I pulled my shawl a little tighter around my shoulders and sped up my pace. The past few days, the breeze had had a distinct chill to it, winter promising its swift arrival. I could feel the cold as it caressed my face and I paused, taking in the sensation with a deep calming breath. Regardless of the chill, it felt good to take a moment and simply be. The iciness lingered on my skin and in my hair. It was a gentle reminder of life's continuation and for me, it was a welcome one when it meant that soon my feet would be on the soil of my homeland once more.
Large stone buildings towered above me, their intricate designs remarkable but foreign. My gaze followed the dreary grey building closest to me upward, mesmerized by its gothic splendor. There, staring down from their hideous perches sat a dozen stone monsters, fangs and claws seeming to reach down towards me. Gargoyles as they were called here in this country were common enough but still continued to scare me. Remembering a tale I had been told as a young girl about these horrific creatures did not put my mind at ease.
An old man had once explained that these half-man half-beasts had once roamed France and terrorized all its inhabitants. When the beasts set their sights on Rouen, the Saint Romanus fought back and managed to subdue the monsters. However, when he tried to burn the creatures, their heads and necks would not burn. The Saint then mounted the monsters' heads on spikes and placed them on the walls of a church to ward off evil spirits.
I felt pity for the beasts and wondered if such a story was concocted out of any small half-truths or if it was entirely myth. For the sake of the creatures, I hoped if was myth, no animal or man regardless of its nature deserved such a fate. The church used them in all their unsightly splendor, as a warning against trusting the devil.
I shivered involuntarily but whether it was from the cold stone eyes of the gargoyles or the cold in the air, I couldn't say. I resumed my walking but stopped dead at the sight of a man slumped against the church. There was something about the way he was leaning that gave me pause and then for a moment I thought I glimpsed something odd about his face. I reprimanded myself for letting my overactive imagination run away with me and approached him. Looking around and making a mental note of my surroundings in case the encounter proved to be a dangerous one, I knelt beside the unresponsive man and placed my hand on his shoulder.
My heart thudded against my chest as he moved ever so slightly, turning as if to look at me. I gasped at the sight of the man's face and nearly fell back, thinking that perhaps I had simply found the man long since dead and already partially decayed. I was comforted by the idea that it had only been in my mind that he moved on his own. Then his sunken in yellow eyes looked up at me and I covered the sob that threatened to escape my throat. By God! The man is alive! That is his face! Mangled beyond belief, the flesh was parchment thin and stretched across the right side of his misshapen skull. Bone was visible in some places and made the man gruesomely resemble a skeleton. I couldn't help but look away, horrified by the man before me and even more horrified by my reaction to him. The sight of him was enough to turn my stomach.
My retreating eyes flickered back up to the gargoyles who looked down at me mockingly. "Not so appalling now, are we," they taunted. I glared back up at them, before squaring my shoulders and turning back to the wretched man.
His eyes were glazed over but I wasn't sure whether he was hurt by my reaction or just too far gone to focus on me.
"Sir? Can you hear me?"
His gaze flickered towards me and looked me over once before losing focus again. My hand trembled as I grabbed his shoulder and turned him away from the wall.
"My God!" A large red stain spread across his shoulder and down his chest, partially dried on his shirt. I looked back up to his eyes and saw them flutter shut. Forgetting his face entirely, I wrapped his arm around my shoulders and stood, hoping my strength was enough to support him.
He was dead weight and I could feel my body straining to hold even just his shoulders up. Draped against my back I could feel how low his body temperature truly was and knew in my heart that had I not found this man, he would have been dead before the next sunrise. Even now, I wasn't certain if he could be saved but I intended to do my best.
Ignoring the complaints my body made against such strenuous activity, I continued back the way I had been heading. Each step I took was heavy and slow but I would not give up, knowing that help was not far off. I could not bring myself to care about how much time passed as I half-carried half-dragged him along, but as the sight of the Seine came into view I breathed a sigh of relief. Along the riverbank I could see carts and tents and as I neared, dark heads rushing around amongst them.
As if he could feel my nearness, my father looked up from his work and directly at me. At the sight of me struggling towards him, he dropped his tools and ran for me, calling out to me to stop and wait for him to help me. Ignoring his warning as I always had done, I continued towards him. He was still grumbling about me hurting myself as he reached me and my injured mystery man.
"What in God's name, Alyona?" His dark eyes looked over me with intense care, his concern written plainly in their depths for me to see amidst the soft reprimand.
"Papa, I found this poor man on my way back. I think he has been shot…"
Finally having decided that I was fine, if not a bit mentally disturbed for having brought home a stranger, my father took the man's weight of me and called out for his brother. I watched as my uncle appeared and made his way briskly to us, asking nothing but simply supporting the other half of the unconscious man's weight back to the camp.
Saying nothing aloud, the two brothers hurried their load past the curious glances and words from the others, directly into our family's tent. Placing him on one of the cots, my father began to remove the layers of clothing but my palm on the back of his hand stopped him. He looked up at me sternly but I was past being intimidated by my own father.
I felt like I needed to warn him. "Papa…his face…there is something wrong with his face…"
Turning back to his task, I watched as my father pulled back the hood of the pitch black cloak and uncovered the horror that was this man's face. I was stunned as a soft gasp escaped from him to match my own. Known for his harsh demeanor and tough words, I would not have expected any reaction from my father when he was with his brother but both men seemed stunned by what they saw.
I watched as my father's fingers moved with expert care over the deformity, inspecting it with care but also an aloofness I couldn't quite understand.
"Sweetie, this injury has been with him a long time. I can do nothing for him on that account but his bullet wound I might be able to help."
I nodded to him and he shooed me out of the tent so he could begin his work. I silently prayed for God to give my father strength to deal with the responsibility I had placed in his lap. Then, I did something I had never done before; I prayed for a complete stranger.