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6 Mary's Tape (continued): Return of People Soon I found myself on trial in another way, literally. They arrest you in Canada when you try to kill yourself. It's as if you broke into a store or ran over a child. It was Gordon Stewart who came down to help me. I think that must have been the nurse upstairs who told him, just as she got the police who cut me down. Gordon got up and pled for me, tears in his eyes. My husband had deserted me; I had been upset and depressed and quite probably had been temporarily unbalanced. (Crazy? Why not say so?) I felt in pillory—I think they call it that—or maybe up on a scaffolding for all to look at me, wearing my scarlet letter S for suicide. Giving testimony the best I could, I held my bruised throat long and straight the way I might if dancing. Gerda was there. Several strangers had wandered into the little courtroom out of curiosity; a public hanging draws crowds. Had I been in the papers? I think they were just those people who drift around watching other people's misery unfold. I hoped I didn't wander into the paper in the States: DRAFT RESISTER'S WIFE TRIES SUICIDE. But why do that when there were big things to headline from everywhere else in the world: Washington , Vietnam, and all the trouble spots in between? The trial was in the new courthouse building on rue Notre Dame. Underneath all their silent practicality, some Canadians are romantic. Gordon Stewart was one of those. He took me home that day. The court had put me and Kathy in his custody until they could break 158 Voices from Afar 159 the news to Fred and Kate. Then Kathy was to go to them for six months until I could come back and prove I was "stable." I had to report back. He had put up a thousand dollars for bail. It was after we got back to that room that he sat and held my hand. "You're sure you're all right?" He said it over and over. I said that I was. "Weren't you afraid to die?" He was stroking my hair. "Dying to me is probably not like what you mean, everything over. Nothing is like we're told about it." "Then what is it?" "It's something else. I was getting out of the way." He didn't understand. To him a word he knew would just always be what he always thought it was. Kathy wasn't there. I missed her. They had ordered her into some sort of nursing care, "supervised detention" for a week, until I was "balanced." Did they think I'd try to kill Kathy next? Stranger things happen, every day. Gordon wasgetting more romantic every minute. "If I had a daughter , I'd want one like you." He held my hand against his chest. "You're supposed to act fatherly," I said. I pulled back. "You with that proper wife." I thought I'd make him defend her, but he didn't seem to hear. He stood, bent to pick me up, then walked all around the room with me. "Poor darling," he said. "If you think I could sleep in that jail, you're mistaken." My ankle itched. "Furthermore, I think I got fleas." "Got what?" He set me down at once. I sat on the bed and scratched my ankle. He sat in the one chair. "I hate to leave you." "If you really want to help me, lend me enough money to start back with my dance lessons." Don't think I hadn't found somebody, early on. We had met at one of the anti-war meetings. A resister who used to dance with Art Manning. He'd travelled with him for a time, the way I'd wanted to, and he even knew Groom. Graham had auditioned him, too, in New York. She had liked him; but it was Art he'd leaned to. As long as the money Jeff sent came through, I'd have enough to study. But if it didn't, I'd need extra. Dancing "balanced" me, I argued. "That important?" Gordon puzzled. "I will, then." People who have money when you need it, it's funny what they'll give in to and [3.133.109.211] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 06:50...

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