The Red Ribbon Read online

  We ran in lines of five and groups of five hundred. Down Birchwood’s main street we stumbled. I had Shrew on one side and Hyena on the other. Other Washery girls made up the row of five behind me. Soon we reached the main gate, with its arch of metal that declared: WORK SETS YOU FREE.

  Once I left there’d be nothing to tie me to Rose. Nothing except the red ribbon tucked into my glove, nestling in the curve of my palm.

  Just outside the gate a man in an immaculate uniform was watching us leave. I nearly tripped and fell at the sight of him. It was the man I’d seen in the photograph at Madam’s house, back in the summer. Madam’s husband — the commandant himself!

  Did he see people passing or just stripes?

  We ran on.

  We ran on. Gray ghosts in a white dreamscape. We ran through a strange land, with hedges and houses — real houses. Windows were shuttered. Curtains were drawn.

  We ran on. Those who couldn’t keep running crumpled at the side of the road, or fell under the feet of whoever followed. Shrew kept keening, “I can’t do this, I just can’t do this.” I had my own silent chant: I can do this, I will do this.

  We ran on. The sun rose. The sky barely brightened. Still it snowed. The cold bit through all my layers of clothing. Only the red ribbon in my hand kept me truly warm.

  We ran on. Hyena gave a little hoarse giggle —“Beddy-byes time . . .” Then she fell forward and pulled me over too. I scrambled up before a guard’s whip could find us.

  “Come on, get up, keep going,” I said.

  “Just for a minute,” Hyena gasped. Her face was white as solid ice.

  “You can’t stop. We all have to keep moving.” I practically dragged her along with me, one arm hooked under hers.

  “Don’t be such a bully,” Shrew said. “You always think you know best. I’m going to have a rest too. I’m on my last legs. Can’t you even see that?”

  “They’ll have to last a lot longer yet,” I snapped. “Give me a hand here, why don’t you?”

  Two other Washery girls caught up with me. Without a word they scooped up Hyena and trotted along with her. And we ran on.

  Those without shoes suffered most. People who think clothes are frivolous haven’t ever been barefoot in snow for mile after mile after mile. When I had my dress shop I’d design warm things as well as glamorous ones. Lots and lots of winter woolies.

  That was how I kept myself going — telling myself every step I took brought me nearer to the dress shop.

  Every so often we had to run on the banks or ditches at the side of the road, when big cars with headlamps came past. One car didn’t wait for us to pass. In the back seat I saw an officer in a smart hat, several children, and Madam H., owner of my beautiful sunflower dress with Rose’s embroidery.

  Behind Madam’s car came trucks full of boxes and suitcases. The convoy sprayed us all with chilly slush. In the confusion, I lost sight of the Washery lot. Shrew, Hyena — they could have been anywhere in the rows of hunched shoulders and snow-whitened heads.

  I ran on.

  When it was truly too dark to run anymore, They herded us into fields and told us to sleep. On the frozen earth. Same again after a second day of running, running, running, stumbling, running. No one had a face anymore, just frozen breath and eyes on the back of the runner in front. Everything was a blur. When someone stopped or fell, if she didn’t get up quickly enough, the guards would shoot. If someone tried to break free of the stampede to run across the fields or into a building as we passed, the guards would shoot.

  In some villages people threw bread onto the road as we passed. In others they sprinkled shards of broken glass.

  Every step is one step closer to the dress shop. That was my mantra.

  I had the red ribbon coiled close in my hand. I could survive this. I could make it. I would make it. No point crying — tears just froze. I ran on ran on ran on and thought of what my dress shop would look. Mile after mile, I planned the décor, furnished the fitting rooms and showrooms and offices and workshops. I bought fabric and trimmings. Hired bead-sewers and feather-workers, embroiderers and finishers. I welcomed clients, sketched designs, draped mannequins, and made a fortune.

  After many miles I became too tired even to dream.

  On the second night some Stripeys just lay down and let the snow cover them — human drifts. My group stopped near a half-ruined cowshed. I made straight for it and jostled past the other canny souls who’d had the same idea. There was ice on the bare floor and not much else. With enough of us bundled together we might make it through the night.

  I took a glove off long enough to reach into my layers and retrieve a hunk of bread. One second later the glove was gone. I lashed out —“Mine! Give it to me!” The thief fought back, a vicious biting bitch. A shark.

  “Marta!”

  The thief recoiled, breathing hard. She still had my glove. “You? Ella? You’re still alive?”

  “No thanks to you.”

  Marta’s bitter laugh turned into a hacking cough. “Told you you’re a survivor. Like me.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “How should I know? They were slowing me down.”

  That made me bristle. “They were good friends. They sent me a present — fabric and things to make me a dress.”

  “Ha, yes, the famous Liberation Dress,” said Marta. “They thought they were so cunning, organizing it behind my back. I knew about it, of course. How’s liberation working for you now?”

  “Give me my glove,” I fumed.

  “Give me some bread!”

  “You laughed at Rose when she shared her bread. Now you’re asking me to share mine?”

  Marta seemed to slump. Suddenly she wasn’t a shark. Not even a seamstress who’d trained in all the very best places and shouted Pins! all day long.

  “Never mind about that,” she said. “I’m starving. You’ve got bread. What would your precious Rose do?”

  What would Rose do?

  Rose would’ve told a story about desert islands with white sands, or steam baths and bubbling hot pools. Using nothing but words, she’d conjure up warm blankets and hot drinks.

  Rose, I miss you so much.

  Marta wolfed down the piece of bread I gave her. She hadn’t given me my glove back. I sat with my one bare hand tucked inside my coat.

  “Can’t you share a layer?” Marta whined. “You’ve got so many, and I’ve just got what I grabbed from the workshop.”

  She was wearing a dainty crochet cardigan over her dress, and over that a coat with no sleeves — an unfinished project. Still feeling the bruises of how I’d fought for my warm clothes, I wasn’t exactly keen on parting with them. As the night went on Marta’s coughing got harsher, as if her very lungs were being shredded. In the end I unwound my scarf and thrust it at her.

  By faint moonlight I saw how wrecked she looked. The tip of her nose was blue-black, as were her cheeks. Frostbite. She had shoes, but they were just light leather town brogues, tied on with a piece of string. No socks. Her legs were cold as marble and blotched like her face.

  She turned away, ashamed.

  Morning.

  Get up! Get out! Get moving! screamed the guards outside our cowshed. Some of the human snowdrifts moved. Some would never move again.

  Marta didn’t stand a chance on her own. We both knew that.

  What would Marta do?

  Save herself and nobody else.

  What would Rosalind do?

  Nothing. Rose was dead.

  What would Ella do?

  “Come on,” I said gruffly. “We’d better get moving.”

  “I hope no one sees me in this awful getup,” Marta moaned. She had my hat jammed over her headscarf, my sweater over her cardigan, and one of my gloves to keep swapping between two hands.

  We ran.

  By then it was less of a run and more of a shamble. Everyone’s eyes were glazed. Everyone’s feet dragged. Even the guards looked miserable. Snow clumped on our shoes and boots,
making movement even tougher. That dress shop seemed farther away than ever before, lost in a haze of hunger and exhaustion. Gunshots were more frequent. Surely the guards would run out of bullets soon?

  The road was uneven. Stripeys tripped and tumbled over. Marta tripped. Something snapped. Her face bleached and she fell, dragging me with her.

  “S’broken,” she sobbed. “My leg.”

  “Not your leg. Maybe a tendon,” I said, hoisting her up. “Come on, we can’t stop.”

  “I can’t move!” she screamed.

  “You can’t stay here — they’ll shoot you!” I screamed back.

  A guard was coming closer.

  “You can move and you will,” I hissed through clenched teeth. I got hold of her under the arms.

  I ran while Marta hopped and cried and cursed me. She was as heavy as a sack of concrete, and far more difficult to handle. To keep going, I told her about the dress shop, the cake shop, the bookshop, and the City of Light. It wasn’t such a beautiful dream now that Rose wouldn’t be making the dresses, eating the cakes, or reading the books to me. Now Rose was just a memory. Through days of running through white snow and white sky, it seemed as if the whole world had vanished, leaving only memories. I ran in a trance, lost in a lifetime of memory fragments, like pieces of a patchwork quilt . . . Grandad teaching me to ride a bike. Falling off the bike. Grandma making me wash the dishes. Grandma letting me lick cake batter from the bowl. First day of school. Last day of school . . .

  Streams of Stripeys stumbled past us in the snow. We were going too slowly. . . . We were grinding to a halt.

  “Marta, please . . . keep moving. You know what will happen if you don’t.”

  There was a guard not far behind.

  “You go,” Marta wheezed. “Go on — leave me.”

  “You’ve no idea how much I want to!” I said, along with a few swear words borrowed from Girder. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

  I managed to drag her a few more paces, then I heard Marta gasp. Her eyes widened. She’d noticed the guard. She gave a cry and twisted her body, pushing me ahead. When the bullet came it hit her, not me.

  It hit her, not me, shoving her down, with me pinned underneath. I bit snow. Somehow I managed to turn, to find Marta was lying on her back on top of me.

  Her blood was awfully red and warm as it spread across her dress.

  A second, deafening shot.

  Marta’s body jerked, then was still. Her eyes stayed open, showing only the whites.

  Boots crunched slowly closer. I pushed and pushed at Marta’s body but could barely shift it.

  “Thought it was you,” said a cold voice from high up. “What are the odds?”

  I saw nothing but the boots at first. They were thick hiking boots lined with fur. Squinting higher, I saw dark trousers, a black cloak, and two small black button eyes.

  “Carla!”

  “Well . . . isn’t this fun?”

  With a grunt, Carla squatted at my side. Her breath was a cloud. She smelled of sweat and Blue Evening.

  “What’s that you’re holding on to there? Huh. Still clutching that stupid scrap after all this time?”

  Carla gave the red ribbon a tug. I held on tightly. For a moment it was almost as if we were holding hands, right there in the snow. She tugged some more. I gripped that ribbon like it was life itself.

  “Mine,” I said.

  Carla licked cold-cracked lips and straightened up. “Not wearing my ring? I knew you’d sell it. Ungrateful little rat. Your Sort, you don’t know what friendship is.”

  There she stood, gazing down at me, with something like pity in her eyes. Snow settled on her black cloak.

  “Don’t you know there’s no point running anymore? It’s over — all over. The War’s lost. Pippa’s lost too. Run down by a truck yesterday. Had to shoot her. Put her out of her misery — poor thing. How are you still alive?”

  My lungs were squashed but I managed one word. “Hope.”

  Carla snorted. “There is no hope. You’re going to starve or freeze to death, whichever comes first. Shooting you will be a kindness.”

  She stepped back. Her leather boots creaked. She raised her black gun and fired. My body jolted.

  Oh, how funny, I thought. I wonder . . .

  It’s OK, said Rose. I’m waiting for you.

  I suppose there must have been blood, and lots of it, freezing red around my cold body. I don’t remember any of that. I woke to find myself buried in a soft quilt sprigged with pink flowers. A square of blue hanging on the wall turned out to be a window. I heard a chink of china.

  “Ready for some tea?” came a warm voice.

  Being dead was strange. Warmer than I’d expected.

  “Stay still, I’ll bring it to you,” said the voice.

  That was good, because I was kitten-weak. A cup was put to my lips. I slurped tea. It was milky and shockingly sweet.

  “Eh, looks like you needed that,” said the voice. It belonged to a large, round woman in a pastel-pink apron. “You need feeding up too. Not a scrap of meat on your bones, like my old heifer that got sickly. Spoon-fed her, I did, night and day. Soon got her back on her feet, right as rain.”

  “You’re . . . a farmer?”

  “Hardly surprising, since this is a farm. Found you in the ditch, edge of my turnip field, I did. You and one other. She was long past helping, mind. Thought you were too, till my dog licked your hand and it twitched.”

  Somewhere in my cotton-ball brain, a memory glittered.

  “My ribbon? Have you got my ribbon? I have to find it!”

  I was pushing the quilt away, pushing the farmer away, doing my best to stand up, but the two thin sticks attached to my hips wouldn’t move an inch.

  “Eh, settle down,” said the farmer, holding me still. “If you mean that mucky scrap of silk, I’ve kept it safe. Well-washed, mind, like all that hodgepodge of clothes you had on.”

  “I want it.” I said, sinking back into strange comfort.

  She tucked the quilt back in place. “You’ll get it, don’t fret. Now, let’s start with simple things. What shall I be calling you?”

  Out of habit I reeled off my Birchwood number. The farmer blinked.

  “How about a name?” she asked gently. “I’m Flora. I know — daft name for a big lump like me. I was born in the spring, and Mother had a fancy for flowers. Lucky she didn’t call me Blossom, I’ve always thought.”

  My name. She actually wanted my name.

  “I’m . . . I’m Ella. I sew.”

  I didn’t mean to go straight back to sleep. I had no idea it was possible to sleep so long and so deeply. At one point I woke to see the farmer’s shoes inches from my face.

  “What are you doing down there, lass?” she asked, bending to look at me, curled under the bed.

  I was ashamed. The floor felt more natural. The bed was too soft after what I’d been used to.

  “I . . . I didn’t want to get your nice sheets dirty.”

  “Them’s only old sheets, mended more times than I can remember. Reckon you could do with a proper bath, mind, not just the sponge wash I gave you first off, before I put the dressing on. Nasty wound that. Bullet must’ve gone through and through. You were lucky.”

  With a jolt I remembered a gunshot. The skewer of pain in my chest. I touched a wad of cotton bound around my ribs.

  “It’ll be bruised still, and it’ll scar,” said Flora. “No dancing jigs and splitting it open again.”

  Jigs? Oh. She was joking.

  “Why . . . ?” I started to ask, before tears overtook me. “Why are you helping me? Didn’t you see my prison stripes? The star sewn onto my dress? Didn’t you see what I am?”

  “Eh, lass, don’t think on that. I saw a girl, that’s all. Just a girl. Now get back in this bed and eat the stew I’ve brought. It should be light enough to go down nicely and stay down, for all your stomach must be shrunk to the size of a pea. Quick now — I’ve cattle to feed.”

  She aske
d me once about Birchwood.

  “We heard something about a place . . . prisoners . . . chimneys . . . but I just couldn’t believe it was real,” she said in a hushed voice.

  “Neither could I . . . but it was,” I whispered back.

  She was a queen to me, this poor farmer. A queen in a patched apron and a creaky house. When I jolted awake at four thirty each morning, expecting whistles, shouts, and roll call, Flora was already trudging through snow to her barn, coaxing breakfast from her one surviving milk cow. Then she’d be feeding up the beef cattle and getting on with a hundred other jobs. Mostly I slept, curled to the edge of the soft mattress so as to make room for the girl who wasn’t there. When awake, I counted the rosebuds speckling the wallpaper and watched clouds scud past the window. There were photos on the shelf above the fire.

  “My daughter,” Flora said, following my gaze to a portrait of a pretty young woman. “She’s off looking after injured soldiers. I’m hoping she makes a better nurse than milkmaid. I was always catching her with her nose in a book, when she was meant to be doing chores. My dear departed husband was just the same — read, read, read. Here, do you like stories?”

  I shook my head. No story could be as magical or as sorrowful as surviving. Oh, Rose, my storyteller.

  There was no answering whisper.

  “Go on, have a book by the bed,” said Flora. “To stop you brooding. Eh — don’t think I can’t hear you cry in your sleep, nightmares and all. Stands to reason. Daresay you’ve had it rough. Here, try this one. My lass loved it, as did my husband, may he rest in peace.”

  She passed me a little book with a cracked spine. It was a book I’d seen before, back in Birchwood’s Department Store, when Rose had gone up to that guard and said that her mama had written the book he was reading, and he threw it in the fire.

  Silly Rose and her stories. Telling me she was a countess who lived in a palace, and her mother some great writer.

  I opened the cover. I didn’t recognize the title or the author’s name. It was the dedication that made me sit bolt upright in bed, bullet wound or no bullet wound.