The Invisible Wall (6 page)

My mother was terrified. She stood there trembling. “But you promised,” she said. “You promised you would take him if he was nicely dressed. Look at him. Look how nicely dressed he is.”

“I'm looking, madame, and all I see is clogs. I don't care if he's wearing the mantle of a prince. Clogs aren't permitted in this school. Never! I take a few Hebrews, but never once have I taken one with clogs. It costs me far too much to have my floors polished to have some young Hebrew scratch them up with clogs. So out you go. Come, madame, don't waste any more of my time.”

He literally pushed us toward the door, using both hands, and out we went into the rain. It was coming down quite heavily now, but my mother forgot to put up the umbrella. She was walking swiftly, and hardly even seemed aware of my presence beside her. I trotted to keep up with her, and looked up anxiously at her face. I wasn't too sure I knew what had happened in there, but I knew my mother had been badly hurt, and I saw the signs of it on her face. I could tell she was struggling to keep the tears back. She was looking straight ahead, and her lips were tightly compressed, and the rain fell on the brim of her hat with a little drumming sound, and some of it struck her eyes, and mine too.

         

SO I WENT TO ST. PETER'S
, after all, and the neighbors agreed it was perhaps best for me, and there was no use trying to keep up with the swanks up the park. My mother said nothing. She packed my velvet suit away, and put my ordinary clothes on me, and got me up in the morning with all the others and struggled to get us dressed and breakfasted, and stood in the doorway watching us go.

She would be there waiting for us too, when we came home. She was forever filled with anxiety over us, and perhaps there was good reason for it. My brothers had often come home with bloody noses and black eyes and clothes torn. The trip itself was dangerous. You never could tell when one of the ragamuffins who went to St. Peter's might turn on you.

We clung close together, with Lily always urging us to go faster. She was in a permanent hurry to get to school, and she was far less afraid of the batesemas than we were. The first morning I went, she held my hand, on orders of my mother, and kept pulling me along at a fast pace. We were all forced to keep up with her.

There were other children from our street trailing behind, and then we noticed Arthur Forshaw striding ahead of us with his books under his arm. At the sight of him, Lily increased her pace still more, and my two brothers complained. Rose sneered, “She's trying to catch up with Arthur Forshaw because she's in love with him.”

Lily halted and whirled on her furiously. “You keep your big mouth shut,” she said.

“She is,” said Rose, ignoring her and continuing to address Joe and Saul. “She's always talking about him.”

Lily lifted a hand to smack her, then changed her mind and walked on, but noticeably lessening her speed. Arthur, with his long stride, was soon far ahead of us. He disappeared from sight altogether when we reached the Devil's Steps, climbing up them, and then, I suppose, on to Wellington Road and up that street about a mile to the grammar school.

We walked on, past Mersey Square, and up the hill where the cab stand was. Here you had to be careful. I was instructed to walk close to the wall, as far away from the cabbies as possible. Although they seemed oblivious to your presence, and sat high on their perches looking innocently ahead and swinging their whips idly to and fro, they would sometimes manage to catch you with a little flick of the whip on the tip of your ear, and it would sting for hours afterward.

We went past them without any mishap that morning, and passed the soot-blackened statue of St. Peter set in the middle of the busy roadway called St. Petersgate. A short distance ahead was St. Peter's Church and the vicarage, and next to it the school, a low, redbrick building. The boy's play yard was in front, and it swarmed with children and echoed with their screams and the shouts of their voices.

Both Joe and Saul paled as we approached the gate that led into the yard, and held back a little. I would soon understand why. In the meantime, Lily led me into the school to be registered by the headmaster. His office was simply a high desk in a corner of the standard seven classroom. He sat there now, long and thin, with an enormous pair of red ears that I discovered later he could wiggle freely back and forth. He was busy writing in a ledger book, but he paused to look down at me as we came up to the desk.

“So this is another one of the Woodenlegs,” he said.

For some reason he always called our family the Woodenlegs. We never knew why, but it seemed to be used affectionately. “Yes, sir,” said Lily.

“And he's the last one of the lot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The best or the worst?”

“I don't know, sir. I suppose you'll soon find that out for yourself.” She was smiling. She was not afraid of him. In fact, she was his favorite, and she liked him too, and had often spoken of him at home.

“I suppose I will.” He was smiling a bit himself. Yes, he liked her, and had made her his ink monitor, the highest honor anyone could achieve at the school. He was also tutoring her for the scholarship exam. But his attention was concentrated on me at the moment. A severe look came over his long, thin face as he looked down at me. A frown appeared on his forehead. “You just behave yourself, and you'll be all right,” he said. “Because if you don't, you know what'll happen, don't you?”

I nodded.

“What?”

I stared stupidly up at him. I didn't know the answer.

“This,” he said, and he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a stick. It was a thick one. “Hold out your hand,” he said.

I hesitated. I'd heard of canings. Tears began to come to my eyes.

“Go on, 'arry,” said Lily. “Don't be afraid.”

I hesitated a little longer, then fearfully half-raised it with my palm upward. The stick swished in the air, and I could almost feel it as it came down, expertly missing the tips of my fingers by a fraction of an inch.

“I missed you that time,” said the headmaster. “But I won't the next. So you just behave.”

Lily was smiling. She hadn't been deceived by the act, one he practiced on all new pupils. She gave him the information about me that he needed to write in his ledger, then was about to lead me back into the yard when he stopped her.

“Lily,” he said, “I've got a paper here that I was going to give you later, but you can take it now. It's the permit for the scholarship exam you'll be taking soon. You've got to have your father sign it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lily, taking it from him, and I noticed a strange look on her face as she did so.

“Be sure you get him to sign it as soon as possible. Otherwise you won't be able to take the exam. Remember that.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lily.

She took me back into the yard, searched for Joe and Saul, and left me with them. They were standing with their backs against the wall that separated the vicarage from the school yard, trying to keep out of the way of the ragamuffins, some of them in bare feet, racing madly about the yard at various games or fighting or chasing one another. I pressed against the wall with them, and began to feel fear too. What we did not notice was the gang of boys balancing on the parapet of the wall a short distance away, and approaching us with grins on their faces. Suddenly, a heavy weight fell on my shoulders and I was knocked to the ground. Simultaneously, I heard yells from Saul and Joe. All three of us were on the ground being pummeled.

It was a whistle that saved us. They sprang off quickly at the sound and disappeared into the crowd as the three of us got to our feet and dusted ourselves off, more frightened and bewildered than hurt.

Our rescuer was Cocky Rawlings, the standard five teacher. Only you didn't call him Cocky to his face. It was a nickname given him by the school because of his choleric temper and fierce manner. He was a rather short, stocky man with a dark complexion, dark curly hair, and rimless glasses that flashed threatening looks in every direction. He carried a stick in one hand, a whistle in the other, and as soon as he came out into the yard and blew the whistle, there was quick obedience from everyone.

The screaming, the shouting, the mad racing about ceased. The yard grew strangely quiet. Everyone lined up in rows, each with his own class. I was told where to stand among the youngest of the boys, the little ones like myself who were in the “baby” class. Cocky stood, jaws tight, one hand clenching the stick, the rimless glasses fixed upon us, daring anyone to utter a sound.

Then, in a military command voice, he barked, “Forward march!”

We marched like soldiers, bodies held erect, knees lifted, and woe to anyone who put the wrong foot forward. One by one the lines entered the building, winding their way through the cloakroom, where those who possessed hats and coats could hang them up. We then moved into the school proper and to our respective classrooms. The girls joined us from the back part of the building.

In the morning, the folding partitions that separated the different classrooms were pushed back so that the school became all one large room. We were not allowed to sit yet. We remained standing. Facing us was the headmaster, tall, thin, and grim-faced. He too held his stick in one hand. Behind him, at the piano, sat a pale, blonde young woman, the standard six teacher, Miss Penn.

When the last of us had marched in, the headmaster allowed a full minute to pass, during which complete silence reigned. Then, in a voice that was clearly audible throughout the school, he spoke. “Everyone will rise.”

This might have been puzzling to some of us since we were already on our feet, and those of us in the “baby” class hesitated until we heard a rustling sound sweep through the room and saw everyone mounting the low benches on which we sat at the desks. We followed suit, and in that moment, as all of us rose to full view, all the sadness of the Lancashire poor was revealed in the rows of thin bodies, the pinched, half-starved faces, the tattered clothing, the bare, dirt-blackened feet, the sores and scabs on knees and legs. How clearly and horribly all this showed, and no wonder they sometimes called St. Peter's the Ragged School.

“We will now say the Lord's prayer,” the headmaster said.

They did not need prayer books. They knew the words well, by heart, and so would I afterward, though Jewish boys and girls were not required to say these prayers, and remained silent with heads bowed a little, as if this would make us less conspicuous.

“Our Father who art in 'eaven,

'Allowed be thy name…”

How well I remembered it afterward, and some of the hymns that followed, with the headmaster and all the other teachers joining in, the headmaster beating time with his stick, and Miss Penn thumping out an accompaniment on the piano.

Finally, and always with a sense of relief to the Jewish children, it was over, and we were able to get off the benches and sit on them. The partitions were pushed back into place by white-haired old Mr. Bell, the janitor, and Cocky Rawlings, the only man who was a teacher in the school other than the headmaster, who taught standard seven.

Once the prayers and hymns were over, the headmaster seemed to relax, and on this first day of school he began to visit each classroom. He entered with a wink to the teacher, and took over from her to quiz the class. It was the same performance each day.

“How many doughnuts in a dozen?” he would ask.

Hands shot up. One was chosen. The answer: “Twelve, sir.”

“Correct.” This one was easy, but now came the hard one. First, he gave another wink to the teacher, who already had her handkerchief out to stuff into her mouth. Then he asked, “How many thripenny doughnuts in a dozen?”

There was a lot of hesitation, foreheads creased, puzzled looks on faces, and invariably there was one pupil who answered, “Four, sir.”

The headmaster made no reply. With still another wink to the teacher, who was already choking on her handkerchief, he turned and marched out stiffly, the wide ears sticking out at the side of his head like wings.

Eventually, he came to the “baby” class. He had saved us for the last because our teacher was Miss Goddard, a pretty, dark-haired girl of perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen, unmarried as yet. Even Cocky's rimless glasses strayed over in her direction through the glass panes in the top of the partitions from time to time. She had a lovely smile and a sweet, gentle way about her. She was less liked by the other women teachers, but unquestionably a favorite with the headmaster, and his visits here were frequent.

That first morning he gave us a performance that was as much for her benefit as ours. Standing in front of us, he said nothing at first, and then as we looked at him we saw his ears beginning to wiggle back and forth. Slowly, at first, then with gathering momentum, until they actually seemed to be flapping back and forth like wings attached to the sides of his head. It drew gasps of wonder from us, and even little cries of fright from some, so that Miss Goddard had to make him stop with a gentle little reprimand.

He was about forty then, and a bachelor, and his frequent visits to the “baby” class did not go unnoticed. They were even talked about on our street. But there had been rumors before about him and the teachers, about Miss Penn particularly. Now it was Miss Goddard. There was also a rumor that he had once been a milkman, and had done his schooling at night. In fact, he was supposed to have been our own milkman, the one who came rattling into our street with his pony and cart, ringing a bell and crying, “Mee-ulk! Mee-ulk!” Like Mr. Mellon, the one we had now, who stopped in the middle of the street right opposite our house and waited as everyone ran out with their jugs for a penny's worth of the fresh, frothy milk that he ladled out of the big can in his cart.

How true those rumors were about him, I don't know. But I do know that he liked Miss Goddard a great deal, and his eyes always seemed to light up when he came into the classroom and looked at her. He also liked my sister Lily, though not in the same way, of course. It was he who had encouraged her to take the scholarship exam, and put the notion into her head that she might someday become a schoolteacher. He had also given her some special coaching for the exam, and he had made her his ink monitor, and kept her busy running errands. I saw how busy she was that first day at school. I caught glimpses of her flitting about, filling up inkwells, running to classrooms with notes from the headmaster, dashing down to the cellar to mix some more ink, and it was because of all these duties she had to perform that she was late getting out of school that first day I came, and kept us waiting for her outside.