Sightless


All around him he smells salt. It's everywhere, astringent, strong. It smells like home, but stronger. Nicolas puts his hands out in front of him, into the darkness, then turns about, slowly, and finds there's nothing within in an arm's length on any side. He kneels, unsure, and places his hands flat on the ground. He feels sand. It is like home. He lifts a handful and sifts it through his fingers, soft and silky and dry. He isn't terribly near the ocean, then.

He hears footsteps suddenly, and feels a tiny spray of sand as the little girl crashes into him. She's shorter than he is on his knees, and she trembles, and her clothes are torn. She's also crying, and he wraps his arms about her gently. Somehow, it doesn't surprise him that she trusts him and doesn't run away. Of course he's glad she's not afraid of him like his other children, but somehow he knew she'd not be frightened. She sobs into his shoulder, and he strokes her hair.

"Mon enfant..."

She begins to touch his face with one of her hands, even while crying, poking him and pressing her fingers in between his lips and in his ears.

Of course, she's blind as well.

Nicolas feels as though this girl is not his daughter because he adopted her as such, but because he really is her father. He whispers comforts to her, and delicately pushes her hair back from her face, touching it as she did his.

He doesn't have any money in his pockets, but it doesn't matter now. He doesn't need to give anything like that to her. All he needs to do is tell her it's all right, and reassure her with his careful, gentle hands.


Nicolas awakens from the dream slowly, lying on his side in bed. He sits up, almost confused. There's warm coming in the window, so it's morning. He rakes his fingers through his tangled hair, yawning in a contemplative manner.

He dresses, feeling vague, trying to remember everything about the blind girl in the dream. Her hands were dreadfully cold, and thin. He remembers her fingertips poking his eyelids. Suddenly, more than anything, he wants to find her. He's certain she was real.

"As they say, a dream come true. They say it is a wondrous thing to have one's dream come true," he mumbles to himself, tying his cravat. Evidentially, though the warm in the window proves the sun to be out, it's early, for otherwise Combeferre would be here, making sure he's all right. Nicolas rubs the back of his hand over his chin, feels the roughness. He steps over to the chair by his bed, takes his overcoat from it, and pulls the coat on. It's a better overcoat that one stolen from him a month ago. Longer. Bigger pockets.

He walks to the door and slips out happily. Freedom is waking up early in the morning.

And this morning, he's going to search for his dream.

Nicolas wanders the streets as he always does, going to the same places he always goes to, kneeling in the same spot he always does, feeling stone instead of sand beneath his knees. He holds out his hands with money, and refuses sternly to allow even the quick retreats to hurt him.

When his children are gone, he stays for a little while, thinking of them. He does love them so. Soon, soon he will free them. He will give them all happiness, and see that they are taken care of. He will look after them, as a father should.

It occurs to him that the best way to find his dream is to ask for her, instead of waiting for her to come to him. Perhaps he is a bit fanciful in believing a dream can come true, but he chooses to be logical now and not rely on coincidence to find the dream.

He wanders, in his usual way, to a new place, where there will be new children, and gives to them most of what he has left. He gently catches the sleeve of the last boy to leave.

"Monsieur," his son protests.

"Mon garcon. Is there a blind gamine in this city?"

"Probably loads. Don't see how they live, though."

Nicolas pauses at the momentary setback. "Can you tell me where one of them might be?" he asks at last, disturbing the boy's efforts to tug away.

"'Course. There's one living in an alley by the Rue de St. Jacques."

"Merci, merci." Nicolas gives him a few coins more, and the boy escapes.

Nicolas begins his quest.

He asks, every few streets, if he's still going in the right direction, and it's affirmed, or else he's turned about. At length he finds the Rue de St. Jacques, and feels his way along the walls of the houses, venturing a bit into each alley. Finally, he hears movement in the back of one and reassuringly tells the unseen, "Don't be afraid." He continues forward, fingertips just brushing the wall.

New footsteps approach, haltingly, and the girl's voice asks, "Who are you?"

Nicolas stops in surprise. She's far older than he imagined. Her voice is far older. Almost fourteen, perhaps.

"Nicolas. I..."

She stops before him, and reaches out to touch his face. "Nicolas?" Her fingers explore his ears and the curve of his lips just as his dream did. She makes him think of himself. But her fingers are bleeding ones, like others that touched his coat, and he pities her and loves her, because she is his daughter. "I don't know you, though."

"I am also blind." He, in turn, lifts his fingers to her face. He feels as though he were surrounded by snow: everything is quiet, in a muffled sort of way. It's as though they were singled out.

Her face is cold; her nose is cold, her lips are cold, her eyelids and forehead and ears are cold. Her lips are also chapped and also bleeding a little. She speaks again while his fingers are touching them, and he startles at the movement.

"Oh, but... Then I don't understand. Did you come looking for me?"

"Yes..."

"Because I'm blind?"

"Yes. Because I dreamed of a blind girl, and I wanted to know if she existed. But you're only half-her. You're different," he adds.

The girl laughs, and it's such an odd thing, to hear her laugh. Her voice seems as though it weren't meant for laughing. Not that it sounds meant for weeping, but that it sounds odd to hear her laugh with it. Nicolas blushes.

"I'm sorry, monsieur, that I'm not the right girl."

"It doesn't matter," Nicolas whispers. Everything he has left in the nice, large pockets, everything he can gather up he does, and he takes one of her hands and presses it all upon her. "I apologise."

For a moment, he expects her to refuse, but she doesn't; there is the faintest of rustlings as she puts it, he supposes, in her skirt pocket. "Merci, monsieur."

"Merci, mon fille." He retreats back into the open street, hearing her harsh, odd laughter behind him. He wanders back along the streets, sighing just a little, and feeling strangely disillusioned.

It's not always good to have your dream come true.


Chapter Seven.
Back to Chapter Five.