The Red Ribbon
Page 18
To my darling daughter, Rosalind.
I hope great things of her.
Always it came back to hope.
Alone in that bedroom I stroked my red ribbon. Behind me was Birchwood, a place so awful I already couldn’t believe it existed. Ahead of me was the next chapter.
I decided I’d had enough of bed. Enough of spoon-feeding. Enough of nightmares. I eased out from under the quilt and found my clothes. They were washed, ironed, and folded onto a chair.
I could hardly bear to touch the striped Birchwood dress. Flora could rip it up into cleaning rags as far as I was concerned, and burn the star badge I’d worn for so long. I had warm long johns and socks at least, and of course the beautiful Liberation Dress. Apart from the bullet hole, which could be sealed with careful darning, it had survived that terrible run through the snow very well. That showed how good the fabric was. Grandma always said, Buy the best quality you can afford. Cheap rubbish is no economy.
Grandma would like the dress, I was sure of it. I slipped it on carefully and stroked each of the five embroidered buttons. I was free now. Free to . . . to go downstairs. First things first. I held on to the banister for support.
A grizzled gray-and-white cat looked up from the fireplace when I shuffled into the kitchen. Flora was at the kitchen sink, scrubbing wizened little potatoes. Her clothes were badly made and badly fitting, but I wouldn’t have swapped her for all the fashion models in the City of Light.
“Hello?”
Flora jumped to hear my voice behind her. “Now then! Look at you, all dolled up. That’s a fine dress you’ve got. I thought so when I washed it. Nicely made and everything. Proper shop-bought quality, that.”
“Can I help?”
She paused. She wasn’t used to anyone interfering. “You can be washing these potatoes. I’m doing a stew.”
It was a simple job. I moved slowly so I wouldn’t set the bullet wound bleeding.
While the stew cooked in the oven, I washed dishes and dried them. Flora put on her coat and scarf to go out in the yard.
“Can I help?” I asked again.
“Out there? One gust of wind and you’d blow away! I can’t see you farming or chopping wood. What else can you do?”
My face broke into a wide grin. “Have you got a needle and thread?”
Winter thawed. An old man on a bicycle brought us news that although the War wasn’t yet over, it had passed us by, and the end was near.
“Thank goodness for that,” said Flora. “I wasn’t pleased at the thought of tank tracks on my fields.”
We didn’t exactly celebrate the news. One of the cows was in calf and it began to birth just before teatime. I found myself on the end of a rope with Flora, hauling that new life into the world, hoofs first.
Flora wiped her hands on her trousers. “You’re going soon, aren’t you?” she said.
“I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
“Go,” she said. “But remember — you’re welcome here whenever, War or no War.”
“I’m really, really grateful for everything. It’s just, I’ve got to go . . . home.”
“Of course you do, lass. Of course you do.”
I knew from looking at the farm’s worn atlas that I was hundreds of miles from home. Flora had shown me which speck on the map was the nearest village to the farm, then I traced a line all the way to my town. Even supposing all the territory had been liberated, how was I, penniless and alone, to travel so far?
One of Grandma’s sayings danced in my mind: Cross that bridge when you come to it, or swim the river if you have to.
That evening I examined the coat I’d worn out of Birchwood. It needed remodeling. We didn’t exactly gorge ourselves at the farm, but I was still putting weight on. One by one I cut the coat seams to let them out a bit. A thought struck me: during my first trip to the Department Store, that mole of a girl had said something about people hiding valuables in their clothes.
I found the money — a big wad of it — in the shoulder pads, stuffed between tufts of horsehair. I shivered to think of the fate of the nameless woman who’d stitched her savings away. Her foresight was my windfall.
I left a bundle of money under my pillow, so Flora would find it after I’d gone. I couldn’t face her thanking me. Even if it had been an armful of gold and jewels, like a treasure trove from one of Rose’s stories, it still couldn’t repay her for the most priceless thing of all: human kindness.
I wrote a note. It just said, To Flora. From Ella. You saved my life.
On the day I left, Flora loaned me a hairbrush for the little waves of hair now covering my scalp. I slipped on my Liberation Dress, laced my boots, and buttoned up my coat. Flora was wearing one of the smart new shirts I’d made for her and a new pair of work trousers, also sewn by me. She handed over a packet of sandwiches and shortbread cookies.
“Got your red ribbon?”
I nodded. Couldn’t speak.
“All sorted then. Good luck, Ella.”
I just stood there, stiff and awkward. I turned to go. Thought, What would Rose do? I turned back and gave my new friend a long, warm, grateful hug. And left.
I said good-bye to the cat, the cows, the chickens, the farm dog, and Marta. Marta had been laid to rest under a grassy mound covered in daisies. A simple wooden grave marker had her name on it and the date she died.
I walked up the lane alone, with my head high. Time to go home.
First I walked to the nearest village. Then, because there was no other transportation, I walked from there to the nearest town. Here there were buses running, and a huge clamor of people — walking, talking, cycling, driving, shopping . . . just as if everything was normal. And it was, for them. For me it was like being a child again, seeing things for the first time. Look — a grocery shop. Over there — a baker’s. In that window — a reflection. Me. A tall, serious girl in a tight coat and sensible boots. A flash of pink showed as I walked.
It was hard to believe that all of this had existed at the same time I was in the mud and dust and ash of Birchwood.
From this town I caught a bus to the next. Then a train. Another train. Another town. A tram. Eventually my boots took me down familiar streets to the house where I used to live.
My house. I practically ran to the door, ready to shout, It’s me! It’s Ella! I’m home!
The door was locked. I pressed the bell. No answer. The windows were blank. When I peered in I saw the familiar kitchen stools, the ones that made farty noises when you sat on them, and the china cupboard, now full of old newspapers, not Grandma’s cut-glass collection.
A woman sweeping the yard next door eyed me suspiciously. “You can ring the doorbell as much as you like — there’s nobody home.”
“I’m looking for my grandparents.”
“In that house? Two young doctors live there. Nobody old.”
“Don’t you remember me? I’m Ella. This was my home.”
She squinted at me. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“But my grandparents — where are they? Were they taken to . . . to Birchwood?” I hated the taste of that word in my mouth.
The neighbor stepped back behind her broom. “You don’t want to believe all those horror stories! Birchwood indeed!”
It was no better at the newsstand. This was the shop I’d popped into almost every day of my former life, to buy bits and bobs. Tobacco for Grandad, magazines for me and Grandma. The shelves weren’t so full now, thanks to the War. The same twitchy hamster-woman stood at the till, though, with her jangly gold earrings.
“Hello, love, what can I get you?”
“It’s me, Ella! I’m back!”
Hamster looked me up and down. For a moment it felt as if she was seeing a Stripey with a shaved head and stupid wooden shoes. I almost reeled off my camp number.
“Ella? You can’t be! She was just a schoolgirl. You’re Ella? Really? I’d never have known you! Aren’t you all smart and grown-up now? You look well. Not had a ba
d War, then? Your Sort always fall on your feet, eh?”
That threw me. I resisted the urge to run away there and then. Girls in Liberation Dresses do not flee the enemy.
“I’m looking for my grandparents. Do you know where they are?”
Hamster waved her arms. Bracelets tinkled. “Oh, they left. Went somewhere else. Somewhere east maybe. I can’t keep track of what my customers get up to. There’s been a War on, you know. Come to think of it, they owed me some money. That’s right, I’ve got it here in my account book. For tobacco and a magazine. It’s good you’ve come by. You can square up, can’t you?” She told me how much.
For a few seconds I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak, I was so angry. Then, looking Hamster straight in the eyes the whole time, I reached for my precious hoard of money. I counted out, to the last exact coin, the amount my grandparents had owed and pushed the money across the counter. I held Hamster’s gaze for a long, scornful moment, and turned to go.
When I left the shop she still hadn’t picked up the money.
My Birchwood boots took me along the pavement to my old school, past the spot where I’d been snatched off the street a year ago.
I felt the ghost of a school satchel strap on my shoulder.
But I wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore. I had to decide where to go and what to do next. I took another train.
The City of Light was full of flowers.
There was a florist’s stall at the station when I arrived, with buckets of color. There were flowery weeds nodding their heads from odd cracks and corners of bullet-damaged buildings. And there were flowers on the dresses — glorious floral prints that declared to the world, It’s spring again! Spring, and the city was liberated, and the War was almost over.
A fabulous metal tower stretched up above the city rooftops to the sky, way above even the highest buildings. It was decorated with flags. It reminded me of Henrik — all bold and glorious.
For all the flowers and fashions and flags, I couldn’t leave Birchwood behind. It was there, gnawing at my stomach when I saw a generous housewife throw stale bread to the birds and I remembered being so hungry I’d’ve crawled on the ground to snatch it up too.
It was there when I caught sight of a sign in a shop window advertising Blue Evening perfume. Then my nose clogged with the stink of Carla’s scent.
It was there whenever I saw stripes.
People saw me in my pink Liberation Dress and smiled. I didn’t smile back, not often. I couldn’t stop looking at random strangers and wondering, What would you have been like in Birchwood? Oh, but it was nice to look lovely again! To feel properly washed and dressed.
I had traveled over a thousand miles just to arrive at this place, at this day in the year. It was today, I was certain. Hadn’t Rose made me memorize the date?
Today was the day Rose and I had vowed to meet if we got separated, in a park, under the falling blossoms of an apple tree.
I’d asked directions from a porter at the train station. He’d scratched his head and rubbed his bristly chin. “A park with an apple tree? Opposite a cake shop and bookshop and a hairdresser’s, you say?”
“And a dress shop. Opposite a dress shop too.”
“I don’t know about any dress shop, but I reckon I know the park and the bakery.”
There was no one to give orders, to tell me when to sleep, when to wake, when to cringe, when to grovel. I ate when I pleased, as long as my money lasted, and I slept wherever I found myself at nightfall — in refugee hostels, on sofas of kind strangers, and even on station benches. Some people shunned me when they heard I’d no family, or when they guessed where I’d come from. Others — the real humans — shared what little they had.
“We didn’t know,” they said. “We never guessed.”
On my travels from the farm, to home, to here, I’d crossed paths with other survivors. We knew each other at once. No words needed. No need to show our number. When we met, we kept company for a while. We shared the names of people we’d known at Birchwood, and people we wanted to find.
There was no news of my grandparents.
I reached the park. There was no fence, just metal stumps where the railings had been shorn off to be turned into bombs or tanks or whatever the War machine needed. A space without borders. Not a jag of barbed wire in sight. No watchtowers. No sentries.
On the other side of the street, there was a row of shops, just as Rose had described them. A cake shop (open), a hat shop, bookshop, and hairdresser’s (closed), and an empty dress shop, with no sign and a headless display mannequin in the window.
All those times Rose had spun stories, and she’d been telling the truth. I was stupid, stupid, stupid to have never quite believed her. Easier to think I knew best and she was only daydreaming.
My boots walked me across the street, dodging cars and vans and bikes. There was a cleaning lady on her knees just inside the open doorway of the dress shop, calmly polishing the floor with big yellow mitts on her hands. It reminded me of polishing the fitting-room floor at the Upper Tailoring Studio. For one silly moment I looked at the cleaner and thought, Is it Rose? The woman sensed me there and turned.
It wasn’t Rose.
This was a woman in her fifties, perhaps, with a shock of white hair and lines creasing her face. She had an unlit cigarette tucked behind one ear, a battered paperback novel crammed in her apron pocket, and a sprig of pink blossoms pinned to her apron front. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly soft and cultured.
“Can I help you?”
I shook my head, and turned back across the street to the park.
After a night of rain the park lawn was so green. The grass was sprinkled with buttercups. I thought of Rose and her daft idea that if you hold the flowers under someone’s chin you can see if they like butter. I picked a buttercup. I couldn’t see under my own chin. Not to worry. I knew I liked butter anyway.
There were daisies, too. Carla told me you should pluck the daisy petals off one by one and say, She loves me, she loves me not . . .
I left the daisies.
I wandered along neat pathways, past a fountain, to the center of the park, where an apple tree spread blossomy branches, right where Rose said it would be. I wished I’d listened better when she was still alive.
The ribbon was more pink than red, after all the washings. I meant to tie it to a branch of the tree, just as Rose and I had planned to do, all those ages ago in Birchwood. Instead of a celebration of surviving together, it could be a small act of remembrance for a girl whose thousand acts of kindness made her more of a hero to me than any general.
I stroked the ribbon, suddenly shy of doing something so personal when there were other people around. Would they laugh, or, worse, ask questions?
There was an old man walking a dog — a fluffy sort of hearth-rug dog, with a ball in its mouth, not a prisoner’s leg. There was a tall man with his arm around a short woman. They were laughing, and she put her face up to be kissed. There was an elegant young lady sitting on one of the park benches, with her knees and ankles neatly together, a little bag in her lap, and the most ridiculous pink hat pinned to her short curls. She was definitely watching me.
I turned my back to everyone, found a low branch, and looped the red ribbon around it to make a bow.
A shadow fell across the grass.
The elegant young lady was standing right beside me, her head tipped to one side like a squirrel assessing a nut. We stared at each other.
The young lady squeezed her handbag so tightly I thought she’d snap the straps. Her voice came out as a whisper.
“Ella?” Then stronger: “Ella-who-sews! It is you! Oh, Ella!” She dropped the handbag and flung her thin arms around me. “You’re here! You came!”
Slowly my arms circled her. Slowly I breathed in the stupendous realization that this was actually, unbelievably, her. Not in a dream or just a whispered voice. Not even the shivering bag of bones I’d left coughing in a dirty bunk at Birchwood.
Trembling, I took her hands. I touched her face, her hair, her lips. Still I couldn’t speak.
“Oh, Ella,” she said, “have you any idea how happy I am to see you?”
I could only nod. Still speechless.
Rose chattered on, like the squirrel she was.
“I told Mama you’re a survivor. I said, if anyone can get out of Birchwood in one piece, Ella can. You look so pale. . . . Are you all right? Do you need to sit down? My legs feel like jelly! Here, on the grass — oh no, you’ll get your dress marked. It’s an amazing dress. Is it your design? I knew it must be as soon as I saw you coming across the park. I couldn’t believe it was really you, and then you took the ribbon out.”
It fluttered above us, pinky-red among the white blossoms.
Relief, wonder, joy. All these feelings tumbled as tears out of my eyes and down my cheeks, spotting my pink dress.
“Are you all right? Speak to me, Ella. Say something!”
I took a deep breath, gave a little laugh and bowed.
“Will you . . . will you do me the honor of this dance?”
Rose looked baffled, then she too remembered our first day in the fitting room, when we’d polished the floor with mitts on our feet. Now, instead of her mismatched Birchwood shoes, she was neat in leather lace-ups.
“Well,” she said with a smile. “Since you asked so nicely . . .”
We danced across the spring grass together, in the sweetest, happiest waltz ever. After a while we were laughing so much I got hiccups, and that made us both giggle even more.
“I thought you were dead!” I said suddenly, halting our waltz. “That everyone from the Hospital had gone up the . . . you know.”
Rose clapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh, Ella, no! I’m so, so sorry. They cleared the Hospital and took us west — don’t ask me why. Some crazy scheme to keep us from being liberated, I don’t know. It was all so fast, there was no time to send a message or anything. I left you the ribbon so you’d have hope.”
I squeezed her hand, tears pouring down my face. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I’d mourned her loss ever since I found that red ribbon.