Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

“The idea was that the quilt represented all the memories of your life—not just your own, but them ones that was passed down to you from your ancestors, too. The deal was, at the end of your life, you were supposed to give the quilt to a younger member of your family and it’d be up to them to keeping adding to it; that way, the spirit never really died because there’d always be someone and something to remember that you’d existed, that your life’d meant something. This old tailor was really concerned about that. He said that a person died twice when others forget that they’d lived.

“‘Bout six months after I started Needle Patrol the old tailor came down with a bad case of hepatitis and had to be isolated from everyone else. While this guy was in the infirmary the camp got orders to transfer a hundred or so prisoners, and the old guy’s family was in the transfer group. I tried to stop it but nobody’d lift a finger to help—one sergeant even threatened to have me brought up on charges if I didn’t let it drop. In the meantime, the tailor developed a whole damn slew of secondary infections and kept getting worse, feverish and hallucinating, trying to get out of bed and babbling in his sleep. He lingered for about a week, then he died. As much as I disliked Japs at that time, I damn near cried when I heard the news.

“The day after the tailor died I was typing up all the guards’ weekly reports—you know, them hour-by-hour, night-by-night deals. Turned out that the three watchtower guards—and mind you, these towers was quite a distance from each other—but all three of them reported seeing this old tailor at the same time, at exactly 3:47 in the morning. And all three of them said he was carrying his quilt. I read that and got cold all over, so I called the infirmary to check on what time the tailor had died. He died at 3:47 in the morning, all right, but he died the night after the guards reported seeing him—up till then, he’d been in a coma for most of the week.

“I tried to track down his family but didn’t have any luck. It wouldn’t have mattered much, anyway, ‘cause the quilt come up missing.

“After the war ended and I was discharged, I decided to take your Grandma to New York. See, we’d gotten married about two weeks before I shipped out and we never got the chance to have a real honeymoon. So we went there and saw a couple of Broadway shows and went shopping and had a pretty good time. On our last day there, though, we started wandering around Manhattan, stopping at all these little shops. We came across this one antique store that had all this ‘Early Pioneer’ stuff displayed in its window. Your Grandma stopped to take a look at this big ol’ ottoman in the window and asked me if I thought there were people fool enough to pay six-hundred dollars for a footstool. I didn’t answer her. I let go of her hand and went running into that store, climbed over some tables and such to get in the window, and I tore this dusty old blanket off the back of a rocking chair.

“It was the quilt that Japanese tailor’d been working on in the camp. They only wanted forty dollars for it so you bet your butt I slapped down the cash. We took it back to our hotel room and spread it out on the bed—oh, it was such a beautiful thing. All the colors and pictures, the craftsmanship...I got teary-eyed all over again. But the thing that really got me was that, down in the right-hand corner of the quilt, there was this one patch that had these figures stitched into them. Four figures. Three of them was positioned way up high above the fourth one, and they formed a triangle. The fourth figure was down below, walking kind of all stooped over and carrying what you’d think was a bunch of clothes. I took one look and knew what it was—it was a picture of that tailor’s spirit carrying his quilt, walking around the camp for the last time, looking around for someone to pass his memories on to because he couldn’t find his family.”

By now he’d slipped the stone bottle back under the blankets. He lay on his side, looking at them, his bone-thin hands kneading the pillow. “That’s sort of what I’m trying to do here, you understand? I know that if I was to die real soon I wouldn’t have no finished tapestry to show...mine’s got all these holes in them. I wanna have a whole one, a finished one. I don’t much fancy wandering’ around all-blessed Night because God don’t like what I show Him. I want to fill in the holes I made.” He smiled. “I love you two kids. I truly do. And I love your mom and your Grandma and your dad, too. They’re all real fine people. I just want you all to ...I just wanted to tell you about that.”

“Grampa,” said Alan, softly. “Whatever happened to that man’s quilt?”

Grampa pointed to his top blanket. Marian and Alan looked at one another and shrugged, then Grampa started to pull down the blanket but didn’t have the energy to finish, so they did it for him.

Underneath the top blanket lay the quilt. Even though they could see only very little of it, both Alan and Marian knew it was probably the most beautiful thing they’d ever see.

“I wanna...I wanna be buried with this,” said Grampa. “I already told your dad that.” He

gestured for Marian to lean down close so her could kiss her good-night. “Hon, I need to be alone with your brother for a few minutes, okay?”

“... ‘kay.”

“Good girl. You run along to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.

Marian decided to sleep downstairs that night in case he woke up and needed something, so she went into the living room and laid down on the sofa.

She watched as Grampa gave Alan the stone bottle and explained something to him. Her brother looked so serious as he listened, more like an adult than a nine-year-old. Then she lifted her head and overheard Grampa say, “...wait here with me until your dad gets home...” but then she was too tired to keep her head up.

She woke up around two-thirty in the morning. Lifting her head, she saw her Dad’s work boots setting next to the door. She wondered if he’d had a good night at work. Maybe he could quit soon, like he wanted, and start his own building business. She hoped so. It bothered her that Dad was never home nights.

She heard Grampa tapping against the railing of his bed with something. She went to him.

“You got good ears, little girl. You’ll go far.” He tried to raise himself up but couldn’t.

“I gotta pee,” he said. Marian wanted to go wake Alan or Dad but Grampa wouldn’t hear of it. He finally laid down and pointed to his drinking glass. “Why don’t you empty that damn thing out and I’ll ...I’ll use it.” She did as he asked, carrying the glass into the kitchen and pouring its contents down the sink. When she came back in Grampa had his hands at his sides and was staring at the ceiling.

“Marian, I hate like hell to ask this, hon, but…well...I can’t seem to move my hands. Would you mind, uh...?” Marian already had him out and in the cup, so there was no need for him to finish. “You’re a good girl,” he said. “You make your mom rind dad real proud, you hear?” “Yes sir,” she said. His eyes then lit up, but only for a few moments. “How’s about puttin’...puttin’ my record on real low so’s we don’t wake the whole house? I’d kinda like to hear it.” Again Marian did as she was asked.

When she came back Grampa was desperately trying to empty his bladder but couldn’t get anything to come out. She wiped his forehead, then put her hand on Grampa’s abdomen, pushing down gently. After a few moments the pained expression on his face relaxed as the urine started to fill the cup. He soon finished and nodded his thanks. Marian took the cup into the bathroom to empty it. It was full of blood. She washed her hands afterward and then asked him if there was anything else he needed. “Could you maybe fix it so my record would play over a few times?”