The Woman Who Wouldn’t Leave

1. The other three hanged with Mary Surratt - Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt and David Herold

The Woman Who Wouldn’t Leave
By
Raman Jalota

   Bridget took her stance at the baseline and tossed the ball in the air. She jumped up, reached with her racket and swung at the ball as it came into her serving zone. Keep the wrist loose, follow through and step into the court. As she took her first step she saw someone behind Sarah and froze.
   “What is it?” Sarah turned around looking behind the fence and towards the clubhouse at the back.
   “That woman … There was a woman, dressed in old style clothes … in a long dress … you know like the people dress in old movies … she was standing in the deuce court as I moved in to hit your return.”
   Sarah walked up to the net and turned back, “There’s nothing there Bridget. Are you all right? Are you seeing things or just pulling my leg?”
   “It is getting dark, but I want to finish the game. Should we?”
   Sarah nodded her head and walked back to receive the serve. Bridget stood at the baseline and prepared to toss the ball. She raised her hand and looked at the deuce court. She stared for a second then screamed and pointed. A woman stood just behind the baseline on the other side, looking at her in deep pain. A long, thick, dirty black dress covered her from her neck to her toes. Sarah turned and saw the woman she was pointing to. She slowly backed away from the court towards Bridget.
   Sarah whispered, “What is it?”
   “I don’t know; should we talk to her?”
   While they stood whispering to each other, the woman turned away from them and started walking towards the next court and walked all the way across the four courts. The light was fading as she walked through the fence, crossed the street and disappeared.

…..

   Next day as she drove by the tennis courts, Bridget spent an extra moment staring at them. There was nothing unusual; they looked clean and inviting in the early morning sun, the morning breeze barely moving the nets. What was that last night? Who was that? … The ghost of a tennis player? She didn’t look like a player. She looked like someone in a trance, bothered by our presence, as if we were the intruders.
   As she sped by the courts, she glanced at the Officers club on the other side of the street. Was that woman headed there? I last saw her in the street when she disappeared. She must have been headed there.
   She talked to Sarah before the day was over, but didn’t get any comfort from her. She seemed shaken but disinterested in finding more about the woman from the tennis court. Before she got in her car to go home, Bridget felt a very strong urge for Chinese food. Why am I feeling this? Where should I go?
   She felt a strong desire to go to Chinatown and started driving towards there. She found a parking spot on 6th street just before H Street. She walked to H Street and stared at the Chinese restaurants. An old preserved building, 541 H Street, almost exactly in the middle of the street seemed to pull her to it. The Go Lo’s restaurant seemed to be set up like the usual Chinese restaurants; there was nothing special about it. It was almost completely empty and the waitress showed her to a table by the window overlooking the street.
   She sat there nervously sipping on the warm Chinese tea. Why did I come here? And to this place? Go Lo’s … what does that mean? She ordered a vegetable lomein and a glass of peach wine.
   Suddenly someone walked around her chair, turned and sat down across from her. She tried to scream but couldn’t. It was the woman from the tennis courts. She was dressed in a light yellow, thick cotton dress with a dark shawl around her shoulders. She looked very sad and tired. She had dark bushy eyebrows close to deep sunk dark eyes, and a very flat face. Her hair was short and slick and lay flat on her head, parted in the middle, lifeless. Her only attractive features were her lips, but they were far superseded by a look of overwhelming grief.
   The waitress brought her the food. When Bridget looked across the table again, the old woman was gone. She barely touched her food and walked as if in a daze to her car. I need some serious help. What am I doing here? And what was that woman doing here? This is preposterous … an old woman that appears and disappears at a tennis court and a Chinese restaurant.

…..

   Sarah listened to her with a puzzled look on her face, “It was the same woman!”
   “Yes the same one. Except she wore a different dress, but she still looked like she had walked out of the last century.”
   “What did you do?”
   “I was going to try and talk to her, but by the time I got my courage up, she had disappeared again. She fascinates me, something like this has never happened to me before. I am scared yet curious. I want to find out more, but I need help. Will you accompany me?”
   “Me, why?”
   “You don’t seem to be affected by this as much as I was. You seem calm and rational. That gives me courage to find out why she appears when I am around and what’s behind all this.”
   That Saturday, they both sat at a corner table at Go Lo’s across from each other, sipping wine and waiting for their dinner.
   “Where were you sitting the other day?”
   “That table.” Bridget pointed to a table two tables from theirs. It was unoccupied.
   When the waitress brought their dinner, Sarah beckoned to her, “My friend saw an old woman … a ghost here, the other night … have you heard of an old woman that appears here?”
   “No no …. No ghosts here …please no such woman here.”
   “Well at least she denies it completely.”
   Bridget sat tensed up and whispered, “Look over there …on the stairs.”
   On the stairs by the door, the woman was slowly stepping down the last few steps. She looked at them and slowly walked to their table. She was wearing the same dress that Bridget had seen her in earlier in the restaurant and the same dark shawl hung around her shoulders. She pulled a chair and sat down between them.
   Sarah stared at her and whispered, “Who are you?”
   Bridget trembled with fear, “You are the same woman we saw on the tennis courts … right?”
   The woman sat between them, silent and unmoving. She looked at each of them in turn, studying them in detail then said, “I didn’t do it.”
   “What is it that you didn't do?”
   “I didn’t do it.”
   Sarah reached with her hand and was about to put it on her shoulder but withdrew it at the last second, “Who are you? What didn’t you do?”
   “I didn’t do it.”
   Bridget looked at her deep dark eyes and tried to make a connection, “Who are you? I am Bridget and she is Sarah.” She pointed.
   “Bridget, I didn’t do it.”
   Bridget looked at Sarah, “I know she hears us, but doesn’t seem to want to respond to us.”
   The woman stood up and pointed across the room at the other end, “Look, there they are. But I am not with them. I wasn't part of it. I didn’t do it.”

…..

   Fall was here. Saturday the leaves started to fall and a slow wind started swirling the red, yellow brown colors around. Bridget walked to the tennis courts. No one was on them. She undid the latch and opened the fence door. She walked onto the courts and stood at the spot she had seen the woman the other day. She tried to walk in the direction the woman had walked in. When she got to the end of the courts she stared ahead. Across Second Avenue stood the Officers club of Fort McNair. What will she be doing there? I must find out what was here before Fort McNair. Maybe that’s a clue to who she is and what she is doing here.
   The sergeant smiled at her question, “Ma’am, this here been an army post for ever. There was a hospital here, a penitentiary, an arsenal … you name it, this here place has served the USA for ever.”
   “I … have you heard of a woman that appears here .. a ghost.”
   “Ma’am?”
   “Is there a woman here … from the past … who is known to appear around this area?”
   “You do mean a ghost, don’t you?”
   “Yes ... have you heard of any such stories?”
   “No Ma’am can’t say I have. Have heard of horrible screams that are heard sometimes at night ... they say from the time the arsenal blew up. There was an explosion back in 1864 … bunch of women were killed … they were making bullets … packing gunpowder into cartridges by hand, you know. President Lincoln came to attend their funeral.”
   “Do you know who the women were? Any of them?”
   “No Maam, haven’t heard of any of their particulars, or names or anything.”

…..

   Later that evening she called Sarah over. Together they walked towards the tennis courts.
   “I have found out much about the Penitentiary and the arsenal, but have no clue about who this woman might be. There was an explosion here, back in 1864 and several women were killed. Our ghost might be one of them.”
   “Any one famous?”
   “No, the sergeant couldn’t recall any names … well the only name was Lincoln … president Lincoln … he attended the funeral.
   “Was his wife with him?”
   “Don’t know … he didn’t say … couldn’t be her at this place …. Wouldn’t she rather show up at the white house?”
   They strolled into the tennis courts and chatted for a while. The sky started turning dark as night slowly approached. Sarah pointed at the horizon, “Let’s go home. It’s getting dark …”
   They saw her. This time she was not alone. There were six of them. She was in chains and was moving slowly. One man was ahead of her, two by her sides and two behind her. She wore a long black dress and a black veil. The chains made a clinking sound as they were dragged behind her.
   Bridget looked across the street and saw a large platform with scaffolding and four nooses. She pointed to it, “My God … a hanging. She is going to be hanged.”
   The woman turned her head towards them and said loudly and clearly, “I didn’t do it. I am not guilty. You must tell them, I am not guilty. They must know. I have to tell them. I am not guilty.”
   Bridget shouted, “Who are you? I need to know who you are. I can’t help you without that.”
   The woman stopped. She had a stunned look in her eyes. She seemed very offended, “You don’t know me? I am Mary ... Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt. I am not guilty. You must tell them. They must know. I have to tell them. I am not guilty.”

…..

   Bridget spent two evenings at the library digging up everything she could about Mary Surratt. She decided to go to the Chinese restaurant one more time to understand its place in the puzzle she was finally solving.
   The restaurant was barely half full and she sat on a table by the window again, sipping wine and waiting for Mary. Mary appeared shortly before she was about to finish her dinner. She stopped by her table but didn’t sit down. She was wearing an apron over her dress and her hair was messy.
   “Good. You are here. I want you to stay here and watch them. I am always busy in the kitchen. I never sit with them. I don’t know why any one thinks I knew their plans. I never knew what they were planning.”
   Bridget sat there uncomfortably. Mary walked between tables and disappeared towards the back. I wonder what she was asking me to see?
   A mist seemed to settle into the restaurant and she could make out a long, old table around which five men sat. They had a metallic jug at the table and an unlabeled bottle with some unknown liquor that they were drinking.
    As she watched, her senses became acute and she could hear them talking as if she was at their table.
The handsome looking man with a mustache, obviously the man in charge, spoke confidently, “George, you have to get the vice president while I am at the theater taking care of Lincoln.”
    “I know … I will get him at the hotel.”
    “And you two need to get the Secretary of State.”
    The two that he had pointed at nodded their heads. One of them raised the glass in his hand, “In his home.”
    The other clanked his glass with his, “In his home David. We will fix Seward at his home. One, two, three, the blow for the south will be struck simultaneously.”
    Mary appeared at the table and put a loaf of bread and some plates on the table. She looked at the well-dressed man that seemed to be in charge longingly. That must be John Wilkes Booth. Yes he is quite good looking despite the old style of clothing and hair. She must have been in love with him.
    John stood up and raised his glass, “We must do it in unison. And not a soul must know till we are done and out of here. John, I hope you and your mother would not have trouble.”
    “Mother doesn’t know anything, does she?”
    “I haven’t said anything to her.” John whispered back as he looked towards the kitchen.
    “I wouldn’t want anything to trouble her at this point in her life. I don’t care for my life. I am willing to give my life for my country.”

…..

   Bridget paced back and forth on the tennis court. Come on Mary. I have found out a lot. But need to ask you many more questions. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can’t. But now, I must know too.
   Mary appeared almost as Bridget was giving up hope. She walked towards her and put her arm around her shoulder, “Mary. I know John Wilkes Booth was in the restaurant … er your house, but who were the others?”
   Mary looked at her with a puzzled look.
   “Was one or more of them your sons?”
   She nodded her head and whispered, “John … John is my son.”
   “Were you in love with John Wilkes Booth?”
   She nodded her head and smiled shyly, “I loved him and he me.”
   “Who were the others?”
   “Their friends … accomplices. I didn’t know what they were doing. I am not guilty.”
   “What happened after that? I know they killed the president and were not so successful in killing the others. But what happened to you? How could they find you guilty?”
   She stared at her. The shyness had disappeared, in its place was deep anger, “Liars … liars and cowards … all of them.”
   “Who lied?”
   “Louis and John … John Lloyd.”
   “Louis?”
   “Weichmann.” She spat on the ground.

…..

   Sarah sat mesmerized, “You really heard her say the names.”
    “Yes. She named both John Lloyd and Louis Weichmann … the two people who testified against her. They were both held out to be unreliable and seemed to have testified against her only to try and save their own necks.”
    “What happened to them?”
    “They got away by turning against her. She and three others were executed here. Four of them were hung at the same time.”
    “So you believe she was innocent?”
    “That’s why she is still here. She believes she's innocent. And yes I believe she's innocent. She wants to tell every one she’s innocent. You know, most historians and legal experts agree that if the assassination and the trial were held today, she wouldn’t even be tried for the crime. Her involvement with the assassination was far removed but the judiciary, the army, the country and the president wanted revenge.”
    “Who?”
    “Andrew Jackson. I think he was the one she referred to as a coward among others. He even lied about the petition for leniency for Mary Surratt. He received it but denied ever receiving it. A judge swore he was with the president when the president read the plea for mercy.
    “You know, Lincoln has always stood for the decent, the honorable, the trustworthy, the people’s president who always did the right thing.
    “Yet, in his name and hiding behind his loss, a terrible injustice was done to Mary Surratt. Political expediency was more important … revenge for the country’s impotence to punish the guilty was more important … in the end petty little things … revenge, lies, politics were far more important than the foundation of this country ... justice, freedom, the rights of the common man and woman were too light on the scales of our so called democracy.”
    Sarah walked up to the window and looked at the darkness beyond, “And there she walks. A woman accused unjustly ... And executed unjustly … And forgotten.”
    “And not guilty by any means. She didn’t do it. She's not guilty. I have to tell them. She's not guilty.”

The End 1              2940 words

Copyright © 2004 Raman Jalota. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

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