Read Online The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein - Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t wait. I felt imprisoned lying there in bed. Yet there was nothing I could do but wait. I listened for other sounds once the march of the clogs had died down, and the whistles had given their final blast.
    It was still dark; I would have to wait what would seem endless hours before the awakening began in our house. Actually, it would only be an hour or so before the Jewish tailoring workers began their tramp to the workshops, and it would be dawn. I watched it come. Then I pricked up my ears at a faint stirring in the room next to ours. It was my mother, always the first to rise; it had to be her…. Yes, it was, for next I heard her tiptoeing softly out of the room and along the landing. She paused, and I heard a faint clanking sound as she picked up the bucket. It would be full to the brim, and she would carry it carefully down the stairs. I listened. I heard her walking through the kitchen and opening the back door and going into the yard to the water closet. The door of the closet creaked as it opened, and there was a splashing sound, followed by a snorting and flushing as the chain was pulled.
    She was returning into the house, and was cracking wood over her knee for the fire. I had seen her do this often, and had always marveled at the strength she showed. It would not take her long to get the fire going, to put the kettle on, and to prepare breakfast. Now, with all this done, I heard him come out of the bedroom. Unlike my mother, he did not walk on tiptoe, but clumped heavily down the stairs.
    I did not have to worry about his voice in the morning. He hardly ever spoke in the morning. He ate and left, the door banging shut after him.
    Now, it was our turn. My mother’s voice called up the stairs, waking us, and I answered first, jumping out of bed and shouting, “I’m coming, Mam.”
    â€œNot you, ’arry,” she called back. “I want you to stay in bed until I’m ready for you.”
    I was terribly disappointed. “Can’t I come down, Mam?” I begged. “Can’t I?” I wanted so much to rush downstairs to my clogs. If she was not ready yet to help me put them on I could at least hold them in my hands. “I’ll not be in the way,” I promised.
    But it was no use. “Stay where you are,” she commanded.
    The next half hour or so was agony for me. There was a great tumult of shouting and rushing about going on downstairs. I listened to it, chafing. My mother’s voice rose constantly, ordering them to hurry. Lily was the only one of them, really, who was anxious to get to school quickly. The other three were delaying as long as possible, fearful of St. Peter’s, fearful even of the long walk there, and Lily, thinking only of her scholarship exam, and preparing for it, shrieked at them too. They all had to walk together; this was something my mother insisted on.
    At last, they were going. My mother was shepherding them to the door. She would stand there and watch them go, clinging close to one another, joining the noisy throng of children going from our street and others. At last the door closed shut, and my mother’s voice came up the stairs, softly, “All right, ’arry, you can come downstairs now.”
    I flew. I was down in a second, and there was a little smile on my mother’s lips. She knew how I felt. But she herself was excited. I could sense that as she served me my breakfast. Her hands were trembling a little, and there was that telltale flush on her cheeks. It was an important day for her too, the first big step upward for her children. We wasted little time on breakfast, and the dressing began. The clogs would come last, after I had put on my new suit.
    Her hands trembled even more as she took the suit out of the drawer. She had spent weeks making it. At first, she had thought of using one of my brothers’ old suits and cutting it down a bit, but then had decided on something very special,