The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein

Author:Harry Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345497352
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

“Mademoiselle from Armentiers…parlez vous…”

It was one of those lovely, soft summer evenings. The sun had already set behind the square brick tower of the India mill, and streaks of violent red remained in the sky. The street, which had been ringing before with the shouts and cries of children at play, had suddenly grown quiet. Children had stopped in the midst of play to stare at Emily and to get ready to rush after her to whatever door she was going. Those who were sitting outside remained seated, glued to their chairs, their eyes fastened on the little dwarflike messenger girl. Others inside had come to the doors. Hands were on hearts. Whose house would it be? It had happened before on the street. It had become a guessing game, a terrible, terrorizing game.

Certainly, she would not stop at our house. In fact, she rode right past it. My father had gone to Chester with other men to be examined by the army doctors, and had come home drunk, with a strange leer on his face, as if to say that he would not oblige us by going off to war and getting killed.

We said nothing, though I know my mother cried with relief.

Yes, Emily rode right past our house, the first one she came to, in fact, and then since the Forshaws’ house was almost directly opposite ours, she went past theirs too. The Forshaws had turned off their gramophone, and both of them had risen to their feet and had been watching the girl, and I noticed how Lily’s eyes remained fixed on her during this time, and when Emily had ridden on Lily gave a little sigh.

It was quite audible, and my mother’s eyes went to her sharply and then across the street. You could almost hear the same sigh coming from the two over there. They didn’t settle back into their seats, however. Nor did the others whose houses Emily went past. Now they had to know whose house it would be. All the way to the top of the street she rode, whistling her song, and Mrs. Turnbull came out of her sweets shop to get ready. It had happened to her once already. The boarders gave her name as next of kin, and there had been this one casualty before.

It hadn’t affected her too much and she wasn’t in any great fear now as she stood waiting for the telegram girl to stop at her place. But it was not there that Emily stopped and got off her bike with a slight nimble hop.

I heard my mother let out a little gasp. All eyes on the street were rooted to the spot, necks craning to see better. The next thing I remember was Mrs. Harris running out into the middle of the street, screaming and tearing at her clothes and face. Her wig fell off, revealing white hair that she tore at with both hands. Her husband had run after her and was struggling to restrain her, and his bowler hat fell off, showing the little black yarmulke beneath.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.