I Am David Read online

  Don’t think, don’t think! David clenched his hands, gripping a tuft of grass. He mustn’t think at all, for if he did, there was only one thing to think about — that he would not be able to run any farther. Why had they not caught him the night he crossed the bridge? He could not swim, so the bridge had been his only way over the river, and he had been quite sure he would be caught there. Yes, that had been the only restful moment in all those long days and nights — crossing that bridge and feeling certain they would catch him.

  But no one had come.

  David’s feet were no longer part of him. When he himself cared no more, his feet followed their own path independently, stealing along noiselessly, confidently, guiding his body so that he kept to the shadows and avoided obstacles, stopping him in time, or urging him on whenever he felt he would rather lie down and wait till he was caught.

  And his feet had carried him over the bridge.

  He clenched his teeth. “Salonica!” he whispered and went on repeating the word over and over again to himself until it seemed to fill his brain. “Go south till you reach Salonica. Think of nothing else!”

  At that moment the sound of a car pulling up caused him to stiffen. Was he far enough from the road?

  Then he heard voices. He was so terrified he nearly jumped out of his skin. He was quite unused to the sound of voices by this time; the last he had heard were the guard’s and the man’s.

  But these were different, and they were coming nearer! David relaxed completely so that he would make as little noise as possible, and as he did so he thought that in a moment all would be over — everything.

  The men sat down a little way off and lit cigarettes, and it gradually dawned upon David that they were not looking for him at all. He began to listen to what they were saying. He found it difficult to follow them since their speech differed from the man’s, but after a while David was able to distinguish words that were familiar to him.

  They drove a delivery van, like the men who brought supplies to the camp. They were arguing now, but with no great heat: one of them wanted to drive on, and the other wanted to visit someone first in the town David had seen nearby. In the end he got his way; the first man said he would go with him, but only for half an hour as it was a long way home.

  Like an echo of his own thoughts, David caught the word “Salonica”!

  The next thing he was fully aware of was that he was sitting in the van as it began to move off.

  *

  The men had driven towards the town, and David had allowed his feet to carry him mechanically after the van. It had stopped on the outskirts of the town, and when the two men disappeared into a house, David’s feet gathered speed until he reached it.

  And now he had a lift! There had been lights in the houses but no one had seen him. The van door had not been locked, and although the back of the van was well filled with packing-cases, there was room enough for David to squeeze himself between two of them and squat on the floor. And now he was on his way … It was pitch-dark inside, both because it was night and because the packing-cases covered the little window in the partition that separated the back of the van from the cab where the men were sitting. Even if they opened the door from the outside, they would not be able to see David without moving all the packing-cases. It was a strange feeling, sitting quite still and being carried along. David had seen cars and lorries, but he had never ridden in one, nor in any other kind of vehicle, and just as it occurred to him that he had no idea how he was going to get out again, he began to feel sleepy — dreadfully sleepy. He strove to keep awake as long as he could, but the even purr of the engine and the swaying and jolting of the van proved too much. He was asleep.

  He had no idea how long he slept. He woke because the engine sounded different, as if it were starting up. But surely it could not have been very long? He had lost the habit of sleeping at night. With infinite care, in almost imperceptibly small jerks, he pushed aside the packing-case nearest the cab where the men were sitting, until he had made a narrow opening through which, when he put one eye to it, he could see a strip of the little window. No, it was still night: it was dark where the men were sitting, too.

  If he could only get out before it was day, before they opened the van and found him …

  He suddenly knew what it felt like to be in one of the cells they had talked about in the camp — locked in, doubled up in inky blackness without being able to move, without being able to die.

  “Johannes!” he whispered. “Johannes …”

  Ever since he was small, for three whole winters and summers, he had known that he must not allow himself to think, and above all that he must never think about Johannes. And now he had done it.

  David let his head sink upon his chest and tried to fight against the flood of memory that poured over him, the terror, the hatred, the frightening questions that burned like fire within him. And through it all, Johannes … Johannes smiling; Johannes who, if his voice had grown lifeless and grating like the others, had never changed inside himself; Johannes to whom you could say anything — and Johannes who at last had fallen to the ground and remained lying there, dead.

  Never since that day had David thought about him. that night, when they were all in bed, he had gone out into the yard and looked at the spot where Johannes had fallen. He had been standing there for a long time when the man had come along and seen him.

  “He died of a heart attack,” he said. “Clear off now and get to bed!”

  Since that day David had never thought about anything but mealtimes and the changing of the guard. At first it had made him ill, but later he had grown used to it. Why should it have come back to him just at this moment when all that mattered was getting to Salonica?

  The voice came from somewhere far away. “I’m going with you to Salonica.” David was not even sure it was Johannes’ voice, so far away did it sound; but he knew it must have been because he suddenly felt exactly as he had done when he was small and Johannes was with him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  And after that it was easy. He found a packing-case that had not been properly nailed down. It contained some kind of food, round and firm, that tasted like a bit of cheese David had once had in the camp. He cut off a piece with his knife, as big a piece as he could get into his handkerchief. The men stopped the van while it was still dark and left it without opening the door at the back. So David jumped out and found himself in the middle of a large town, and, being careful to walk in the shadow of the houses — for there was no call to be foolhardy even if Johannes were with him — he had no difficulty in finding the harbour where the ships lay. There was a water-tap on the way, too: David watched a man turn it on and drink, and when he had gone and the street was quiet again, David was able to walk over to it and fill his bottle.

  The ship he was to find needed no searching for either: it lay right in front of him and on its stern he saw the word “Italy” painted in large white letters. And it was made fast to the quayside with a great thick rope, ready for David to climb up as soon as the man on watch had gone to the other end of the ship. All David needed to do was to find a length of twine to tie his bundle about his waist while he was climbing. The watchman did not hear him; no one heard him, and down in the bottom of the ship there was a great dark room filled with so many packing-cases that he could barely squeeze himself in.

  At first David was anxious to discover if there were any windows down there, but then he realized that he was now below the water-line and so of course there weren’t any … The time had now come for him to open the last of his treasures, his box of matches.

  He took care to shield the flame with his hands as he had so often seen the camp-guards do, and to use no more than one or two matches, since he must be sparing with them.

  He saw case after case, stacked right up to the deck above … and there were sacks as well. He found a corner where there were only a couple of sacks, and where he could stay well hidden even if someone came i
nto the hold. But that was hardly likely to happen — not before they reached Italy. The sacks and cases were all clearly bound for Italy. Just as the second match died out, David caught sight of a large half-filled bottle standing on the edge of a case. He put his bundle down on the sacks, stretched on tiptoe to reach it, uncorked it and thrust his finger inside the neck. He sniffed his finger cautiously. Perhaps he could drink it. David took the bottle down and settled himself comfortably on his sacks. It would be a good thing to have if he were to be at sea for any length of time.

  The noise of the engines woke David, but not until the ship was well under way did he lose the strange dream-like sensation that had been with him ever since the moment in the van when he had suddenly recalled Johannes. Then he knew what had happened. Sitting bolt upright on his sack, his eyes at first wide open and then closed in the darkness, he knew that Johannes was no longer with him — he had stayed behind in Salonica!

  David struggled with all his might against the fear that grew within him. He told himself over and over again, “He promised nothing more: he only said he would stay with me till we got to Salonica.”

  But it did not help. All the coldness and darkness and infinite loneliness of the world filled David’s mind until it seemed ready to burst. then he knew no more.

  And so the days passed. David lost count of them, for it was dark all the time and there was nothing to distinguish day from night. Once when he woke he picked up the strange bottle by mistake for his own, and after that he took a drink from it every time staying awake any longer grew too much for him, for he discovered that drinking from it very soon made him feel sleepy. It tasted good, too — a little strong perhaps but not unpleasant — and then he could sleep a while longer.

  Sometimes he told himself that he had only to scramble over to the door, open it and go up the steps till he met someone — and all his troubles would be over. He wished desperately that he could stop being alive … but his feet would not budge, his legs refused to carry him the little distance he had to go before he could give himself up. He wanted to do it, but his body would not take him.

  When at last he was discovered, he was taken completely by surprise: he woke up to hear a voice just above his head saying, “Mamma mia, what are you doing here?”

  David jumped up like lightning, but made no attempt to run. The man had very black hair, like all Italians. “Nothing,” answered David in Italian.

  The sailor opened his mouth to shout — but thought better of it and instead scrambled over to the door and shut it. Then he came back. He was not sure why he did this. Perhaps because the boy was so quiet — a very thin, very dirty boy who stood as still as death and who had the calmest face he had ever seen.

  He ought to call someone and get the boy hauled up into the light of day. Then, by the light of his torch, he looked down into the boy’s strange dark eyes and knew he could not. Because that was just what those eyes expected him to do. The Italian sailor tried to shake off the feeling that the boy was going to die. His grandmother’s eyes had looked like that the day before she died. But he might be wrong, of course: for one thing his grandmother’s eyes had been brown and this boy’s were — well, it was not easy to see in that dim light — very dark grey, perhaps, or green.

  So he said the first thing that entered his head. “Have you been drinking my wine?”

  “Yes. I’d no more water in my bottle. I didn’t know it was wine. Thank you.”

  The Italian shook his curly black head. Never had he met such a child! “First he swigs my wine without knowing what it is, and then he thanks me for it as if it weren’t sheer robbery!” And he was so quiet. A boy caught when he was up to mischief usually made off as fast as his legs would carry him … turned and twisted and looked all round for a way of escape. He did not just stand still and look you in the face!

  “Where did you think you’d get to?” he asked helplessly.

  “To Italy.”

  “Hm. Well, I suppose I shall have to hand you over to the captain …”

  But the Italian knew very well that he would not be able to. “I don’t think you’re all there,” he said. He dare not lay hands on him: he could not bring himself to do it. “On the other hand, we shall be in Salerno this evening. It’s hardly worth the trouble of dragging you along to the captain and having all the fuss … You can jump overboard just before we get in, and then I shan’t have had anything to do with it … I’ll see about getting you out of here.”

  “I can’t swim,” the boy said quietly.

  “Mamma mia! Then you aren’t all there! I won’t have anything to do with it. I’ll give you a lifebelt and you must try to drift ashore.”

  “Thank you.”

  The Italian went his way shaking his head.

  David slept no more. He was hungry — but then he had been hungry the last four times he had wakened — and he had run out of food. That was a strange man. It was really very kind of him not to let the captain arrest him; he could not know that David was so tired he could hardly hold out any longer. And now he must take to the water! He did not know anything about lifebelts, but the Italian seemed to think he could drift ashore in one. So perhaps he would run on his way for yet another night, perhaps several nights, before they finally caught up with him.

  But although David felt certain he knew what the end would be, his body set about getting him ready. Automatically he stuffed his ragged shirt into his no less ragged trousers, tied his bundle securely and sat down to wait.

  It was some time before the man returned. When he did come, David made no move. Perhaps the sailor had had second thoughts about the lifebelt … but David was beyond caring.

  The Italian had brought the lifebelt, however, and a piece of bread as well. David ate half of it on the spot while the man was showing him how to use his arms to make sure he drifted in the right direction. David watched and realized he would be almost up to his neck in water. He frowned — the talk about direction had put him in mind of his compass … suppose getting wet were bad for it? He had better tie his bundle round his neck, like that.

  The man lowered him over the side of the ship on the end of a rope and told him not to splash about in the water until the ship was some way off, otherwise he might be heard. The water was not particularly cold. David looked back at the ship as it sailed swiftly on. For a moment he thought he was going to drown … it might very well be an easy way of sending people to their death, a belt like that … It looked like a car-tyre, he thought. But he did not drown, and he found it was not even necessary to fling his arms about as he had been told to do, for the ship had created a strong wash that drove him nearer and nearer to the dark line of the coast.

  But before long David realized it was not quite so easy … Several hours passed before he touched land, and by that time he was so cold it might have been the depth of winter and so exhausted he was quite incapable of feeling: only his feet had the will to carry him farther.

  David stumbled, staggered, crawled: onwards in the darkness, uphill all the time, the going hard and stony: it must be a mountain slope … Then he came to a road and staggered across it without even remembering to see if there were people about … then farther uphill where something was growing in low straight lines … then over another stretch of mountainside with hard sharp-edged stones that hurt his feet. And then he could go no farther.

  But there was no one to disturb his sleep that night, and when he woke he was no longer tired. He was not even cold — he was pleasantly warm, in fact. He lay awake for a while with his eyes shut, basking in the warmth of his own body while he listened as usual for sounds about him. But all was quiet. Then opening his eyes he sat up and looked.

  David was familiar only with various tones of grey and brown, and of course the blue of the sky. Well, yes, he had once seen a little red flower that had strayed inside the camp wall. Apart from that, colour was something he had only heard of: he had seen only a pale and muddied reflection of it — in the ugliness of the ca
mp and the equally ugly quarters of the guards.

  He did not know how long he stayed there on the mountainside, sitting motionless, just gazing … only when everything grew strangely misty did he discover that he was crying.

  Far below him lay the sea, a sea bluer than any sky he had ever seen. The land curved in and out along its edge: in and out, up and down, all green and golden, with here and there the red of flowers too far off to be clearly seen. Down by the sea a road ran along the foot of the mountain, and near it lay villages whose bright colours gleamed dazzlingly. there were trees with many changing tints of green, and over it all shone the warming sun — not white-hot and spiteful and scorching, as the sun had shone upon the camp in the summertime, but with a warm golden loveliness.

  Beauty. David had once heard Johannes use the word. It must have been something like this he meant … perhaps that was why he had come back and gone with him to Salonica, so that he, David, could sail across the sea till he came to a place where things were beautiful.

  His tears continued to flow, faster and faster, and he brushed them angrily away so that the mist before his eyes should not veil that beauty from him.

  Suddenly he knew that he did not want to die.

  He did not want to be caught, he did not want to die. His legs had carried him to the place where the van stood waiting, and when the weight of loneliness had grown too much for him Johannes had kept him company to Salonica. the strange man with the black head of hair had helped him to reach land with a lifebelt. And now that he had learned about beauty he wanted to live …