The Invisible Wall Read online

  My father, who sat beside her, seemed fidgety and uneasy. He was not accustomed to sitting in a room with his family and with all the other people from our street around us. He had not been allowed to shave, because that too was part of the ritual of mourning, and he kept running a hand over the bristle on his chin.

  The neighbors had all glanced at him first, some seeing him in the house for the first time. All of them were a little afraid of him, and only dared glance sideways at him and then away. Yet he would have been glad if someone had spoken to him; it would have relieved some of his tension, and for once he might have been polite.

  People kept coming and going softly, and in the darkness you hardly knew who it was. I recognized old Mrs. Harris, though, with her wig plastered tightly over her forehead, and a shawl over her head. I saw Mrs. Mittleman, too, and Mrs. Jacobs, weeping and rocking to and fro as she sat down, though it was altogether possible that inwardly she was exulting, as she had done after Sarah and Freddy had been discovered.

  “My son is not good enough,” she would be saying to herself. “A goy they consider better.”

  Fanny Cohen sat straight in her chair, her face stolid. She had come alone, without any of her children. She had left her recently born baby in the care of the older ones. She had been here all day, loyal to my mother, refusing to leave her side. She had tried speaking to her, but my mother had not answered her either. She spoke to no one, not even to us, not even to the baby, who tried to climb up on her lap and had cried when she ignored him. Rose had then picked him up in her arms and cradled him in her lap. How strange she too had become, all of a sudden passionately devoted to the child, a mother all at once.

  She clutched him tightly, rocked him, whispered to him, kissed him. I had never seen such emotion from her before and stared at her.

  But mostly my eyes were on my mother, anxious. I wished she would say something, do something other than just sit there. It was as if she had died. Perhaps that fear struck me, that she would die if she continued to sit there like that.

  It had begun after her shriek, that fearful, penetrating cry she had let out after I had told her the previous day. It struck terror in me, in everybody in the house, even my father, who was there at the time, and everybody on the street, because they had all heard it too. On both sides people came to their doors to see what had happened, heads stuck out of windows, women came rushing to our house, surrounding my mother, who was tearing at herself with her hands. I remembered in my shock seeing Mrs. Harris do the same thing on the street years ago.

  Now it was happening to my mother, always so gentle, so quiet, now transformed suddenly into a madwoman trying to destroy herself. They forced her hands behind her back so that she could not harm herself further. Gradually, her struggles had ceased and she had lapsed into this deadness.

  The day wore on. It was a Monday, and I could hear children coming home from school. I heard their shouts and cries and laughter, and I was envious of them. I wished I could be with them, not sitting here in the darkness mourning my sister Lily, who was supposed to have died because she had married a Christian.

  As soon as they heard the children coming home, many of the mothers who were with us got up and left, and for a while there were very few in the room other than ourselves, and it was lonelier than ever. But others were coming to fill their places. The front door had been left open, and the newcomers walked directly into the lobby, and we heard their footsteps as they approached. Then the two of them entered the room, and all our eyes went toward them, and remained there.

  It was Lily, and behind her was Arthur. He was hesitating, obviously afraid to come in, hanging back a little. But Lily herself came straight toward my mother.

  She saw the condition my mother was in, with her head sunk on her chest, and became distraught immediately, fell on her knees before her, and took both my mother’s hands in hers. “Mama, what’s the matter? Are you ill? Look at me, Mama. This is Lily, your daughter. I’m not dead, Mama. I’m not dead. Look at me, Mama. Talk to me. Say something. Oh Mama, Mama.”

  Lily burst into tears then. She might just as well have been talking to a wall for all the response she got. Nothing showed on my mother’s face, no sign of recognition, no acknowledgment of the voice. Lily kept pleading with her, begging her to listen, to say something. We all sat numbly, too frightened, and too shocked ourselves to be able to do or say anything.

  Lily grew still more distraught, and Arthur came up to her and put his hands on her shoulders, and tried to get her to leave. “Your mother’s ill, Lily,” he said. “We’ll come another time. Let her alone now.”

  But Lily shook his hands off. Her eyes would not leave my mother, nor would she give up trying to reach her. “Mama, Mama, look at me,” she kept repeating. “I am Lily, your daughter. I’m not dead, Mama. I’m alive. I’m married, Arthur is my husband now. We love each other. We’re both very happy. I came here tell you that. I want you to be happy too. Mama, lift up your head and speak to me. Please, please. Speak to me. I love you too, Mama. I don’t want you to be angry at me. Oh, Mama, please, please.”

  My mother did not respond. It was as if she had not heard her. She remained silent, with her head bent. Lily kept on pleading until Arthur finally bent down and lifted her and led her away. I could hear her still crying as they went out into the street and the door closed after them.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHAT FOLLOWED AFTER THAT FORMS A SAD CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF our street. It was very much like the time they had discovered the romance between Sarah Harris and Freddy Gordon, with all the Jewish people fearful that the same thing could happen to their daughters. Only this time it was much worse, because it had happened again and with a marriage—God should only forgive! And this time too the Christians may have been just as shocked and as fearful for their own daughters and sons.

  A distinct coolness sprang up between the two sides. Not even Mrs. Humberstone crossed over to chat. But the worst part happened on Friday when I was sent out to call Mrs. Green to come and stoke our fire and take a pot off. I was innocent enough as I stepped out onto the sidewalk and called across the street, “Oh, Mrs. Green, will you come and do the fire?”

  The door was closed, and I waited for several moments and was about to call again, thinking she had not heard, when the door suddenly burst open, and she came running out, her hair awry and scattered about her shoulders, her face showing that she had been drinking a lot. However, she did not cross. She stopped at the curb and yelled across at me, “You can do your own stinking fire. If we’re not good enough for you, then you’re not good enough for us. Yah, you bloody Jews. Who killed Christ, anyway?”

  I ran back into the house to tell my mother, and her face whitened with anger. She seemed for a moment as if she might go out and answer Mrs. Green, but she halted. This was the Shabbos, no time for a fight. But what to do? We would have to go scouring around among the other fire goys and see if one of them would come. But what if they all felt the same way about us?

  In the midst of our dilemma there came a knock at the door. I went to answer it. Outside stood Mrs. Forshaw, smiling a little. “’arry,” she said softly, “go ask your mother if she’d like me to come in and do your fire for you. Tell her I’ll be glad to do it.”

  I did as she asked. I think my mother was a bit stunned when I told her. My brothers and sister who were in the house at the time looked at me in astonishment, too. This was the last thing in the world we could have expected. We had given no thought as to how the Forshaws might have felt about all this, but if it had occurred to us we would have assumed that they didn’t approve of the marriage any more than my family did.

  But here she was as friendly as could be and offering to help us out of our predicament. But accepting her offer would have meant that we were returning her friendliness and all that went with it—accepting the marriage, too. But if we didn’t at least let her take care of the fire, then it could have led to an even worse sin. We would have had to do
the fire ourselves. And the pot of chicken was boiling furiously and threatening to spill over unless it was taken off the fire quickly. What to do must have presented an agonizing choice to my mother.

  At last she decided. “I have to go out in the yard to hang out some wash,” she said. “Tell her to come in and take the pot off the fire. Let her put some more coal on and stoke it up a bit. Don’t forget to give her the penny. Let me know when she’s gone.”

  She would at least be out of the room while Mrs. Forshaw was here and not have to talk to her. I went back to the door and let Mrs. Forshaw in. She smiled pleasantly at everyone, and asked about the baby and how he was doing, but said nothing about my mother’s absence. She did her work quickly and efficiently, placing the boiling pot of chicken carefully on the hearth, and then briskly shoveling coal onto the fire and stirring it up with the poker, as if she had done this many times before.

  When it came time to take the penny, which my sister profferred, she refused, saying, “Thank you so much, but I’m only too glad to be able to do this for you.”

  She did not mention my mother and left swiftly. When we called in my mother from the yard and told her, and gave her the penny back, she was silent and did not utter a word about it, and I wondered what she was thinking.

  I TOLD LILY and Arthur about it when I went to see them in their new home in Marple. They had originally planned to move to Manchester, where Arthur was to have studied law at the university, and Lily to have gone to work in a tailoring shop. The plan had been altered for a reason I did not know but would find out soon enough. Arthur had instead become a teacher in the Marple school, and they had rented a quaint old cottage with a thatched roof not far from the Seventeen Windows. In fact, it was Mrs. Fogg who had arranged the whole thing for them, finding both the cottage and the teaching job for Arthur.

  Because I had been to the Seventeen Windows several times already, I knew the countryside well and could find my way there easily. I was eleven now going on twelve and could go by myself. My mother always knew where I was going, and did not object. She simply said nothing, and because Lily’s name was never to be mentioned in the house all I said was that I was going to take a walk to Marple. It was understood who I was going to see there.

  I liked the little cottage with its narrow doors and low ceiling and the cozy fire that was always burning with a kettle singing on it. Almost as soon as I got in there would be tea and crumpets with jam, all three of us sitting at the table in front of the fire, its dancing flames lighting our faces. I sometimes wished I could live there with them. It was always so quiet and pleasant and cheerful, though Lily’s face was always touched with anxiety as she asked me the same question when I first came in.

  “How is Mam?”

  What could I say? I knew how Mam was really. I saw her crying sometimes when she thought nobody was watching her. She still grieved over her daughter who was supposed to be dead. But I did not tell that to Lily, because I knew she was heartbroken herself and probably cried too sometimes.

  When I came I would rather have avoided talking about the street at all, especially our family, but this time I found myself telling them of the Friday night episode with Mrs. Green, and how Arthur’s mother had come to our rescue. I had thought perhaps there was a touch of humor in the situation and they might get a laugh out of it. But it had just the opposite effect.

  They were both silent and glum for a moment, sitting there and staring into the fire, and then Arthur suddenly burst out with, “Damn!”

  I saw Lily place a hand over his, as if to restrain him. But he broke away from her and rose abruptly, and began to pace across the wide floorboards. He was furious.

  “Damn,” he said again. “Damn and blast it all. When is this world going to grow up? When are people going to learn that we’re all alike and nobody’s any better or worse than anybody else? How many wars do we have to fight, and how many more millions have to be slaughtered before the world gets any sense in its fat head?”

  “I’m afraid we might have to wait a bit longer than we used to think,” Lily said, sadly.

  “How long is that?” Arthur said angrily, still pacing. “Forever, perhaps. That’s what it could mean. We’ve got to stop talking about waiting and do something now. Now, dammit! If we want change and to turn wrongs into right we’ve got to do it now—not wait. I tell my kids that at school, hoping some of them will remember it when they get out to join the ranks of the wage slaves.”

  “Be careful, dear,” Lily said in a low voice, casting a quick look at me.

  “Be careful of what?” Arthur demanded.

  “Your headmaster might not like it.”

  “Be damned to him,” Arthur said. “I don’t care whether he likes it or not.”

  “Don’t forget while you’re damning him,” Lily said, still keeping her voice low, “that we have certain responsibilities, and you’ve sacrificed enough already.”

  “I’m not forgetting anything,” Arthur said, but he lowered his voice, though the bitterness was still there.

  Lily quickly changed the subject then, asking if I’d like more tea and crumpets. I had the impression that they’d already said a lot they had not intended for my ears, and that there was much more behind it that I did not know.

  But it was soon out, and it was something that could not have been kept secret for long, and it explained why they had given up Manchester and Arthur his law studies. It had been imperative that he find work of some sort to support Lily and the baby she was going to have.

  NO, IT WAS NOT secret for long. I could not help noticing on subsequent visits the change in her figure, and at nearly twelve I had already been told how babies were born. Zalmon had taken a group of us around the corner onto the backs where we played our soccer and cricket, and explained the mystery that had always baffled us. He gave a graphic demonstration of what had to be done by the father, and told us that he had made his discovery in the bible that we read in cheder. There was a passage that said, “And he went in unto her.” We had paid no attention to it, but knew everything now.

  I understood what the swelling in Lily’s stomach meant, but said nothing to my mother. I am sure she did not suspect anything until the baby was born. She had her own to think about, and even if she had not shut Lily out she could not have possibly imagined her having a baby too.

  It was born just a day before I came for one of my visits, and I was startled when I stepped into the cottage and heard the crying of a baby from the room upstairs. Arthur had let me in and he grinned at my surprise.

  “’arry,” he said, “you’re an uncle now.”

  He told me then, and led me upstairs, and I saw Lily lying in bed with the baby in her arms suckling at her breast. She gave me a warm smile and motioned to me to come closer, putting a finger to her lips.

  I was embarrassed at seeing her breast exposed, just as I had been when I saw my mother feeding our baby. I tried to avoid looking, to keep my eyes on the baby as I went up to the bed and peered down at it.

  “Who does he look like?” Lily whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I said. It looked just like any baby to me, very red and very wrinkled.

  I heard Arthur laugh behind me, and Lily said in the same whisper, “Look in the mirror, ’arry. You’ll see it there too. He’s the image of you. Isn’t he, Arthur?”

  “No doubt of it,” Arthur said.

  I was a bit astonished. I didn’t see how it could look like me. They seemed to enjoy my bewilderment. “You must tell Mam,” Lily said. “Tell her I want her to come and see her grandchild, will you?”

  I nodded and said “Yis,” while still keeping my eyes on the baby who was supposed to look like me. I kept my word.

  As soon as I got home, I told her. “Lily had a baby. It’s a boy and he looks like me.”

  There was a long silence. I looked at her. I no longer had to look up to see her face. I was big for my age, and at eleven I was taller than she. I saw a strange expression on her face
, and I saw things that had no meaning for me, but she must have been going through a great emotional upheaval. The daughter who was supposed to be dead had given birth, and that meant she had to be alive herself. How could it be denied? Yet her religion told her that she was dead.

  I broke the silence. “Lily told me to tell you that she wants you to come to see her and your grandchild.”

  “She said that?” my mother whispered, and her throat seemed constricted, as if she were having difficulty talking.

  “Yis.”

  Then she said something that surprised me. “You must go across the street and tell the Forshaws she had the baby.”

  I did that promptly, and I think I must have been the first one from our side to have crossed to the other side in a long time. The door was answered by Mr. Forshaw. His brows rose in surprise at the sight of me. He had a pipe in his mouth, a mug of beer in one hand. A grin of welcome quickly came on his face.

  “Well, if it isn’t ’arry,” he said. “Come on in. Look who we’ve got, Margie.”

  This last he said to his wife, who was busy at the fire with some cooking. She came over to me immediately, and said, “Well, if this isn’t a nice surprise.”

  “Me mother sent me over to tell you that Lily had a baby,” I said, a bit embarrassed by all this welcoming and by being in a Christian house.

  “Oh, we know all about that,” Mr. Forshaw explained. “We’ve been over to see the new addition to our family already. Don’t make any mistake about that, lad. We’ve been expecting it for some time now.”

  “Yes, we have,” Mrs. Forshaw said gently.

  I might have known that from the things Arthur and Lily had said. They had been coming regularly to see the couple, just as I had, perhaps even more often.