The Invisible Wall (11 page)

Once again my grandmother had to think up ways of getting rid of him. It was unfortunate—for my mother, for all of us—that my mother should have arrived on the scene just then, a young, sweet, innocent sixteen-year-old girl just arrived from Poland, without friends or relatives, that she should have boarded in the house of a woman in Manchester, who was a close friend of my grandmother, and that my grandmother should have gone there to visit one day.

The moment she set eyes on the young girl she knew she had her solution. It must have flashed over her at once, and it was not hard to inveigle the girl into a match that was to bring her nothing but misery for the rest of her life. And no sooner had the marriage taken place than my grandmother announced with suspicious generosity that she was giving over her house to the newly married couple. She herself was taking her family off to America.

This time it could not be called abandonment—yet I don't think my father was deceived. His face always turned black at any talk of the relatives in Chicago, and although my mother kept up a steady correspondence with them through the years, he himself never mentioned them.

With this extra bitterness inside him, it was little wonder he turned away from the world and remained sullen and hostile, a hard man to get along with. Larry understood that, and knew that he was an exception for my father, perhaps the only friend he'd ever had. His conscience must have bothered him a great deal on the nights that he refused to go out with my father and stayed by the fireside with us.

My father did not take it too well—that much was clear. His face darkened when Larry said he was staying home, and he stormed out with a heavier bang than usual on the front door, and with his sleeve still dangling all the way up the street. Nor was he pleased when he came home and found Larry sitting up with my mother, talking with her while she mended our clothes. He ignored Larry's greeting and stumbled out into the backyard to use the water closet there, and Larry, after exchanging a glance with my mother and saying goodnight, would quickly make his way upstairs to the little room, where the newspapers were spread out on the floor beside his bed for him.

We knew very little of this ourselves. It was all told to us later. We did know that we reveled in Larry's presence, and that he brought a joy into our lives that we'd never had before. Almost every night through that winter we sat with him, singing and listening to his stories, and it was wonderful having said goodnight and getting into bed hearing the murmur of his voice and my mother's. Perhaps it gave us a taste of what it was like to have a father—maybe that is what made us all, even Rose, feel so happy that winter.

Then came that last night, the climax to which it had all been building. It was the end of the nights of songs. The final one of the evening was the one we liked best, with all of us, my mother included, singing at the top of our voices. It was a sailor's song, one that Larry had brought back from the sea, and it went something like this:

“'earts of oak for our men,

Jolly tarts for our men,

We always are ready,

Steady boys, steady,

We'll fight and we'll conquer,

Again and again.”

These last three words were roared at the top of our voices, and were accompanied by a thumping of fists on the table, around which we had been sitting drinking our last cup of cocoa, and with much laughter from everybody, before the goodnights were said.

But this night, we were just bellowing out the end of the song, and were thumping on the table, making the cups jiggle, when everybody halted and all our eyes went toward the door. We had not heard him come in, much earlier this night than usual, but there he was standing in the doorway, with his cap pulled low over his brow, his face dark, his lower lip drooping the way it had always done when he was in one of his savage moods.

He was standing there just glaring, and saying nothing. It was obvious to us that he was drunk. We could smell the liquor, and it was hard liquor, not beer, and hard liquor always made him ugly. He seemmed to be swaying a little as he stood there.

Then it burst from him. “What the bloody 'ell is this, a public 'ouse?” He was looking at Larry as he spoke, and his glaring eyes were inflamed. “You bloody sod, you. I got you a job, I gave you a home, and you turn my home into a bleeding pub, sit up nights with my wife, and maybe think she goes with the deal. Come on, you stinking rotten sod. Come on and show me what kind of man you are.”

He put his fists up in fighting position, and we all shrank with fear. My mother's face had turned white. Larry, however, remained calm. He put his smoldering cigarette down on the saucer that served as an ashtray, and got to his feet.

“Come on, Jack,” he said smoothly, “come on and let's go outside for a bit and talk this over.”

He went up to him and put an arm around his shoulders, and my father struck him with a fist straight in the mouth. I'm sure it hurt, there was blood coming from the lip, but it was as if it was nothing to Larry, and he went on trying to calm my father. “That's no good, Jack,” he said. “We're friends, and we don't want to fight.”

“You're no friend of mine,” roared my father, still keeping his fists up. “No friend tries to steal another man's wife and children. You're a bloody sod, that's what you are, and you're getting out of my house. You're getting out now or I'll put you in the hospital.”

He swung again, but this time Larry caught the hand, and held it in a firm grip. “All right, Jack,” he said. “I'll get out. But let's go out for a bit in the yard. I think you need it.”

This time my father let him lead him into the yard, and we heard him vomiting. We ourselves went upstairs and got into bed, shivering. A bit later we heard Larry helping my father up to his room, their feet mounting the steps clumsily.

Larry left the next day while we were at school.

Chapter Six

WITHOUT LARRY THE HOUSE WAS DEAD AGAIN, AND THERE WERE LONG
silences at night in front of the fire, broken only by the rustling of the pages of our books or magazines, and the occasional outbursts of fighting that went on in the Finklesteins' house next door. My mother sat up alone with her sewing after we had gone to bed.

We missed him, we missed him terribly. Rose grew sour again, and abusive to my mother with her remarks. Lily was buried completely in her books, studying for the exam. She became irritable when my mother asked her to do something around the house and would want to know why Rose couldn't do it. Rose would attack her then, with some vicious comment that would show her jealousy and hatred, and then the two would fight bitterly. My mother would have to intervene and do the work herself.

It was in the early part of January that the exam was to take place at the grammar school, and it was unfortunate that it should have to be on a Saturday. My mother was not sure if she could let her go and break the Sabbath law about writing on this holy day. Lily was furious and screamed that she didn't give a damn about the Sabbath law. For once my mother grew furious herself and, for the first time I had ever seen her do it, lashed out with the back of her hand and caught Lily on the mouth. Lily herself was stunned, she stared at my mother for a moment with a hand across the struck mouth, and then let out a wild cry and ran out of the house.

For a while it looked as if Lily would not be able to take the exam, after all. My mother had consulted with Mrs. Harris, an authority on Jewish law, and the old woman had shaken her head and muttered that it would be a sin. She reminded my mother of how she herself had once been tempted to break the Sabbath law, and how she had resisted. It was a story that everyone knew, how coming home from the synagogue one Saturday afternoon, she had taken it into her head to go for a walk through the park—as if the devil had directed her there. The park was empty. As she strolled along she suddenly spotted an umbrella on a bench. It was a beautiful new umbrella, one she would have loved to have, but one did not dare carry an umbrella on the Sabbath. She knew that well enough, and yet she was tempted, and she paced up and down in front of the bench several times, eyeing the umbrella.

God saved her from sin, she said simply. God rescued her from the devil, and sent her home without the umbrella. All day she could not rest, thinking of that umbrella lying there on the bench, just waiting for someone to pick it up and take it home. Oh, how she prayed that the park would remain empty until sunset, when she could return and claim her prize. And as soon as the sun had set, and the last prayer was said in the synagogue, Mrs. Harris rushed back to the park. But, alas, the umbrella was gone.

She had never forgotten it. She sometimes even to this day, years after the incident had taken place, dreamed of that umbrella. “But I am not sorry,” she told my mother. “I did not sin.”

Hearing this story again from the lips of the woman who was involved, my mother was almost convinced that she could not permit Lily to take the exam on a Saturday.

“Perhaps,” she said to Lily, “we could ask them to let you take the exam on another day.”

“No, no, no,” cried Lily, thinking no doubt what she did not dare say, that she would only be calling attention to the fact that she was a Jew. This would make it even harder still for her to get into the grammar school.

“Couldn't you at least talk to the headmaster about it?” my mother asked. “If he's so anxious for you to take the exam, perhaps he'll do something about it. All you have to do is tell him that on Shabbos we're not allowed to write.”

“No,” Lily again cried, “I can't do that. I can't tell him that.”

“Why?” asked my mother, bewildered. “Why?”

“Because I can't, I can't, I can't.”

There was no doubt of it, Lily could not be made to do this no matter how much was at stake for her. My mother brooded for a while over the possibility of going herself and talking to the headmaster, but instead decided to go to the rabbi and discuss it with him.

It was this that saved Lily's life—because she'd sworn once that if she couldn't take the exam she would kill herself. My mother came back from her talk with the rabbi smiling. He had given dispensation. Under the circumstances, he had said, because her entire future depended upon it, and especially because she had threatened to take her own life if she could not take the exam, it was permissible.

I saw Lily close her eyes and draw in a deep breath when my mother told her this. Her hand went to her heart, as if there had been a pain there. How much it had meant to her we could scarcely realize. We watched her from the door as she went off on a Saturday morning to take the exam. All the other people on our street were going off to the synagogue at that time, all marching down the street behind one another carrying the little velvet bags that contained their siddurs and talithes. She turned onto Brook Street, and we watched her walk swiftly forward, her long silken hair swaying behind her back.

I noticed that Arthur Forshaw had come out onto his doorstep and was watching her too.

Then late in the afternoon she came home looking pale and worn, and not very happy. My mother looked at her anxiously, and asked, “Well?”

“I failed,” Lily said simply.

A shocked look came onto my mother's face. “You failed? They told you already?”

“They didn't have to tell me. The results won't be in for a while yet. But I know I failed.”

Relief showed now on my mother's face. She knew her well. She always thought she had failed after a test at school. And she always passed, and passed well.

“You'll pass,” she said, confidently.

“No, I won't.”

She went upstairs, and she slept all through the day and the evening and through the night and part of the next day. She mustn't have slept properly for weeks, and she was making up for it.

         

THE DAYS SLOWLY GREW LONGER
, the weather warmer. It rained, and the sun shone intermittently through the clouds, and a long curved rainbow formed behind the square brick tower of the India Mill. The sparrows were busy in the gutters of our houses, and you could hear their chirping in the early morning, and see them during the day picking up bits of old dry manure from the horse droppings and flying back with them to the gutters to build their nests.

At St. Peter's they were preparing for holy week. Once again the partitions were being pushed back during the day, and everyone stood on the benches to sing Easter songs. At cheder, at night, we were learning about our own holy week, Passover. We were studying the Haggodah, and the story of how Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and away from the wrath of the Pharaoh. We were also learning to recite the four questions and sing the songs that we would have to know at the seder, the feast that was held in every Jewish home on the first two nights of Passover to commemorate the release of the Jews from slavery. The rabbi sang well in the fine, deep, rolling voice that we'd heard often in the synagogue, and we sang with him.

We came trooping in one night, as late as usual, perhaps a bit later because it was a warm night. We had loitered even more than ever gazing down through the mill grating at the stoker, feeling guilty and prepared for a good hard scolding from the rabbi, only to find him in an extraordinarily good humor.

He was standing in front of the fire, which was blazing less heartily than in the winter, but was lit nevertheless, his back toward it, the long cigarette holder in his hand. He was actually smiling, and did not make his usual sarcastic remarks, but only seemed anxious for us to take our seats.

Once we had seated ourselves, he said, “I have a surprise for you tonight, an announcement to make. We are going to be honored by the presence of a brilliant young Hebrew scholar, who will speak to you about Passover and its meaning to the Jewish people. He is a young man whom I have known since the day he was born.” He smiled, and paused, and puffed on his cigarette, and continued. “As you know, I am not only a rabbi and your teacher, I am a father too, and the young man of whom I speak is my son. If I sound boastful, you must forgive me, but I am no different from all fathers. I am inclined to feel that my children are superior beings endowed only with the greatest of qualities. However, it is common knowledge that when my son was ten years old he could read the chomish from beginning to end. He also studied the Talmud. He speaks and writes perfect Hebrew.”

All this was already familiar to us, and the rabbi had good reason to be proud of his son. There were other things, though, that he did not mention and that we'd heard: rumors that there was trouble between the rabbi and his son, that the boy no longer attended the synagogue, that he did nothing in fact except sit in the library on St. Petersgate and read.

It was as if all this was over and forgotten, and the rabbi awaited his son's arrival that night with anticipation and excitement. He was in a joyful mood. Instead of boxing ears, he pinched them and patted heads as he went among us correcting our mistakes. He frequently consulted his watch that he kept tucked in a vest pocket, and would also look toward the doorway. Then at last we heard the door open, and footsteps sound along the hall.

Quickly the rabbi halted the lesson, and we all glanced toward the door, waiting. He appeared in a moment, and stood hesitating in the doorway. He was of rather short stature, slim, with a pale, ascetic face, shiny glasses set on the bridge of an aquiline-shaped nose, and dark, curly hair. He resembled the mother a great deal. He was about sixteen then, the older of the two children the rabbi had, the other a girl.

He did not seem to want to come in, and the rabbi went toward him, put an arm around his shoulders, and urged, “Come in, Max, come in. What are you afraid of?”

He did seem a little afraid. He hung back a moment longer before he let his father lead him in, and then a little argument ensued between them in low voices. Sitting in the front row with the smaller children, I was able to hear some of what was being said. Obviously, Max had not wanted to come, but had been talked into it by his father, and now regretted it. He did not want to give us the talk he had promised.

“But why,” I heard the rabbi say, “why don't you want to speak to them? They have been looking forward to it all evening.”

“Father,” he said, “I might not say the right things.”

“What are the right things?”

“The things you want me to say.”

“But I want you to say what you want to say, not what I want to say.”

“You might be sorry, Father.”

“Then, Max, I'll be sorry.”

He must have had infinite confidence in his son to have said that. He must also have known very little about him, and the wanderings his mind had taken in the past year or so. All he could think, perhaps, was that he had brought the boy back to the cheder, and the rest God would take care of.

He retreated to the fire, and stood with the long cigarette holder in his hand, a new cigarette just fitted into it and lit, smiling and proud as Max stood in front of us.

There was a pause, a brief silence broken by a slight tittering in the back row where Zalmon and his friends sat, quickly shushed by a look from the rabbi, and then Max began to speak.

His voice was not very strong, nothing like his father's. It was weak and shaky at first, though it gathered some strength as he went along.

“Not too long ago,” he said, “I sat like you in those rows of benches, learning my Hebrew and, at this time of the year, learning the Haggodah in preparation for the seder, and listening to my father tell us about the ancient Hebrews and their flight from Egypt. Like you, my heart was warmed by this tale, and I felt new pride in being a Jew, and belonging to a religion that has endured thousands of years of suffering and persecution.”

I could not help glancing at his father as he was saying this. The rabbi's face was glowing and he stood erect with the cigarette holder in his hand and a little cloud of blue smoke in front of him—a large, strong man and quite a contrast to the slight figure of his son. He was drinking in every word the boy was saying.

I too turned my attention back to the speaker. He was talking now of the seder.

“There was nothing I loved more than the seder. The table decked out in its finest white tablecloth, the candles bright and shining, the wineglasses filled with red sweet wine into which we would dip a finger for each of the plagues that were visited upon the cruel Egyptians. The bitter herbs, symbols of our suffering, in their little saucers, nibbled at when the appropriate time came, the plate of matzohs covered with a cloth, the door open for the angel to come in. All of us gathered around, our heads buried in the Haggodahs, following the story as my father in his white robe intoned the long tale of the flight from Egypt, and the house smelling of chicken soup.

“There was magic and wonder in it all,” he continued. “I looked forward to it all year long. I could hardly wait for the service at the synagogue to be over so that I could go home and sit with my father and mother and sister at the table. I wanted to listen to this ancient story of the Jews' suffering and flight and the miracle that permitted the Red Sea to open and give them escape and all the plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians for their cruelty.” He smiled. “This particular bit of vengeance always pleased me,” he said. “God was more just than ever in that moment. Perhaps what I liked best of all was my own participation in the seder, when I rose to ask the four questions. It was the duty of the son of the household to do this, and I was the son. You all know the questions. I am sure that my father has taught them to you. ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?' They begin with that one, and I always spoke loudly and firmly, and my father gave me the answers to each one. But that night, the night that is so important to me, when I was about fourteen, just a year after my bar mitzvah, there was a fifth question.”