now to actually read one to us made us look up from our books abruptly and stare at her. Perhaps my mother was more surprised than any of us.

  “Yes, I’d like to hear it,” she said.

  “Well, not all of it,” Lily said. “It’s too long. I’ll just read you a part that might interest you.”

  She had barely eaten any of the food that my mother had put in front of her. She pushed the plate aside, took the letter out of the envelope, and unfolded the pages. After some searching through the pages, she selected one and began to read, her face alight as she did so, her voice very clear.

  “There is no heroism,” she read. “There is only dirt and mud and cold and wet and men crying like babies and dead faces staring up at you and bodies lying huddled and still and the smell of death all around you and the sound of guns and flashes of fire bringing more death. There is no bravery either. Men have to be pushed over the top, prodded with the butts of rifles, threatened with revolvers by their officers, and they are trembling with fear, and sometimes crying with it, and they go blindly like so many terrified sheep being pushed to the slaughter. I sometimes wonder how men ever came to write about the glory of war, and painted pictures that depicted this glory. The reality is just the opposite. I have learned this much, and I do not think I could go on with it if I did not know what we are fighting for, that this might truly be the war to end all wars. That is what keeps me alive, and keeps me going, the thought of the new world that this war is going to create. It will put an end to a lot of misery that existed before this, poverty for one thing, I hope, and particularly the differences that have always separated people one from the other.” Lily paused, and looked up at us for a moment as if there were some special significance in what she was about to say next, and then went on in her calm, clear voice, “like religions, for one thing. We see it so clearly on our street, don’t we, Lily? It’s as if each side belonged to another world, and yet we know that isn’t true and we are all very much alike and all very much part of the same world. I am hoping that when I come back—if I come back (we all have the superstitious belief that if we express this doubt our chances of survival are better. It’s sort of childish, but I say it anyhow)—all this will be done away with, and there will no longer be any separation between the two sides of our street. I am using this, of course, as a metaphor. My horizons, of course, are much broader than our street. I am thinking of the whole world. The new world that will come out of this slaughter But I am thinking also of you and me.”