I Am David (6 page)

But now there was no longer any reason to obey him. Or was there? The bundle had lain under the tree, and when he had gone south he had come to Salonica. And there had been a ship sailing for Italy. He had not yet discovered any trap the man had set for him — but perhaps there was one in that country called Denmark. It was all very puzzling and David could find no answer.

“But I’ve no need to worry about that now,” he said to himself. “If the bit of Italy I’ve been in so far juts out into the sea as I think it does, then I’d better go more to the east, for that’s the direction the land seems to follow.”

On this side of the peninsula, too, the road wound along on a kind of shelf above the sea. David crossed it, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground — he might find an orange, and he had not much food left. He did find one — he found a tree covered in them! He had not realized that they grew on trees. There was not much traffic up on the road, only an occasional car passing by, and the lowest branches of the tree were within reach and easy to climb. David picked two oranges so as to have one in reserve. Then he found a comfortable place to sit on a flat rock and settled down to his breakfast. A little bit of bread, water — fresh and clear, not muddy and tasteless like the water in the camp — and then an orange to finish with.

But he had better be on his way; if they had begun to search for him he must get away quickly. they had no photographs they could recognize him by — that was a point in his favour. He stood up and as he stumbled over a loose stone his compass went flying over the edge of the rock where he had been sitting. Before he could put his hand out to catch it it was too late.

All he could do was to follow it with his eyes until it disappeared into the sea so far below that he could not even hear the plop.

The sea was very deep under the rocks, and David knew he would never find it again. He sat for a long time staring at the place where it had disappeared. He was lost now. Now he would go round in circles and keep coming back to the same place. And they would find him.

He had had so little. Now he had nothing; nothing at all to safeguard his freedom.

“God!” he said softly. “Oh, God!”

He did not know why. It was what the men sometimes said in the camp when they were most in despair. But as for himself, he had no God.

And no compass either. Freedom was precious, and he had nothing to defend it with.

Then David decided that he must have a god: it might help. But which God should he choose? It was important to find the right one. If only he had listened more carefully to what the men had talked about in the camp! He had been interested only in learning new words. If he had asked more questions, he would have learnt a lot more.

What gods did he know of? The one the Jews had made so many demands to in return for his help? And what had David to give? Nothing! And if you were not a Jew, perhaps you had no right to choose him. The God of the Catholics seemed to leave things to a woman called Mary. Not that David had anything against women, but as he knew so little about them it might be better to choose one who looked after things himself. Johannes should have taught him something about God. Instead, he had only told him about a man, also called David, who had lived a long time ago. David dug into his memory: when he thought hard he could recall many of the things Johannes had said. Was not there something about a god, too, in that story about David? Something in rather difficult words — he had always liked new words that were long and strange: he enjoyed finding out what they meant.

Suddenly it came back to him. That other David had said of his God, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

He was the one he would choose!

Clutching his orange tightly, he first looked round to make sure there was no one who could overhear him, and then said in a low voice, “God of the green pastures and the still waters, I am David and I choose you as my God! But you must please understand that I can’t do anything for you, because I’ve always been in a wicked place where no one could think or learn or get to know anything, and I know nothing about what people ought to do for their God. But the David Johannes used to talk about knew that even if he couldn’t see you, you were there and were stronger than any men. I pray you will help me so that they won’t catch me again. Then perhaps I can gradually find out about you so that I can do something in return. And if you know where Johannes is now, will you please thank him for me for going with me to Salonica, and tell him that now I’m free I can think about him again. I am David. Amen.”

Perhaps it was a mistake to say “amen” because that was what Catholics did, but David knew it was a holy word, and if you did not have an ending God would not know when you had finished your prayer.

He felt a sense of relief and added strength just as he had the morning he had determined to go on living. He was glad he had thought of it: a god would be a lot better than a compass … though, of course, it would have been nice to have both.

During the course of the evening he had almost reached the point where the coastline bore to the left, and from the position of the sun he could see that if he continued in the same direction he would be going roughly north-west. Every evening, and every morning, too, when he woke up, he would be able to tell by the sun which way he was going: he would manage even if he had lost his compass.

It had been a good day. Everywhere had been beautiful, and in a little town he had found one of those water-taps that people drank from. Perhaps there was one in every town. And he had not met them anywhere. There had not been any cars of the sort they rode in either, and David once again felt sure that he would pull through and might remain free for a long time yet.

Bread was his chief problem. There was so much to eat in Italy that people would leave food lying about without realizing it — an orange or a tomato — but never bread, and bread you had to have if you were not to starve.

David sat down by the roadside. People often did that, so he felt free to do so, too. After a while he took the precaution of lying flat on his stomach and facing the road, making sure he could quickly duck out of sight if anything came along. He lay thinking about various things. During the course of that day he had discovered that unless a town were very small its name appeared on a notice some distance ahead, and if there were only one figure after the name then the town was not very far off. The figure, he thought, perhaps meant how many kilometres you had to go. He thought, too, that if he did not find any bread the next day, he would have to ask God for some. Meanwhile dusk was falling rapidly, and a car suddenly pulled up within a few yards of where he lay.

David ducked. A man got out of the car and began rummaging in the boot. David raised his head — he was quite an ordinary man, not one of them. The man made a sudden movement and David heard him mutter, “Blast, my spectacles …!”

He spoke in English, not Italian. As he watched him groping about in the half-light along the edge of the road, David rose to his feet. When people wore spectacles, they could not see anything without them.

“I’ll help you to find your spectacles.”

The man straightened, bent towards him and peered into his face. David cast his eyes down, drew back slightly and wished he had thought first. But the man smiled and said, “Thank you very much! It’s not much good looking for glasses when you haven’t got them on, is it?” David answered, “No,” politely, and set about searching the edge of the road carefully until he came across them. The man had stepped over to the car and was talking to someone inside as David stood by with the glasses in his hand. Was he one of them after all? Could he escape? How far could he get? It was only a second before the stranger turned round and said, “Can’t you find them? If you can’t, my wife will drive …”

David stepped slowly forward. “Here they are,” he said, and added hesitantly, “Sir.” The man put the glasses on and smiled again, and David felt sure he was not one of them. He had quite a different look about him: David could not imagine him striking or shooting anyone. He now felt in his pocket, took something out and offered it to David. A coin lay in his hand. “You must have something for your trouble,” he said.

“No,” said David quickly, stepping back. “I mean — no, thank you.”

The stranger looked a little disconcerted, then he smiled and said in that case David must accept his thanks and asked if he would like to say, “How do you do?” to his wife.

David did not really want to, but as he did not know how to say so, he went with him to the car. A woman sat inside: she was not beautiful like the women of Italy, but she had a pleasant clean smell and it was not yet too dark for him to see that she was smiling. So David said good evening to her.

Then the man spoke to her in French. He asked her if she had ever before come across a little Italian tramp who spoke English with an Oxford accent and was offended when he was offered money.

David was just about to say that he had not been offended, when he decided not to. Since they already thought it strange that he spoke English, it was better not to let them see that he understood French as well.

They asked him what he was called and who he was. David replied that his name was David and he was on his way to join a circus farther north. Fortunately they did not seem very interested, and apparently taking a hint from the brevity of his answer they questioned him no more. Instead they told him they came from England, were on holiday and would shortly have to return. Then the woman suggested they should have something she called “sandwiches”. These turned out to be food — slices of bread with something between them. They asked David if he would like one, and he said, “Yes, please.”

They seemed pleased when David accepted their offer, and David thought they might be willing to answer a question if he put one to them.

“Is there a king in England?” he inquired.

The man told him that at the moment there was a queen because the last king had had no sons, only daughters. She was a good queen, he said, and beautiful, too, and she had a very fine golden crown.

David looked at him in surprise. What did it matter what she had? All that really mattered was that the people of England were free, as people always were in those countries that had kings — or, of course, queens.

He ate the last mouthful. “I’ve finished, sir. Can I go now?”

The woman leaned over towards him. “Yes, of course you can. But … David, I would like to see you smile.”

David felt awkward: her face had an anxious look, as if she were waiting for him to give her something. But he had nothing to give.

“I … I’m sorry: I don’t know how to do it.” He turned away slightly and asked again, “Can I go now, sir?”

In a low voice the woman said rapidly in French, “Donald, we can’t let him go like that. He’s about the same age as our own boys. He might be English. You can see he’s not an ordinary little tramp. Those eyes … can’t you see his eyes?”

The man laid his hand on hers and broke in. “Yes, I can, and the boy’s frightened: the longer you keep him here, the more frightened he grows. We can’t get mixed up in it, Alice, and I’m sure he’s not English.”

Then to David, “You’re not English, David, are you?”

Almost before he had finished speaking, David answered quickly, “No, sir. There was a man in the … in the circus who was English.” He had very nearly said “in the camp” but corrected himself in time. “Won’t you let me go? I didn’t take your food before you said I could.”

“Of course you may go, David.” The man’s voice sounded almost like Johannes’. “If there were any way in which we could help you, you would tell us, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. There isn’t. Thank you. Goodbye.” He was in such a hurry to get away, he stumbled over his words. Then off he ran before they could stop him again. He ran back along the road, and before he reached the first bend he lay down in the ditch and looked back at the car. It stayed there a long time before it drove off.

It was growing quite dark now.

David began to clamber slowly down the slope towards the sea to find himself a place to sleep in for the night. He was thinking about the strangers — English people from a free country. they were obviously kind, and yet they did not seem willing to let him go, especially the woman. She seemed to think she ought to keep him there. David could not understand it … but when he searched his mind for what he knew about countries that were free, he found the answer: in those countries they had a kind of police force to help those who had not done anything wrong. She was only there on holiday, and perhaps she had no idea how different things were in other countries. The thought was comforting: he had been alarmed at the idea that she would deliberately set out to ensnare him — there would be a sort of treachery in giving him food and smiling at him and then seeking to hold on to him. But if she were ignorant of the situation, then there was nothing sinister in what she had done. Only he must take more care and remember not to look at people long enough for them to notice his eyes. It would be helpful to find a mirror — if he knew what was wrong with his eyes he might be able to do something about it. And he would have to learn to smile: people had sometimes smiled at him in the town, and then they had looked put out as if they regretted having done it. If you could smile back every time people smiled at you, perhaps they would take less notice of you.

David was just on the point of falling asleep when what seemed a very important idea struck him. The Englishman had wanted to give him money! He had refused it, to be sure, but only because he had had such a … such a strong impulse to do something quite voluntarily for another person … not to be ordered to do it, but to do it without anyone saying he had to. It had felt almost like possessing something, something so big that he could give some of it away. If he had taken the money, it would not have felt the same. But in future he might be able to find things to do that he could get money for: then he could buy bread every day. He would not be able to avoid people, of course, but if only he could get to the bottom of what was wrong with his eyes and learn how to smile, then perhaps he would manage after all.