Free You Are My Sunshine: A Novel Of The Holocaust (All My Love Detrick Companion Novel) by Roberta Kagan Page A

Mrs. Bidowsky put her arm through Zofia’s and together they walked the two blocks to the storefront of the seamstress.
    “Good Morning, Mrs. Bidowsky.”
    “Good Morning, Fruma. This is Zofia.”
    “Good Morning Zofia. Sit down ladies. What can I do for you? Let me guess, maybe this is George’s bashart? Are we going to be making a wedding dress?”
    Z ofia blushed. Esther Bidowsky cleared her throat. “No, nothing like that, not of course that I would be opposed.” She smiled at Zofia. “But that’s not it at all. Zofia is our part time employee. Last year her father passed away, God rest his soul, and her mother is ill. She needs full time work, but we don’t have the work for her. I heard from some of the ladies that I play cards with that you might be looking for an apprentice. I can tell you that she is reliable, and a very good worker. Maybe you would consider giving her a job.”
    Mrs. Kolowsky scrutinized Zofia. Her eyes traveled over the girl until Zofia looked away.
    “She looks capable.” Mrs. Kolowsky said. “If you want the job I will give you a try. You are going t o find, however, that sometimes we will have to work long hours into the night if we have a special event, like sometimes a wedding dress needs to be finished. You are understanding this? And I cannot afford to pay you seamstress wages while you are learning. It will be much less until you know what you are doing. But if you do well, then you will make a decent salary.”
    “Yes, ma ’am, I am grateful for the opportunity.”
    “All right t hen. You come tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”
    “Yes ma ’am. And thank you.”
    After Zofia and Mrs. Bidowsky, left they walked to the end of the block where they would separate. Zofia going north towards her home, Mrs. Bidowsky headed south.
    “I cannot thank you enough for doing this for me.” Zofia said and she squeezed the older woman’s arm.
    “I am glad it worked out the way that it did.”
    “Yes, so am I.”
    “Listen, maybe some time you are going to come to my house? You’ll have some cake and meet my George? He is a good boy, a Jewish boy from a good family. It’s hard t o find a nice Jewish girl, these days.”
    Z ofia smiled, but inside her heart was breaking, she wasn’t a nice Jewish girl anymore. She’d done something bad. She’d sinned. Zofia believed herself undeserving of a boy like George.
    The following day Zofia arrived at the “Perfect Stitches” Fruma Kolowsky’s dressmaking shop, fifteen minutes early. She sat outside waiting for Mrs. Kolowsky to open the door.
    “Good Morning, you are early. That is a good thing. It shows me that you care about your job.”
    “I care very much, Mrs. Kolowsky.”
    “You and I will be working very closely together so you might as well call me Fruma.”
    “Thank you. I will.”
    “All right then, let’s get started.”
    Z ofia followed Fruma’s direction but it seemed as if her stitches were always crooked or in some way displeasing to Mrs. Kolowsky.
    “Remove this line and try again. I cannot have such sloppy work. You will learn to do this perfectly before you will work on my client’s orders.”
    Z ofia resented Mrs. Kolowsky. She was demanding and overbearing.  Every stitch had to be perfect. She gave no slack.
    “Slave Driver ,” Zofia whispered under her breath as another customer came in and Fruma was busy helping her.
    Z ofia worked from early in the morning until well past sundown. Every day she stitched and removed, stitched and removed, cut and measured patterns to Mrs. Kolowsky’s standards of perfection.
    November passed to January and then to February and still Zofia was only an apprentice. Her back ached from sitting at the sewing machine for hours. But, she had something even greater to worry about. Zofia had not seen her menstrual blood since the month before her moment of indiscretion with Donald Taylor. She tried to deny it to herself. Perhaps I am just late because I