The Red Ribbon Page 10

  I was trying not to flaunt my success in front of all the other seamstresses. Trying and failing.

  Marta folded her arms so her sharp elbows stuck out. Was it my imagination, or did she actually look amused at my happiness?

  “Madam says you can make more things for her.”

  “I will,” I said quickly. “She won’t be disappointed. I already have lots of ideas.”

  “Ideas don’t buy bread. Get sewing. I’ve got you a replacement machine from the Department Store, since you broke the last one.”

  “Thank you. I’ll start right away.”

  “Eager beaver!” Marta said, with that twist of her mouth that resembled a smile.

  I sat down in a daze. Rose would be glad she’d embroidered the sunflower. We’d get maybe as many as six cigarettes as a reward — we’d be like millionaires! We could plan the next few outfits together, my designs, her —

  I looked at the new sewing machine and froze.

  “Need a hand setting it up?” mumbled Shona across the aisle, pin in her mouth. “Ella? I said, do you need any help with the new machine?” She took the pin out, jammed it in a length of custard-colored cotton, then succumbed to a coughing fit.

  I shook my head. There were words, but they wouldn’t come out as human speech. No, thank you. I know exactly how to thread this machine. I ought to. I’ve done it a million times before. It’s my grandmother’s, after all.

  There it sat, lid off, gleaming in black-enamel glory with swirls of gold decoration. A line of writing had been scratched off, exactly where Grandma’s name had been engraved.

  Grandma never let a speck of fluff or dust settle on her machine. I lifted the sewing foot and saw that it was beautifully clean beneath.

  She was always orderly with her threads, too. I opened the lid to the bobbin compartment to reveal neat rows of tiny steel reels — green, yellow, red, gray, white, and pink.

  Cautiously I peered around the side. Just as I remembered: faint scratch marks on the enamel where Grandma’s wedding ring used to catch when she made adjustments.

  I sat there. Paralyzed.

  It couldn’t be here, in Birchwood. Not Betty, the sewing machine Grandma loved so much she’d given it a name. Betty was in her sewing room at home. It was on the table where it had always been, next to her chair with the chewed-up foam cushion, by the window with the daisy-patterned curtains.

  Rose found an excuse to come by.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered. “You look sick.”

  I couldn’t even look at her. I was picturing Grandma trudging down the street to the station in her block-heeled shoes, tilting to the left to balance the weight of the machine case in her right hand. Bring food for the journey, warm clothes and essential items, she’d’ve been told. Of course she’d consider Betty essential.

  I knew only too well what They did to new arrivals at Birchwood. How you had to take all your clothes off. Fold them neatly! the guards shouted, as if you’d be out of the shower room all clean and ready to wear them again. How you had to stand with hundreds of strangers, naked and shaking with embarrassment. Didn’t matter if you were fat or thin, young or old, pregnant, on your period, or plain petrified. You waited there naked while Stripeys came at you with dull razors to shave your hair. Then you went through the next doors — always hurry, hurry, hurry — and then . . .

  For me, and others considered fit to work, a cold shower. A single garment flung at each of us, and a headscarf. A pair of stupid wooden shoes which, by chance or malice, were always the wrong size, or random shoes thrown from the pile left by the last lot of people to be processed. Then out, out, out to the quarantine block, where we huddled and cried and waited for the chance to get a job. To survive.

  For me, work. Life.

  “I’m fine,” I lied to Rose. She gave my hand a quick squeeze and darted back to her ironing.

  I sat looking at the machine. It was Betty.

  Marta’s voice cut through my thoughts, sharp as lemon juice on a scrape. “Is there a problem, Ella?”

  “No, no problem. Just getting back to work now. Right now.”

  I pushed material under the new machine’s sewing foot and let the stitches run on and on and on, if only to hear the sound of my childhood once more. As it whirred away, I was back in Grandma’s room, a little girl again, picking up pins from the carpet.

  Use the back of your hand to find pins on the floor, Grandma said. That way it doesn’t hurt when you find them and they prick.

  Would I bleed to death from a pinprick? I’d asked her.

  Don’t be a daftie, she’d said.

  I had a child-high view of Grandma’s round legs, the worn moleskin slippers, the hem of her cotton print dress. All just memories, as insubstantial as dreams.

  When work was over and we lined for soup-water, Rose scratched away at my sadness, like a squirrel digging for a buried nut. Finally I told her what was wrong, quietly so no one else could hear. She listened without interrupting.

  “What’s worst is, I can’t even tell if it is Betty or not,” I said at the end of my tale, trying hard to keep my voice down. “I ought to know! Rose, I’m starting to forget what Grandma and Grandad look like!”

  A guard passed by. We fell silent. The guard went out of sight.

  Rose whispered, “You don’t really forget. All the memories go somewhere safe, I promise. I’ve been imagining walking around every room in the palace and every tree in the orchard back home. I pretend I’m reading the book titles in the palace library, but there are so many I can’t remember. Then I listen for the sound of my papa coming home. He was in the army — an officer of course. He always smelled of horses, and had dogs surging around his riding boots. Proper dogs, that wag tails and want to be friends, not the monsters They have here. But I can’t remember if his eyes are medium-brown or light brown. At least I think they were brown . . .”

  We were at the front of the line. Soup-water was slopped into our tin bowls. I looked at the gritty gray water and the single coil of potato peeling. It was easier than looking around at the Stripeys, searching and hoping not to spot Grandma’s face under every headscarf.

  “Are you going to eat that soup or memorize it?” Rose teased.

  I circled my spoon around and around the lukewarm liquid.

  “What if she was arrested — Grandma, and Grandad too?”

  “You just have to hope they’re safe and well, Ella.”

  “What if we’re here alive and having soup, but they’re . . . ?”

  “Shh. Don’t say it. Have hope.”

  I tried it out, to see how it felt. Hope would mean that Rose was right. That the sewing machine wasn’t Betty at all, and that Grandma and Grandad were still fine.

  Hope.

  The sun set with streaks of scarlet. Even summer nights must grow dark. Invisible in the straw of our bunk, I was glad no one could see me crying like a little baby. Rose put her skinny arms around me and kissed my shaved head. I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve like some dirty beggar girl.

  “I was dreaming,” I told Rose, in between sniffs and snuffles.

  “Were you back at home?”

  I had that dream sometimes — waking up in my bed at home and hearing Grandad clattering about in the kitchen, washing dishes. It was worse than the nightmares, because I had to wake up and remember it wasn’t true.

  “No. I was back at Madam’s house, in that attic sewing room. The dress was there, soaking up a pool of blood. Really deep, sticky red blood. I looked in the mirror and saw myself — just a load of bones fastened together with skin, in this horrible striped dress and these awful ugly shoes! You know, we weren’t disgusting until we came here. They made us this way, then they sneer at us. They make us live like rats in a sewer and wonder why we stink!”

  “I know, I know,” Rose crooned, still holding me close. “It’s not fair, dear.”

  “Not fair?” I would’ve sat up in fury if that hadn’t meant banging my head on the rafters above.
“Not fair? It’s completely evil, that’s what it is. I hate being one of the ugly ones! Why can’t we have the nice things and live in posh houses? Madam sleeps on a comfy mattress with lace-edged pillows, Carla gets to gorge on cookies and read fashion magazines, and we’re . . . we’re here . . .”

  In the dark I heard the rustle of straw and the cries of someone else suffering. I felt something crawl over my neck. A louse. These little beasts loved the cracks in our skin and the seams of our clothes. They drank our blood until they were fat and swollen. I slapped it into a splodge of red.

  “I’m sorry, Rose, so sorry. I made you sew that sunflower and you knew it was wrong. You’ve known all along we’re making magic for the wrong people. They shouldn’t have our beautiful talents. They don’t deserve them.”

  “Beauty is still beauty,” she said.

  “Not on a . . . a . . . turd, it isn’t. What? Why are you laughing?”

  “Sorry, I can’t help it!” she choked. “The image of Madam as a big poop in a silk gown, twirling around on the commandant’s arm . . . It’s just too disgusting and too hilarious.”

  “Glad you think something’s funny,” I said woefully.

  That set Rose off giggling even more. It was contagious. I began to laugh too. Have you ever been desperate to stop laughing, because it’s driving everyone else mad, and making your ribs hurt, and because you really don’t feel that happy anyway? That’s how it was. In the end we just clutched each other until the silly-shakes stopped.

  When we were finally still Rose gave a big, deep sigh. “Poor you,” she whispered. “Here, don’t tell anyone: I’ve got a present for you.”

  Her hand found mine in the dark. I felt something soft.

  “What is it?” I whispered back.

  “A ribbon. You’ll see in the morning. A piece of beauty, just for you.”

  “Rosalind, this is silk. How on earth did you pay for it? You never manage to get cigarettes for barter.”

  Her voice had a smirk in it. “You’ll be proud of me, Ella. I stole it from the Department Store.”

  “Stole it?”

  “Shh — don’t tell everyone!”

  “I seem to remember some smug missus telling me, Ooh, don’t you know stealing’s wrong?”

  “Never mind about that now,” said Rose. “Keep it safe, and remember that one day we’ll be out of here and wearing as many ribbons as we like. We’ll go to the City of Light and tie this little ribbon to the branch of a tree I know — it can mean hope for us.”

  Hope. Now there’s a word.

  You couldn’t ever say you’d had a good night’s sleep in Birchwood. Only the dead were peaceful. I did at least have a few dreamless hours. When I woke, I felt for the ribbon.

  In the center of the barrack block, the light bulb flickered into life, and Girder’s whistle blew.

  “Out, out, out, you lazy mares!” she shouted. “Rise and shine, for another day in paradise!”

  In the harsh light I saw that the ribbon was red. I put it in the little secret pocket-bag I’d made to go under my dress and climbed down from the bunk. I paused. Took the ribbon out. Looked at it. Put it back.

  We ran to the toilet block to fight for facilities. How often had I rolled out of bed at home for a wash in warm water, to get dressed in clean clothes and to share breakfast before school with Grandma and Grandad? Now I was just another panicked animal, without even the luxury of a facecloth.

  We stumbled out into the morning and lined up in fives for roll call. Thousands and thousands of us, all striped, ragged, anonymous. I couldn’t stand it. I knew it was stupid, but I carefully pulled the red ribbon out of my pocket-bag and knotted it in a bow around my neck.

  Because I was just stupid, not completely insane, I tugged at the top of my dress to hide the ribbon.

  I looked across at Rose and winked. She winked back. She hadn’t seen what I’d done. Beyond the building roofs and barbed-wire fences, the most beautiful sunrise was touching everything with a soft red glow. It lit a skyful of clouds that promised a cooler day. There was even the hope of refreshing rain.

  I almost didn’t mind that roll call was dragging on and on and on. As usual the bosses did most of the counting. The guards stood around complaining about the early rising, and about how horribly bored they were. Then one guard broke away from the black huddle and began a random check along the ranks of five. Like everyone else I kept my chin up and my eyes down. The dogs were out — hungry and restless.

  I smelled something sweet above the usual Birchwood stink. The sort of scent a lady might wear to a smoky city nightclub at midnight, not what a guard at Birchwood should be wearing for roll call at five in the morning.

  Carla stopped in front of me. My nose twitched. I kept my gaze on her jacket buttons.

  Then I remembered the ribbon. My heart contracted. I’d tied it low enough, hadn’t I? She wouldn’t see it. Anyway, it was only Carla.

  The leather on Carla’s gloved hand creaked as she reached forward and dragged my neckline down.

  “What’s that?” she asked sweetly. “Answer me! What is it?”

  “A ribbon.”

  “A ribbon. Yes, I can see that. What I really want to know is, why are you wearing it?”

  Now was the time to apologize. To grovel. To yank the ribbon off and hang my head in defeat.

  But the ribbon gave me a terrible confidence.

  “I wanted to look pretty.”

  “What was that?” Carla leaned in so close I thought I’d choke on her perfume. “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

  Had the whole world suddenly gone silent?

  I lifted my chin. “I said, I wanted to look pretty.”

  Whack!

  I was so surprised I didn’t even realize what had happened. It was a bit like the time I’d been sitting at the front of a bus when it ran into a pigeon. This time Carla’s hand had apparently run into my head. No feathers or blood, at least.

  My ears were ringing, and I stumbled to the side. Pippa yelped — one paw trodden on.

  “Pretty?” Carla mocked. “Like a monkey in mascara? Like a rat in lipstick?”

  Whack! The second blow. My brain seemed to slosh from side to side. I touched my broken lip and saw red on my fingertips. Every instinct said FIGHT BACK. All I could do was stand at attention.

  Whack! A third blow, and Pippa was growling now.

  Drops of rain started to spatter down.

  “Please! Don’t! It was me! I gave it to her. It’s my ribbon, my fault!”

  Shut up, Rose, keep your head down, and keep out of this.

  Whack! Carla turned and hit Rose so hard she toppled into the next woman along, and she fell on the next, and I thought the whole row of Stripeys would go over like dominoes. Rose landed in the dust. Dark spots of rain blotched her dress. With Carla there looming, no one dared help her up. I moved to do just that. Rose shook her head.

  “How touching.” Carla practically spat the words out. “Willing to lie for a friend.” She pulled a black boot back, ready to kick. That was too much for me.

  “Leave her alone! She hasn’t done anything! I’m the one with the ribbon!”

  Carla looked me straight in the face and kicked Rose in the stomach. Next she took up her looped whip. Because of the prisoners all around, there wasn’t room to crack the whip fully, so Carla started beating me with the handle, then with her fists, then, once I was down on the ground, with her boots. Each time Rose tried to intervene, she got kicked too.

  I tucked my knees to my chest and covered my head with my arms, trying to make myself as small as possible. It’s me, I wanted to shriek. Me! Ella! The girl you’ve been chatting to for weeks. The girl you fed cake to. The girl who makes your gorgeous clothes.

  Rain fell more heavily, mingling with blood. Dust turned to mud.

  There was a pause. The sound of heavy breathing.

  When I dared look, I saw that Carla’s face was twisted up like paper kindling on a fire, waiting to burn. Her eyes
seemed to have shrunk to little glass beads. Water ran down her cheeks in a parody of tears.

  “You dirty pig-dog beast!” she shouted. Spittle flew out of her mouth. “You vermin, scum, filth on my feet!”

  Sick with pain, I tried to shift over to where Rose lay, in that forest of bony legs and stripy skirts. She reached out a hand to me. I stretched mine out too.

  Carla shrieked, “Did you really think you could be pretty like me? I don’t need you and your stupid sewing to make me beautiful. You’re nothing! Nobody! Subhuman! I don’t care about you at all! You might as well be dead!”

  With that final explosion of rage she lifted her boot and brought it smashing down on my outstretched hand.

  “Ella? Ella? Get up, Ella!”

  Grandma was shaking me. I was late for school! Late for a test! The most important exam ever and I didn’t know the questions and hadn’t studied at all and I couldn’t even find the exam room with my eyes swollen shut like this . . .

  “Ella!”

  Somebody was hauling me upright — not Grandma and Grandad, two strangers, I thought. I squinted. Saw stripes. Smelled blood.

  That voice again: “Ella, stay standing up! Ella — are you OK?”

  I would be if the world would stop whirling round.

  “I’m fine,” I said, in a blood-filled voice. “You?”

  “Fine,” whispered Rose. Then, I suppose because us being fine was so ludicrously untrue, a quiet laugh burst out of her, quickly smothered. I half laughed too. It made blood bubble in my nose.

  When roll call was finally over, we staggered through summer rain with the rest of the Stripey herd. Rose had to lead me; I was still half-blind and doubled over.

  At the workshop we headed straight for the sink. The guard stepped up to see what the commotion was, then backed away in disgust when she noticed my injuries. Thank goodness Marta wasn’t around yet.

  “Don’t drip on the sewing,” Rose said, only half joking. There was a trail of red spots on the floor behind me.

  The others crowded close — What happened? Who did this? Are you OK?