I Am David (16 page)

At last his mind grew numb, and as on the road to Salonica, his feet carried him along quite unconsciously.

Suddenly there was nowhere in front of him to set the foot. David threw himself backwards, fell and rolled over. A precipice! He had nearly walked over the edge! Before he had become so exhausted he had been well aware of the danger. Before the snow had begun falling he had seen how easy it was to miss one’s footing and go hurtling down the mountainside.

Not for one second could he afford to relax his attention. He no longer dared to walk, so he crawled onwards on all fours, feeling his way carefully with his hands to make sure he was not near the edge of the precipice.

He did not know how many hours passed in this way. He ached all over, and the snow continued to swirl about him in a howling gale that seemed to cut right into his head. He was blinded and deafened, and the pain of his aching body grew so intense he felt he could not last another minute. It was worse than anything he could think of … worse than the camp, worse even than them. And he could not call on God to help him, for the words were blown away inside his head, swept away into the howling gale and the blinding white hell all around him.

There was no way out but to die. David struck his head against something hard. He fell, and then it snowed no more. A voice cried, “What kind of a young thief’s this staggering about in this sort of weather?” With difficulty David opened his eyes sufficiently to realize he had come across one of them.

Then he knew no more.

That winter was the longest David had ever experienced.

The farmer was an evil-hearted man. David had escaped from the wind and the snow only to be a prisoner in this man’s house. It was the stable-door he had struck his head against, and that stable became his shelter for the winter — and no very good shelter either. All day long he had to work and slave as hard as he could, and a bit harder if possible. The farmer was just like one of them. He used threats to force David to work, and said he would hand him over to the police if he did not obey.

David had now learned how the members of a family spoke to one another, pleasantly and smilingly. There was nothing like that here. The farmer was cold and brutal even to his wife and two children, but David could not feel any particular sympathy for them, for the wife was a clumsy, silent woman with a sharp edge to her tongue, and as for the children — David had never thought it possible for anyone who was still a child to be so evil.

The boy was the younger, and he looked just like his father. He had stiff, straw-coloured hair and very pale blue eyes, and when he played he either destroyed something or got into mischief. He was cruel to the animals, though he knew he would get a hiding if he were found out — not that the farmer had anything against violence as such, but the animals were worth money and so they must not be ill-treated. Yet the boy could not keep his hands off them: his greatest pleasure was causing pain to a living creature.

Johannes had once said that violence and cruelty were just a stupid person’s way of making himself felt, because it was easier to use your hands to strike a blow than to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to a problem.

Nevertheless it made David feel sick to see the boy’s cruelty. And the girl was not much better. True, she was not cruel to the beasts, but she was not kind either. When David considered that she was about the same age as Maria, he was shocked at the difference between them. Maria with her ready smile, full of affection that she lavished on everyone, grown-ups, children, animals — even on a runaway boy … and then this girl who did nothing to please anyone — not even her own mother!

They all treated David like a dog. They threw his food to him and called him names. But they did not lay hands on him. They left him lying in the stable until he had recovered, and then they put him to work. But when during one of the first days he spent there the farmer had been about to strike him, his wife had told him to let the boy be. She had said, “You’re always so stupid, Hans! He can work — I’ll not meddle with that — and the stable’s good enough for him. A young thief like him knows which side his bread’s buttered and he’ll not make a fuss about that. But if you lay hands on him, he’ll murder us all in our beds. You can tell by the look of him! And the youngsters’d do well to keep out of his way if they don’t want to get beaten up, that you may be sure of! You’ve got free labour for the winter, and that’ll have to do. Then we can hand him over to the police in the spring.”

David thought they were all stupid — evil, but stupid as well. If they had touched him, he would have been forced to go out into the snow again and freeze to death, but he would never have used physical violence against them. He hated them, and he would rather have let himself be killed than be like them.

In a way it was amusing. Yes, “amusing” was the right word. Apart from hitting him, they intended to see to it that life was made as wretched for him as they could make it, and yet it was still to his advantage!

He knew now that he could never have lasted through the winter tramping the roads. He would have died of hunger and cold. At least he had shelter here, and food every day.

The stable was cold, and sometimes the snow was blown into drifts until it lay as high as the roof outside. But as it hardened, the stable grew warmer inside, and the animals added a little to the warmth.

He was not given much food, only dry bread or cold scraps, yet he had more to eat than in the camp, and it tasted no worse — sometimes, in fact, a little better.

They thought they were making him suffer by leaving him to sleep alone in the dark stable, but night was his pleasantest time!

David was not afraid of the dark. There were only common everyday objects about him, and the animals asleep. It seemed quite natural: the darkness altered nothing. What he was afraid of was people.

At night-time the stable was his. In the camp he had never been alone, and David liked to be left by himself to think in peace.

Then the dog came.

David had always thought of dogs as enemies — their tools. It was one of their pastimes to make the dogs bite the prisoners. Since his escape into Italy he had of course noticed that good people kept dogs too, but he had always given them a wide berth, just in case.

But shut up in the stable, he could not avoid the dog. It came one night when it was snowing hard and a gale was howling outside. David lay quite still and much against his will let it sniff all round him. the farmer and his family spoke a peculiar kind of German: perhaps that was the reason David spoke to it in Italian.

“I’m afraid of you,” he said softly in as steady a voice as he could muster. “You’re sure to notice I come from the camp, and then you’ll bite me. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” David could see the dog as it went on sniffing round him like a big black shadow against the darkness. Then it lay down by his side, pushing and turning until they were lying back to back. It yawned very loudly, then it gave a sigh and fell asleep.

It did not bite him, and David was not nearly so cold in the night, for the dog was big and kept him warm. It was called King.

It often growled at the farmer’s children, and David knew it was not very fond of the farmer, either, though he rarely struck it, no doubt because it was a good sheepdog, and in the summer when the animals were out to graze he could not do without it.

But whenever the dog saw David, it would wag its tail, and it went to sleep with him every night.

David gradually began to grow fond of it. One evening as he lay awake wondering if the winter would ever come to an end, he held his hand out to the dog when it came to lie down beside him. He did it without thinking. Perhaps he had missed it and wanted it to come and share its warmth with him. He found himself touching its head, feeling the roundness of its skull under his hand and liking the firm warm feel of it. The dog did not move, and David let his hand glide slowly over the dog’s thick coat, just once.

Then he took his hand away and lay still again.

The dog lifted its head and turned towards him, and David felt its warm wet tongue carefully licking his hand.

And so David and the dog became friends.

But David was beginning to grow impatient. It seemed as if that winter would go on for ever, and he wanted to be up and on his way, on and on until he came to Denmark where he would try to find the woman who had changed everything. Then he would no longer be just a boy wandering aimlessly and always appearing strange to other people, but one who knew where he was going to.

He tried to avoid taking it for granted that she would be glad he was still alive, for he obviously could not be sure she would. Having always assumed that he was dead, she might find it difficult to get used to the idea that he was David.

But he found it difficult not to let his thoughts run away with him! Now and then he would find himself in a wonderful, happy day-dream where she would see at once that he was David and would want to love him just as the children’s father and mother loved them. then he would have a place where he belonged and could ask about all the things he did not know. She would say “my son” when she spoke of him, and he need never be afraid again.

And as his thoughts ran on, he would tell himself that she was surrounded with fine things, understood music and loved and appreciated beauty. He thought of all the things he could tell her. He would not want to say anything about the most dreadful things he had seen, but he would talk about Johannes and all that he had seen and learnt since his escape. And about Maria. It would be like staying with Signora Bang, only much, much better, for now he would belong.

There was a king in Denmark, too — it was a free country. If it all turned out like that, there was nothing he could think of good enough to do in return for the God of the green pastures and still waters.

It could not be quite like that, not quite so wonderful, but it would be good. David longed for the winter to pass so that he could be on his way again.

Then one morning the sun crept into the stable through a tiny little window high up under the roof, a window that had been covered thick with frost all the time he had been with the farmer.

David’s heart began to beat faster. As he lay there perfectly still he had the impression that if he moved, that weak little ray of sunshine might disappear. He had not seen the sun for such a long time that he had almost forgotten its existence.

If he got up and stretched as high as he could, he might just be able to touch the pale little beam of light with his hand. Suddenly it was the most important thing in the world to reach up to the sunlight, but however hard he stretched the sun would not reach farther than the tips of his fingers.

That evening as he lay awake, he heard the farmer push the great bar into place across the stable door!

Then David knew that spring was on the way. It would come first to the valley below. The farmer took good care now that David should have no opportunity of looking down there, so that he should not see the signs of spring. Later it would come to the mountain pastures. David worked hard every day, and so the farmer would keep him imprisoned in the stable as long as he could. And when he could no longer hide the fact that spring had come and there was no more snow to help him to guard David, he would call in the police. That would be the end. They would come and take him back to the camp.

David stared into the darkness. He would never get away, never. The bar was as thick as a tree-trunk, and it would take him many, many nights to hack through it with his knife. And the farmer would see where he had worked at it the very first morning.

“God of the green pastures and still waters, why have you done it?” asked David. “What have I done wrong? I rescued Maria from the fire and saved her life so that I could thank you … And all through this long winter I haven’t complained, and I haven’t asked you to make it better, though I’ve got two lots of help left over from that time with Maria … You must know the farmer and his family are evil people and I hate them. And I thought perhaps it was you who got Signora Bang to paint me so that I could find the picture of the woman who was my mother. I chose you, and I can’t alter that now, but I want you to know that I think you’re cruel, just like the farmer here, and Carlo, and all that belong to them. And I suppose you’ll never help me again, even if I do have some help to come, because you’re tired of me. I’m sorry I didn’t choose a better God. I’m David. Amen.”

David felt a little better now. It was good to get it off his chest. Then he began to feel frightened. Suppose God grew terribly angry when he was criticized! Suppose he kept hostages just as they did … then some harm might befall Maria. He couldn’t do very much to David but let him die. Oh, yes, worse than that: he could let him be taken back to the camp and make him live there. But it would be worse still if he did anything to Maria.

But it was true that he was cruel. David had waited patiently all the winter and put up with things without complaining and whimpering. And then God let the farmer bar the door, and it was only at night-time that David could get away.

David wasted two precious nights before he realized where the trouble lay.

And he might have known right away, for Johannes had once told him. They had heard one of the guards put the blame for some neglect of duty on to another who had retorted that it was the fault of a third man, and Johannes had said to David, “Let me never hear you say it’s someone else’s fault. It often is, but you must never shirk your own responsibility. There’s always some way in which you’re at fault, too, and you must discover that fault and learn to recognize it and take the consequences … not only because it’s the only honourable thing to do, but also because it’s the easier way. You can’t change others, but you can do something about a fault in yourself.”

He had told God plainly what the fault was! He had said God was cruel like Carlo and the farmer and all bad people, when perhaps God just wanted to teach him where his own fault lay! He had been cruel himself. He was not the only one who had waited patiently without complaining. Carlo had, too … and David had taken no notice. Carlo had said he was sorry, several times, and David had refused to forgive him. But suppose Carlo was not really evil, suppose he were only rather stupid … He had never tried to get his own back when David would not talk to him. On the contrary, the children’s mother had told their father that Carlo had done his utmost to be good friends with David and had been very upset when David would not respond.