The Ice Swan

by J'nell Ciesielski

  “Miss!” Wynn hurried toward her. “You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

  Clutching her shawl, the woman hobbled across the street and slipped between the gates to the Parc Monceau. Wynn raced after her. She was quick, darting among the trees and their shadows until breaking through the tall black gate on the opposite side. By the time he reached the gate, she had vanished across the five-point intersection of Rue de Courcelles and Avenue Hoche. Commonly filled with the clatter of carriages and carts and pedestrians, it lay empty in the hours after curfew.

  How could an injured woman move that fast? The injury was most likely bleeding. He scanned the ground. Drops of blood leading down Avenue Hoche. Feeling all too much like a hound, he followed the wet trail until it turned down an alleyway. The tall, surrounding buildings closed around him as he slipped down the narrow passage and emerged into a small courtyard behind a squat building with conical roofs topped by gold balls and crosses. A church. A Russian Orthodox church, to be exact. He’d never been in this neighborhood before.

  The woman crept from a dark corner of the courtyard. Her limp had worsened and she was breathing hard. She needed medical attention.

  A siren exploded in the distance. Hospital alarm. Wounded conveys incoming, which meant all hands to the operating theater.

  There were other doctors. Wynn wasn’t needed despite the urging in his veins. He stepped into the courtyard and collided into a set of rubbish bins. The metal lids clattered to the stone ground.

  The woman dashed across the courtyard and yanked at a cellar door at the back of the church.

  “Wait!” Wynn called.

  The woman rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. The sound of a rusty lock clicked in place.

  The siren sounded again. He could ignore it no longer. With one last frustrating glance to the door, Wynn took off running back to hospital.

  The operating theater bustled with activity until the wee hours of the morning. Soldiers from the offense exploding around Reims. Sometime around five, after his last patient was carried off to a recovery room, Wynn dozed off in a corner chair only to be awakened by the gentle shaking of a nurse.

  “Doctor, there’s no need for you to remain. Please go home and rest.”

  A flock of Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses had descended to clean and tidy the once grand dining room that was now filled with operating tables, surgical tools, and apparatuses imperative to his work. Only a bin filled with filthy and bloody bandages served as proof to the night’s frantic endeavors.

  Wynn came awake in an instant. A habit forged in occupational necessity. “I’ll check on my patients first. There was one head case—”

  “Doctor Byeford is doing a round and has promised to alert you if there is a need. Shoo, Doctor.”

  “Aye-aye, Sister.” Pushing to his feet, he gave her a mock salute. One never argued with the Sisters. The medical staff would be hopeless without them.

  After discarding his surgical apron, mask, and gloves and a good scrubbing of the hands, Wynn made for the front door with his bed calling to him. This time he might actually make it.

  “We don’t take your kind here. Find the All Saint’s Chapel. They’re taking on cases likes yours.” A baby-faced lieutenant straight out of medical school blocked the front steps to what appeared to be two women wrapped in colorful shawls despite the summer air.

  “Please. She cannot make it so far,” said the taller one. Russian. And highly cultured from the sound of it.

  “I’m sure you’ve a mystic in your traveling caravan to chant over your troubles. What was that chap’s name? Rasputin? I hear he took real good care of your Imperial family. Especially the tsarina.”

  “You know nothing of which you speak, impudent slovach.” The woman’s tone was brittle as an icicle.

  Wynn stepped forward before the lieutenant could further prove his worthlessness. “May I be of assistance?”

  The little man whipped around and paled. “Doctor MacCallan. I was telling these people that their needs will be better assisted at the refugee chapel in Paris. Where their kind are.”

  “That’s over eight kilometers from here.”

  “Yes, sir, but they can’t—”

  Wynn sidestepped his blethering. “What needs have you, ladies?” Any further words stuck in Wynn’s throat as the woman turned to face him. The early gray morning light sculpted her like white marble just as she had appeared a few hours before, falling in the street. In a word, breathtaking. “You!”

  “I beg pardon?” She didn’t recognize him. Her ice blue gaze held him with a haughtiness that bespoke a life of bowing down to no one. Tall and slender, she held herself like an aristocrat.

  He wanted nothing more than to get to the bottom of her midnight escapade, but not standing on the front steps for all of France to see. He dragged his attention to the other woman with a face full of wrinkles and a wrapped hand cradled to her bosom. The one in need of medical attention. “Come inside. Please.”

  The lieutenant moved to block the steps. “But, sir—”

  Wynn pinned him with a superior look of disgust. He hated throwing his rank around, but in this weasel’s case he was willing to make an exception. “You may resume your duties. Bed pans, was it?”

  Scowling, the lieutenant scurried off. Wynn stood aside and swept his arm toward the hospital entrance. “Ladies. After you.”

  Anchoring her arm around the older woman, the younger lady guided her up the remaining steps and glided into the hospital. Or glided as best she could while favoring her right leg.

  The Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, or VAD, glanced up from reception. A welcoming smile on her young face. “Back so soon, Doctor?”

  “Can’t keep me away. I’ll be in my office for examination.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Under ordinary circumstances Wynn would never allow a patient into the private sanctum of the medical staff, but every available room was stuffed to the brim with wounded Tommies. Plus, there was one other rather alarming reason he didn’t wish to open his work quarters. At least not to ladies.

  Wynn swung open the door and winced. Shoved together in the center of the room were two desks, littered with clamps, linens, and glass bottles of carbolic lotion and disinfectant. Maps of France, battlefields, and train depots were tacked to the walls, and an overflow of charts were stacked on the desks. The results of doctors being too busy binding up patients to hassle with paperwork.

  “Excuse the mess. This is what happens when you throw in two bachelors and hope for the best.”

  The young woman’s gaze scanned around the room before cutting to him and revealing a razor-sharp intellect. “Are you a doctor?”

  “Hope so. Otherwise I’m going to be in trouble when they find me in here.” Her expression didn’t crack. Tough crowd. Shuffling the papers off his chair and abandoning them to the abyss of Gerard’s desk, Wynn pulled out a chair and indicated for the old woman to sit.

  She shuffled forward and plopped down, clinging to her injured hand. Wynn gave her a quick assessment: ashy skin, cracked lips, dry eyes, onset of arthritis. Frizzy gray hair receding under a black shawl tied under a sagging chin. Worn but sturdy clothes. Cracked boots and hunched back. Diagnosis? Accustomed to hard work and plain food. A meager lifestyle, but not poor. Until now.

  Kneeling, he took her hand and gently unwrapped the cloth to reveal a cut forefinger and thumb. Bright red blood trickled from the cuts as air hit the skin. He quickly rewrapped it. “Squeeze to keep pressure on it.” Rummaging through the supplies, he scrounged up fresh gauze, linen strips, lysol swabs, and ointment and set them on the desk next to her. “How did you cut yourself?”

  Neither woman said a word.

  Wynn reached for the stained cloth around the old woman’s hand. She slapped him away and pointed at the younger woman, speaking in fervent Russian. The younger woman shook her head, seeming to argue as she tried to draw attention back to the old woman’s hand. Exasperated, the old woman yanked a
t the young woman’s skirt. It was then that Wynn noticed the tear and the stain of blood.

  The injury from when she fell before running away from him. An injury she was now trying to hide in favor of her elder companion’s wound. Admirable, but pride had no function in the medical ward.

  “I’d like to exam your leg,” Wynn said.

  “See to her first.”

  “Miss, you’re bleeding and limping, which is a more serious case. Your companion is well enough for now.”

  Those ice blue eyes cut into him, assessing his capability of determining such a conclusion no doubt. Only with a tug from the old woman did she acquiesce and take a seat in the chair Wynn pulled out from Gerard’s desk.

  Though dressed simply in blue and gray, her clothes were of a fine quality despite the hole torn over her shin. Ladies were not often found begging in the streets. If she wanted to maintain a sense of mystery, she had perfected the art.

  Attend to her medical issue. He was a doctor first, for crying out loud. “Will you lift your skirt, please?”

  Lips pursed in distaste at his choice of words—he hated saying them himself—she lifted the hem of her skirt to just below her knee. Thin, cotton stockings covered her shapely legs, but one had been rolled down to expose a piece of glass embedded in the shin. A thick, green paste had been applied to the area, but bright red dots of blood trickled down her leg. The fragment had most likely loosened during her walk to hospital.

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “We won’t need to amputate after all.”

  She gasped. “It is not so bad.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “You are funny.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I did not mean it as a compliment.”

  “Well, that’s put me in my place.” Moving to the stack of supplies, Wynn found an extraction kit complete with forceps, iodine, gauze, linen, and suturing needle. He’d used these on shrapnel patients more times than he cared to count. This would be the first on a woman.

  “How did you come by the injury?” He was fairly certain he knew the answer, but how far to prod? Forthcoming with information the woman was not.

  Panic flashed across her face. She quickly smoothed it over. “I fell.”

  “On a bottle?”

  “There are many things on the ground that should not be there and I tripped.”

  Clearly she didn’t want to confess the true origin of her injury. He would respect her desire for privacy. For now. Rubbing his hands with a few drops of iodine, Wynn quickly laid out his tools in order of necessity, then patted the top of his desk.

  “Apologies for not having a proper examination table, but this will have to do.”

  Maneuvering gracefully to sit atop the desk, she then straightened out her legs with toes pointed and back straight as a board. Impeccable posture considering the pain she must be in.

  Using the forceps, Wynn dipped a pad of gauze into the iodine.

  “This will sting a wee bit.” He swabbed the area around the wound. She didn’t flinch. Good. That was the easy part. “Now, with your right forefinger and thumb I want you to pinch the skin between said fingers on your opposite hand. Pinch as hard as you dare.”

  “This will help my leg how?”

  “It’s part of the procedure. Trust me.” It had nothing whatsoever to do with the procedure but gave patients a task to occupy them for the seconds he needed to extract the foreign object. No one had ever questioned him before. Taking a firm grip on the forceps, Wynn pinched the glass and tugged. It moved slightly. The woman made a slight noise in her throat. “Are you squeezing?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was tight. He knew how painful it must be, brave girl.

  Steadying himself for the required exertion, Wynn gave a mighty yank. The glass pulled free. Bright red blood spilled out. He wiped the area clean as best he could, then made a neat row of quick sutures before dabbing on more iodine and wrapping a clean bandage around her leg. He pulled her skirt down for modesty and stepped back.

  “All done.”

  The woman’s white fingers were latched around the edges of his desk, her mouth a colorless slash across her pale face.

  Wynn gently touched her shoulder. “You can breathe now.”

  She took a deep breath, breaking free from the protective shell of silence the wounded often enclosed themselves within to endure a procedure. “Thank you.”

  “Care for the souvenir?” Wynn pointed at the jagged bit of bottle. Dirty piece of work that. The Frenchwoman who threw it ought to be forced to crawl over the fragments herself.

  “It is common to keep an object of such torment?”

  “Many of the soldiers do with their shrapnel and bullets. I wrap the items in a strip of cloth and tie it around the patient’s arm after surgery. It’s a badge of honor that they like to show the folks back home.”

  “It is not a reminder I need.” Smoothing her skirts, she eased off the desk in one fluid movement.

  Wynn turned to his other patient with an encouraging smile. “Now, madam, it’s your turn.” Kneeling, he quickly unwrapped the older woman’s hand. The bleeding had stopped to reveal clean but deep cuts. The kind only slivered glass or metal could inflict. “How did she receive this?”

  The young woman hesitated. “She tried to remove the glass from my leg. In Russia she is considered a great healer.”

  “It was you who concocted that green paste.” Wynn held up the linen he’d used to clean away the mixture. The old woman nodded in a knowing manner and replied in Russian.

  “A mash of yarrow mixed with comfrey water,” the young woman translated.

  “Good work,” Wynn said.

  The young woman translated softly in Russian, each word brightening the old woman’s face. She seemed to ask a question in return.

  The young woman nodded. “Da, babushka.”

  Grinning to reveal a missing tooth, the old woman patted Wynn’s cheek with her free hand. Dabbing more iodine onto a clean swatch of gauze, he cleaned her cuts. A hiss of air escaped her cracked lips.

  A thick braid of pale blond slipped over the young woman’s shoulder as she bent close to the old woman’s ear. “Uspokoysya, babushka.”

  Wynn nodded in encouragement. “You’re doing fine, Mrs. Babushka.”

  The young woman’s eyebrows drew together. “Why do you call her this?”

  “Is that not her name?”

  “Babushka is Russian for ‘grandmother.’”

  “Oh. Forgive me. I meant no disrespect.”

  “It is very respectful to call older generations this in recognition of their wisdom.”

  “What a relief. My own grandmother would’ve skelped me if I dared to call her something so informal in public. A great protector of propriety, she was.”

  The old woman looked up at the younger lady and asked something. Nodding, the younger lady spoke quickly, gesturing to Wynn a few times. As she finished translating, the old woman’s face crackled into a smile.

  She patted Wynn’s cheek. “Golubchik.”

  “Mrs. Varjensky says you are sweet.”

  Wynn bowed over the injured hand still in his grasp. “A pleasure, Mrs. Varjensky. I’m Edwynn MacCallan, but I prefer Wynn.”

  “Golubchik.” Mrs. Varjensky patted his cheek again, then indicated the younger woman. “Yeyo Spokoystviye Printsessa Svetlana Dmitrievna Dalsky.”

  Did she say princess?

  The young woman blanched and placed a hand on Mrs. Varjensky’s shoulder. “Svetlana Dalsky. Please.”

  Brow wrinkling, Mrs. Varjensky rattled off a string of Russian, which Svetlana’s response quickly combated.

  Taking it as a conversation on the forgoing of noble titles that he wasn’t intended to hear, Wynn grabbed a bandage and quickly wrapped Mrs. Varjensky’s hand.

  “It may take a few days to heal, but if the pain worsens you and your grandmother—”

  “She is not my grandmother,” Svetlana said.

  “No? I thought . . . Well
, that’s me with both feet in my mouth now.”

  She glanced down at his feet. “What does this mean with feet still on the ground? They are too large and unsanitary for such a task.”

  “It’s an expression. Means I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.”

  “We are speaking. Why would you wish to remain silent?”

  “I don’t translate into Russian very well, do I?” Wynn laughed and set about tidying the used supplies before Gerard could come in and question the impromptu surgery. “It means I say the wrong thing sometimes. Not usually on purpose. Don’t tell me you’ve never slipped and said something you shouldn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “I have been trained out of the habit.” Taking Mrs. Varjensky’s arm, she helped the old woman to her feet. “How much do we owe you?”

  Wynn waved his hand. “On the house.” At Svetlana’s confused look around the room, he clarified. “We don’t charge for patients in need at wartime.”

  “Spasibo. Thank you.”

  “Spasibo, golubchik,” repeated Mrs. Varjensky with another pat to Wynn’s cheek.

  Wynn followed them out into the grand lobby turned waiting room. The smell of eggs and bacon drifted from the industrial-size kitchen as breakfast was readied for the patients.

  With the immediate distraction of wounds and blood taken care of, Wynn’s curiosity about the previous night swung back at full force. “Allow me to escort you. I would call for a carriage or one of those new motorcars, but most of them have been commandeered to support the frontlines.”

  Svetlana pulled her colorful shawl over her head. “That is not necessary. We can find our way on foot.”

  “You may be able to find your way, but I’d rather not find you tottered off into a gutter come morning. Doctor’s orders.” That and he had no intention of allowing two injured women to wander down the road alone. Paris was far enough from the frontline, but that didn’t make the streets safe.

  “If you insist.” Without waiting, Svetlana took Mrs. Varjensky’s arm and left the building, leaving Wynn to follow in their wake.