bookmark

Priam wasn't really experienced with needle and thread, but wanted to attempt this idea anyway. The day before, he had found - in an ancient box of junk behind the furnace in the basement of their building - a long, narrow strip of very old tapestry, possibly a ragged piece of border from a vanished altar frontal, he thought. It had been wrapped and tied like rope around a bundle of yellowed and crumbling church pamphlets or political tracts, he couldn't be sure. Four faded maroon and cream interlaced crosses could still be discerned on a ground of wavy-striped fabric. He couldn't look at it without thinking of Heta, and felt such an urgency to give it, that he decided to take up a needle himself in order to applique the remnant onto a backing of some sort. He chose the very heavy aubergine satin of an old chasuble, but instead of cutting and hemming or doubling with seams, he simply tore the fabric into the size strip he wanted, leaving the loose threads all along the edges. The hard part was making the tiny stitches as nearly invisible as he wanted. The tapestry remnant itself was already long, but with Priam's invention the whole extended to over three feet in length, almost a banner. Nevertheless, he thought of it as a bookmark.