Free The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein Page A

over it. It must have been very heavy, because my mother had some difficulty pulling it open, and then we stepped into a wide hall with a shiny wood floor.
    My mother had been here once before, and knew where to go. The headmaster’s office was at the very end of this hall. Classrooms were on either side of us, and through the glass panes in the doors we could see children seated at their desks, and teachers standing up in front of blackboards. Except for the faint murmur of voices that came through the doors, it was very quiet. As soon as we began to walk down this hall, though, the quiet was shattered by the clumping of my clogs. My mother had forgotten her own warning, and quickly put a finger to her lips. But it was too late. The faces of teachers stared at us through the glass of the classroom doors. Then suddenly a door at the end of the hall flew open, and out burst a short, potbellied man with a shiny bald head. The head was bent down slightly, and he came charging toward us like a mad bull.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he shouted, as he came closer to us. “What’s all this noise about? Clogs?” His eyes had caught my feet. They lifted with fury in them. “Clogs in my school, scratching my floors? Never! Out with you. Out, this minute!”
    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.”
    â€œI’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.
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    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