The Red Ribbon Page 2

  “You’re making the dress up in silk?” Marta said it like I’d signed my own death sentence. “Don’t wreck it!”

  She sniffed and moved off. I envied her. She had a roomful of people twitching to follow her orders. Plus decent shoes, a nice-ish dress under her overalls, and lipstick. She was a prominent. Prominents had privileges and power — just enough power to rule over the rest of us. Some prominents tried to be fair. Most loved being bullies, just like those kids at school who thought squashing others made them bigger and better. Out in the wild, if Marta was an animal, she’d be a shark, and we’d all be little fish in her ocean.

  Little fish get eaten. Sharks survive.

  The pins weren’t the right sort. Not the tiny “li’l” pins that Grandma taught me to use for silk, so in the end I didn’t dare put too many in, in case they left holes. The scissors terrified me too. Usually I love the sound of scissors cutting, and the flutter of excitement that goes with it. This time I felt pure fear. Once fabric is cut, it can’t be uncut. You have to be so sure where you want those flashing blades to slice the weave.

  I put my hands flat on the table until they stopped shaking. I was standing to do the cutting, but my legs felt weak. Grandma liked to do her cutting on the floor, where there was more room. I wasn’t convinced the floorboards in the sewing workshop were clean enough for that. Instead I spread the silk on the table, pinned the paper, marked on darts and tucks . . . and prepared to do the deed.

  When you start cutting, use the middle of the blades of your scissors and cut with long, even strokes. If only it was that easy. Today the fabric slithered like a snake in a meadow, winding between weeds looking for a mouse to eat. There were no mice in the workroom — no crumbs for them. No food for us either. Just air and lint and a touch of dust.

  Rabbit eyed my scissors. Stealthily her hands crept across the workbench toward them. I snatched them up and began snipping at imaginary loose threads. Rabbit swallowed and whispered, “Please may I . . . ?”

  I pretended not to hear her. I don’t know why. When I couldn’t stall any longer, I passed the scissors over.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed, like I was the spirit of selflessness.

  It made me cringe to see her snipping clumsily away at that couture blouse. It had a white lace collar over the green, like cow parsley flowers in a hedgerow.

  I guessed it was afternoon by the time I’d finished cutting and piecing together the dress. There’s no lunch in Birchwood, so nothing to signal midday. When I’d been working outdoors I only knew it was noon when the sun was at its highest and hottest. That was the halfway point between breakfast and supper. In the clockless sewing room, time was marked by the clank of scissors set down on wood, the sigh of needle-pulled thread, and the tireless whirr of the machines. Every so often there’d be a tinkle of metal falling to the floor, and Marta would call, “Pin!” Behind her back the other workers rolled their eyes and mocked her in a silent, rippling echo of Pin! Pin! Pin!

  The dark figure at the far end of the room barely moved. I think she must have fallen asleep.

  Suddenly Marta was at my shoulder. “Done yet, schoolgirl?”

  “It’s all tacked and ready to sew,” I said.

  Marta pointed me toward a sewing machine. My hands trembled as I set up the spool and threaded the needle. First fitting at four . . .

  I pressed my foot to the treadle, ready to set it all in motion. The needle bobbed up and down — too fast! The thread snarled. Blood rushed to my cheeks. But no harm done — yet.

  I tried again. Better. I checked the thread tension, made a few adjustments, took a deep breath, and began.

  It was a familiar sound — the chatter of the metal parts all moving together. Part of me felt whisked away to Grandma’s sewing room back home. I used to play on the floor while Grandma did her dressmaking, picking up pins and pieces of snipped thread. Grandma called her sewing machine Betty. Betty was old. Quite a work of art. It was decorated in black enamel with gold patterning and Grandma’s name etched onto it. Grandma worked the treadle in her favorite moleskin slippers, cut at the front so her swollen feet could bulge out. When she sewed, the fabric seemed to guide itself in a straight line to the needle. I didn’t yet have that magic touch. Or Grandma hovering over me to help.

  A tear did fall then. It turned the silk a dark, poisonous green. I sniffed. No hankie. This was not a good time for memories. Better just to sew, one seam, one dart at a time. First the bodice pieces, then the skirt pieces, sleeves, and shoulder pads.

  After each seam I leaped up from the machine and went to Squirrel at the ironing board. Frequent pressing is the secret to a neat garment — even a beginner knows that. The workshop iron had a long cord dangling from the ceiling. I prayed the iron wouldn’t scorch or pucker the silk, especially since Squirrel-girl didn’t seem to know quite what she was doing with it. She’d probably never done housework in her life.

  Haven’t you ever ironed before? I mouthed the first time I went up there.

  Squirrel gave a rueful smile and shook her head. She mouthed: The iron’s heavy. And hot.

  I mouthed back fake surprise: Who’d’ve thought?!

  Squirrel held out her hands for my silk. She spat on the iron to see how hot it was. The spit sizzled. She turned the thermostat down. When she actually got to pressing the pieces for me, her handling was remarkably light and efficient.

  I mouthed, Thank you.

  She held a palm out for payment, then giggled at the look on my face. “Just teasing. I’m Rosalind. Rose,” she whispered.

  Hearing a name instead of a number was like pulling on a ribbon bow to unwrap a precious gift.

  “Ella.”

  “I’m not really a princess.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Just a countess.” Rose grinned.

  Marta coughed. Back to work.

  Every few minutes I sneaked a peek at Rabbit. She was sewing with her whole body bent over in focus. She’d let the blouse seams out fine but she’d tacked the sleeves back in the wrong way around. They were bent as if the arms were broken.

  “Hey!” I didn’t know her name (and she probably wouldn’t answer to Rabbit). “Hey, you?” She looked up.

  Then it hit me. Marta’s warning: There’s only room for one of you.

  It had to be me. I was not going to swill around in the mud outside like the others, just a nameless one of many. I had skills. Talent. Ambition. Didn’t I deserve to have a decent job and a chance to rise? Grandma wouldn’t want me to go under. She’d be waiting for me back home. Rabbit would have to fend for herself. So I looked away from the botched blouse and shook my head — It’s nothing.

  Rabbit carried on wrecking her work. I got pleats pressed on my dress, put in a side zip, and started hand-sewing the neatest neckline ever. My head drooped lower and lower. It would be so easy just to close my eyes and snooze for a while. When was the last time I’d slept properly? More than three weeks ago. Maybe a little doze wouldn’t hurt . . .

  Someone jostled me awake. How long had I slept? I glanced around. Rose the squirrel was just going past me. She mouthed, Nearly four.

  Nearly four! I hustled back into action. I was still picking off tacking threads as Marta approached.

  “Well, ladies, how was your first — and probably your last — day at work here? Show me the dress, schoolgirl.”

  I shook it out and handed it over. It was a mess. A rag. A dishcloth of a gown. The worst thing ever sewn in the history of dressmaking. I was aware that the other workers were watching. I couldn’t breathe.

  In silence Marta scrutinized every inch of the emerald silk. In silence she held it up and shook and shimmered it.

  “How about that?” she said eventually. “You can sew. Quite well too. I should know. I trained in all the very best places.”

  She snapped her fingers for the blouse next. Rabbit-woman was so stiff with fear her hands could barely uncurl from the cloth. She noticed her terrible mistake with the sleeves at exa
ctly the same moment as Marta did.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Rabbit panicked. “I know . . . the sleeves . . . the wrong way round . . . I can put them right. I won’t do it again, I swear. Please let me stay.”

  Marta’s voice was low and dangerous. “I told you how it was — only room for one of you. Isn’t that right, schoolgirl?”

  My heart was thudding. I wanted to explain it had just been an accident — the woman was tired, nervous, not at her best. The words stuck in my throat, like they do in a dream when you need to call for help. I unraveled with shame inside, but said nothing.

  “It was an accident,” came a timid voice. “She says she won’t do it again.”

  Squirrel was hovering just behind Marta, small, watchful, ready to dart away.

  Marta ignored Rose, as if she truly had been a rodent squeaking. “Get out, you idiot!” she shouted at Rabbit. “Or do I need to throw you out?” She raised her hand and took a step forward. The dark figure at the end of the room shifted and stretched.

  Bleached white from fear, Rabbit scurried to the door and disappeared. We all just watched, semisafe in our sanctuary.

  When the door to outside had closed again, Marta blew out a breath that said, Don’t you all realize how hard my life is?

  Next she took my green dress and headed for another door at the far end of the sewing room. That had to be the fitting room. My client, Carla, would try the dress and then I’d know if I had a job or not.

  I whispered to Frog, “What . . . what will happen to her? That woman who just left?”

  Frog never looked up from her apple-green wool. “Who knows? Maybe the same as Rhoda, the woman whose place you’re hoping to take.”

  I waited. Frog said nothing else. She continued sewing, stitch after stitch. Marta came out of the fitting room. My eyes followed her as she slowly wove her way, sharklike, through the tables toward me. I stood up so quickly my stool fell over.

  “Pins!” she commanded.

  I scrabbled on the table. Marta opened her pin box and I counted twenty pins back in. Next she collected every remnant of fabric and paper. Frog scowled — no chance of getting my paper scraps now. I wondered what she wanted them for.

  Marta looked me up and down. Coming under her scrutiny was like having your soul scrubbed with one of those wiry green pan scourers. Finally, reluctantly, she put me out of my misery.

  “The client says the dress is enchanting.”

  I sagged with relief.

  “As a reward, she gave me this. One of the perks of the job — extra food.” Marta unfolded a packet of paper. It contained a slice of hard brown bread spread with a measly layer of margarine. Twice the size of my usual supper ration.

  Unbelievably, I was too twisted up inside to eat. “Er, thank you, I’m not hungry.”

  “Liar! You’ve had — what? A mug of brown coffee-water for breakfast, and you’ll get a mug of brown soup-water for supper. You’re hungry enough to overcome stupid fits of conscience about that dopey bungler I booted out. Hungry enough to do whatever it takes to survive here.”

  She knew I’d noticed Rabbit’s mistake. She knew why I’d said nothing. She approved.

  Right there in front of me, Marta ate the entire piece of bread and licked her fingers. She said, “Watch and learn, Ella, watch and learn.”

  If I slept at all that night, it was to dream of green dresses, wafting past in a parade of loveliness.

  People laugh at fashion. It’s just clothes, they say.

  Just clothes. Except, not one of the people I’ve heard mock fashion was naked at the time. They all got dressed in the morning, picking clothes that said, Hey, I’m a successful banker. Or, I’m a busy mother. Or, I’m a tired teacher . . . a decorated soldier . . . a pompous judge . . . a cheeky barmaid . . . a truck driver, a nurse . . . Clothes show who you are, or who you want to be.

  People might say, Why do you take clothes so seriously, when there are more important things to worry about, like the War?

  I was worried about the War all right. The War got in the way of everything. Out in the real world, outside of here, I’d wasted hours lining up at shops with empty shelves. More hours hiding in the cellar when bombers flew over. I’d put up with endless news updates, and Grandad plotting battle lines on a map pinned to the kitchen wall. I’d known War would come — it was all people talked about for months.

  It was War that brought me to Birchwood — known, in a harsher language, as Auschwitz-Birkenau. The place where everyone arrives, and nobody leaves.

  Here people find out that clothes aren’t so trivial after all. The first thing They did when we arrived was make us strip. Minutes off the train and we were sorted into male and female. They shoved us into a room and told us to undress. Right there. With everyone watching. Not even underwear allowed.

  Our clothes were folded into piles. Without them we weren’t bankers, teachers, nurses, barmaids, or truck drivers anymore. We were scared and humiliated.

  Just clothes.

  I’d stared at my pile of folded clothes. I memorized the soft wool of my sweater. It was my favorite green sweater, embroidered with cherries, a birthday present from Grandma. I memorized the neat folds of my trousers and my socks, rolled into a pair. My bra, too — my first-ever bra! — that I’d hidden from view along with my knickers.

  Next They took our hair. All our hair. Shaved it off with blunt razors. Gave us limp triangles of cloth as headscarves. Made us pick out shoes from a pile about as high as a house. I’d found a pair. Rose obviously hadn’t been so lucky, with her one silk shoe and her one leather brogue.

  They said we’d get our clothes back after a shower. They lied. We got sack dresses with stripes. As Stripeys we ran around like herds of panicked zebras. We weren’t people anymore. They could do what they liked to us.

  So don’t tell me clothes don’t matter.

  I turned up at the workshop the next day, bleary-eyed from a predawn start. I was oh so ready to get dressmaking . . . only to find I was ordered to polish the fitting-room floor.

  “I thought I was here to sew, not scrub,” I complained to Marta.

  The slap came too fast to avoid. One hard palm, on the side of my face that wasn’t yet bruised. I was so surprised I almost lifted a hand to hit back.

  Marta’s eyes glinted as if she knew what I was thinking. This was about showing who was boss. Fine. She was.

  I washed, put on a brown coverall, and collected polishing gear. Rose wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Too soft to stick it out in the sewing room, obviously. Her sort were all very nice, but they had no backbone. Not that it mattered to me, of course. I wasn’t here to make friends.

  When I opened the door to the fitting room, I stood there openmouthed. Birchwood was so bare, so stark, I’d almost forgotten there could be nice things in a room.

  For starters, there was a lovely bobble-trim on the lampshades . . . and real lamps, not just bare light bulbs protected by wire cages. There was an armchair in one corner. An actual armchair, with braiding and a grass-green cushion. Such a fat cushion! If I were a cat I’d curl up on it and only wake up when someone set out a saucer of cream.

  Pretty cotton curtains hid the view from the windows. Peony-patterned paper covered concrete walls. Around the fitting stage in the center of the room, there were real woven rugs and a parade of dressmaker mannequins.

  Most decadent of all, there was a mirror.

  It was a fantastic, full-length tilted mirror, the frame painted white with gold scrolling. The sort of mirror that would stand in the fitting room of the finest city fashion house. I could imagine myself in such a place, padding across soft carpets to see how good my gowns looked on ridiculously rich clients. There’d be a waiting list for my creations, of course. Minions scurrying to do my bidding. And silver trays with pots of tea and plates of pink cakes — those tiny cakes made of fluff and icing sugar . . .

  “Hello, Ella.”

  A voice broke my daydream. Turning, I caught a view of myself in
the mirror. What a scarecrow! Ugly clothes, stupid shoes, bruised face. No glamorous accessories, only flannel cleaning mitts, a yellow duster, and a tin of polish. Standing next to me in the reflection was Squirrel-girl, Rosalind, holding a bucket of steamy hot water. Her sleeves were rolled up, and her dainty hands were raw red.

  “I’m on window-cleaning duty!” she said brightly, as if it was a treat. “Except I can’t get to the top panes.”

  She was a bit of a shorty. I was tall for my age, which was how I could pass for sixteen. Tall but not at all curvy. Even before the mouse-sized rations here, I’d struggled to fill a bra. School skirts always threatened to slip off my straight hips even though I ate and ate and ate.

  Grandma reassured me I’d fill out. “Wait till you hit forty,” she said. “That’s when I got big.”

  There weren’t many women aged forty or older in Birchwood. Those who were looked eighty. Youth was stronger — lasted longer. As long as you weren’t too young: sixteen minimum, just as Rose had prompted me the day before. Otherwise . . .

  Then I forgot all about Rose and Unthinkable Things. I’d spotted a pile of fashion magazines. World of Fashion and Fashion Forecast Monthly. They were exactly the same ones sold at my newsstand back home. The shopkeeper — a twitchy little hamster of a woman with jangly gold earrings — always kept back a copy of each title for me and Grandma.

  Back home, Grandma and I used to spend hours reading these magazines, forgetting all about War as we turned the pages together.

  “Seams too close together on the back of that,” Grandma would say, stabbing a picture, or, “put those pockets on that dress and you’ve got a stunner.” Or both at the same time we’d chorus, “What a disgusting color!” or “What a gorgeous outfit!” Then she would make coffee in little china cups — not quite as strong as the way Grandad liked it — and she’d pour something into hers from a smoky green bottle on the top shelf of the pantry, “to add a little zing,” she’d confess.

  Water droplets splashed on the magazine covers. Rose was wobbling with her bucket, up on the edge of the armchair.