Shoulders. Pockets. Collar. Sleeves.
Ines prepares the pieces. I do the sewing. Even between the two of us, it still takes all day to turn out the ten or so garments we're expected to deliver.
"We'd go faster if they'd give us one o' those fancy-pants machines from upstairs," Ines complains good-naturedly, her voice muffled around a mouthful of pins. The colored heads bob about as she talks.
"I don't like those things," I reply as I work the pedal controlling the ancient hunk of steel on the table in front of me. It's archaic even by Survey Corps standards, but it stitches a straight line, at least. "They're so noisy, and they eat up the fabric. 'Sides, it's not like we're in a rush or anything."
"Hah!" Ines barks a laugh at me, pins scattering over the ironing board. "I sure hope not, judging by the rate you sew."
"Very funny," I say, sticking my tongue out in her direction. "I'd rather do it once and do it right, 'stead of having to rip out miles of bad stitches."
"And Heaven knows we do that enough already," Ines says as she finishes gathering up the spilled pins. "Speaking of which, we ought t' be getting a shipment in today. And not a clean one, either," she adds.
"Oh, no," I sigh as I finish up a hem before tossing the finished jacket onto the pile for Ines to press. I pick up the next one, the seams already pinned, and start again.
Shoulders. The brown cotton fiber wants to disintegrate in my fingers as I run it under the needle. I wonder how many times this seam has been done, either by myself or one of the Garrison tailors upstairs. I know by the feel that this was never a Police jacket—their garments are made out of a heavier weight and tighter weave than this. What a waste, for the most durable material to go to the most stationary division. But that can't be helped. I don't set the military's budget.
Pockets. I reach for a patch in the pile to my right, one of the small ones. I trace over the edges of the blue-and-white embroidered feathers with my eyes. The threads come loose when I tug lightly at the raised loops. I set down the jacket and pull out a hand needle and some cotton thread. I wish I had silk, but this will have to do. Besides, cotton is sturdy enough—I believe in it. I wish other people did, too.
"What're you doin' that for?" Ines calls out. "You can still tell what th' picture is."
"Sure, 'til it catches on something and the whole thing comes unraveled," I reply. I sew down the edges of the embroidered loops with matching colored thread until the patch is repaired to my satisfaction. I pin it to the breast pocket and stitch it down, then move on to the rest of the pocket pieces and the sides of the jacket.
Collar. "Will you look at this?" Ines says, holding up a seam-ripped sleeve piece for me to see. I glance at it. The stitches have been torn out and sewn over so many times that the allowance is worn to shreds, barely hanging off the rest of the fabric. "Why do they even bother sending these back our way?"
"Turn it into a pocket or a collar, I suppose," I say. We don't get much new fabric down here, maybe one bolt a month. Until then, we have to make do with recycled pieces and threadbare scraps. Luckily, we get to have the Garrison's hand-me-downs in addition to our own.
I recall the conversation I held with the girl who brought down the last shipment. She was helping me fold old Garrison jackets for cutting apart later when she spotted one with a six-inch tear in the fabric of the underarm seam. "Oh, this one's damaged," she said, pulling it out from the batch. "I'll take it back."
I looked over at it. "That's a big guy," I told her. "We'll just cut out the torn bit and bring it down a few sizes."
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Won't it be too small for anyone, then?" My silence was response enough, judging by how pale she turned.
Sleeves. I always dread this part the most. Carefully, I sew two lines of gathering stitches into the upper part of the sleeve, as always, one at half an inch from the edge, the other at a quarter.
Ines wrinkles her nose. "See that?" she says. "That's why this takes so long. If you didn't stop t' gather every single sleeve that passed through here, we'd cut at least two hours off our time."
"But if they're not gathered, they won't fit right," I argue.
"Who cares if they get a bit puckered here or there?"
"The poor soul who's got them, when he goes to do his maneuvers and can't because his sleeves are pulling funny," I retort, and that's the end of that.
I pin the shoulder straps to the sleeves, and the sleeves to the body. The straps are a bit superfluous, really only serving as a place to display a rank insignia, but I attach them anyway. How sad, I can't help but think as I set in the sleeves, that hardly any of these things will go on to serve their purpose.
I hem up the edges, and it's done but for the buttons, which will have to wait until we get in a new supply. Just as I toss the newly-constructed jacket onto the ironing pile, there's a knock at the door. Ines spits out her pins and answers it.
It's a young man from the Police, dressed smartly in a uniform so new and crisp that I can feel ours wither in shame. "There's a shipment upstairs for you," he says, and it's evident by the way he wrinkles his nose that he wants nothing to do with bringing it here.
Ines and I put down our work and walk up the stairs, where a large, brown-wrapped box awaits us on the landing. Together, the two of us pick it up and drag it back down to our little dungeon, the only space that the authorities thought to afford the sole tailors of the Survey Corps.
For a while, until we realized it was hopeless, Ines railed against the tiny space, and the amount of work we had to do alone, but the answer she received was always the same: "Why do you need more space or more workers? The Survey Corps number only three hundred men. Two of you is more than enough labor to take care of the job."
I wish the people who said those things could be here as we heave the box onto the table. I wish they could be here as we undo its strings and lift open its lid. I wish they could recoil the way we do at the sight, and the smell, and the despair we feel as we begin to sort through the remnants, separating the torn from the whole from the bloodstained beyond repair.
It feels like a crime, taking the clothes straight off the dead—but the living have to make do, and they don't need these anymore.
"Such a shame," Ines mumbles as she pulls out a jacket that has somehow survived enough cycles to be cut down to just three-quarters of its original size. I feel like I remember it—the standard issue patch on the back barely fits between the shoulders. I wonder what poor soul had to wear it. I wonder if it fit. "Such a goddamn shame."
"Try not to think about it, dear," I say softly. "Just do your best. That's all we can do for them."
Little by little, the box empties. When nothing else remains, I sit down with my pile of pieces, and scraps, and torn-apart futures, and get back to my work.
Shoulders. Pockets. Collar. Sleeves.