INTERVIEW OF KIRSTEN RAYMONDE by François Diallo, librarian of the New Petoskey Library and publisher of the New Petoskey News, Year Fifteen, continued:
DIALLO: Forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked about the knife tattoos.
RAYMONDE: Forgiven.
DIALLO: Thank you. I wondered, though, if I might ask you about the collapse?
RAYMONDE: SURE.
DIALLO: You were in Toronto, I think. Were you with your parents?
RAYMONDE: No. That last night, Day One in Toronto, or I guess it’s Night One, isn’t it? Whatever you want to call it. I was in a production of King Lear, and the lead actor died on stage. His name was Arthur Leander. You remember, we talked about this a few years ago, and you had his obituary in one of your newspapers.
DIALLO: But perhaps you wouldn’t mind, for the benefit of our newspaper’s readers …
RAYMONDE: Okay, yes. He had a heart attack onstage, like I was saying. I don’t remember many details about him, because I don’t remember very much about anything from that time, but I’ve retained a sort of impression of him, if that makes sense. I know he was kind to me and that we had some sort of friendship, and I remember very clearly the night when he died. I was onstage with two other girls in the production, and I was behind Arthur, so I didn’t see his face. But I remember there was some commotion just in front of the stage. And then I remember hearing a sound, this sharp “thwack,” and that was Arthur hitting his hand on the plywood pillar by my head. He’d sort of stumbled back, his arm flailed out, and then a man from the audience had climbed up on the stage and was running toward him—
DIALLO: The mystery audience member who knew CPR. He’s in the New York Times obituary.
RAYMONDE: He was kind to me. Do you know his name?
DIALLO: I’m not sure anyone does.