My Canary Yellow Star Read Online Free Page A

glance at the canary yellow star on my chest and begin whispering and giggling.
    I followed the girls into the workroom. Fifty sewing machines were arranged in straight rows like desks in a school, and each apprentice sat down at her own station. A tall blonde girl, a little older than the others, stood at the front of the room.
    “I am Marta Weisz, the new apprentice,” I told her. “Madam asked me to report to you.”
    The girl looked me over, head to toe, her gaze resting on the yellow badge weighing down my heart. She was wearing an Arrow Cross pin, the emblem of the Hungarian Fascist party, on the collar of her dress.
    “Jewish trash,” she said, sneering. “Don’t bother me!” She turned on her heels and walked away.
    Somebody at the back of the room started to laugh. Another person hushed her. I stood staring down at the floor, not knowing where to turn, what to say, what to do. I could feel the heat burning in my cheeks. Finally, a small girl with a spotty complexion took two shoulder pads from a large bin in the corner of the room. She then went to a long metal coat rack that had dozens of blouses on hangersdangling from it. The girl pulled a hanger with a pink cotton blouse off the rack and returned to her seat. She proceeded to sew the shoulder pads into the blouse. I followed her example. I picked two shoulder pads from the bin and pulled a white lace blouse from a hanger. I looked around the workroom. A sewing machine in the last row was unoccupied, so I sat down at it and began to work. The girls around me were brimming with good cheer, chattering to each other. None of them spoke to me. It was as if I was invisible.
    “My name is Marta,” I said to a small redhead on my right.
    “I am Magda,” she replied in a cold voice and immediately turned to speak to her neighbor on her other side.
    At home, I had no difficulty sewing shoulder pads into my dresses or Mama’s suits. But somehow at Madam’s, I had become all thumbs. No matter how hard I tried to sew the pads into the lace blouse, the shoulder pads ended up lumpy.
    A gentle touch on my back startled me.
    “Let me help you, Marta,” Madam said, taking the offending object out of my grasp. I hadn’t even noticed when she came into the room. “See? You have to smooth the pad down first, then pin it to the blouse. That way, it will fit neatly.”
    “I am sorry, Madam. I am usually not so clumsy.”
    “It’s never easy to get used to a new place, to new circumstances,” Madam said. Her voice was kind. She motioned to the blonde girl in the front of the room to come over to us.
    The girl with the Arrow Cross pin hurried to Madam’s side and smiled. “Yes, Madam?”
    “Gizella, I’d like you to explain to Marta what she should be doing. Make her feel at home.”
    “I already did, Madam,” Gizella said. She looked at me, daring me to contradict her.
    “Fine, you may go then,” Madam said. Gizella returned to her post, and Madam turned to me. “Come and see me in my office at the end of the day, Marta.”
    At seven o’clock that evening, I knocked on Madam’s door.
    “Come in and sit down. You look tired. Don’t worry, the work will get easier as time goes by.”
    I sunk gratefully into a chair.
    “How was your first day?”
    “Fine, Madam.” I wasn’t telling the truth. The girls in the workroom had ignored me the entire day, but what was the use of telling Madam? She spent most of her time with customers and came into the workshop only a few times a day. What could she do? Order the others not to hate me? Not even Madam had the power to do that.
    She looked hard at me. “I am glad to hear that everything went so well for you. How is your dear mama?”
    “Fine, Madam. Working hard.”
    “Please say hello to her for me. Here, take these cakes home with you,” she said, pointing to a plate of pastries on her desk. “I keep them around for my customers. They didn’t eat everything I had put out for them.”
    She helped me pack