I Am David Read online

  A church! “If there’s a cross, then it’s a church”, he remembered Johannes had once told him. But he did not tell him that a church could be beautiful — its walls built of different kinds of stone that formed intricate and lovely patterns, its great doors approached by a magnificent flight of steps. David looked at the church for a long time. He felt it had some meaning for him, but he could not tell what. His head felt very heavy as if he had been running all night long: he must return to his hide-out.

  Slowly he turned his back upon the square and went down into the narrow, brightly-lit streets again. He stopped outside a shop where they baked round flat loaves with what he had learnt were called tomatoes on top. He was hungry. Not very hungry at the moment, but he would be by the morning. Perhaps in the morning he would find another orange.

  He turned to go.

  “Hi, want one, eh?”

  David turned round with a start. The man was standing in the open doorway offering him one of the loaves. David automatically put out his hand — and then he quickly withdrew it. A trap. He would take the bread and then the man would fetch them …

  He looked up into the man’s face and saw it was just like the sailor’s — the same slightly stupid expression, the same good-natured eyes. David hesitated; perhaps he would not have him arrested. There were some good people — Johannes had told him so — and he had heard the same thing from other prisoners: they had often spoken of those who had helped them and hidden them for long periods when they were after them.

  The man laughed in a hearty friendly way, the way everybody laughed here. “Well! Perhaps the young fellow isn’t hungry!” he said. “Yes, I am,” David answered. “Thank you very much!” He took the bread and off he went with quick unhurried steps. The man frowned and looked at him a little puzzled. Then he shrugged his shoulders right up to his ears and let them fall again, as if he were shaking something off, and went back to his loaves.

  Never in the whole of David’s life had a day passed so quickly as did the next one. Still free, he had got back to his rocks again, eaten half the loaf the man had given him and lain down to sleep. When he woke it was day, and everything was just as warm and beautiful in the bright sunshine as it had been the day before. He had run up to the little stream for a wash before anyone was about, and even the fact that his soap had grown much thinner from overmuch use the day before did not really trouble him. Perhaps it was because he had washed his shirt and trousers with it as well. He decided to make do with washing his hands and feet and face that day and to go sparingly with his precious soap. Then he ran down-hill again, nearly forgetting, in his eagerness to get back to his piece of paper, to look carefully up and down the road before he crossed it. That must not happen again! He made himself count to a hundred before he picked up his paper in order to remind himself how important it was never to do anything without thinking.

  The scrap of paper was difficult to read. The evening before he had read several notices in the town, but this was in proper sentences with many words together. David murmured the names of the letters to himself, first one by one and then running them together three or four at a time, and after a bit the sounds began to take shape as words he already knew. Then he began reading to himself what was on the paper. On the whole it proved disappointing: some of it was about things you could buy, but none of it was any use to a boy escaping. There was something about motor-cars, and the last bit was about a king. But at that point the paper was torn across, and David could not even find out where the king came from.

  From what he had heard in the camp, David had gathered that the countries that had kings were free and their people had no need to be frightened of them.

  But there were not many countries like that, and the knowledge was not of much use to him since he did not know where those countries were.

  However, his belief that he might perhaps avoid capture seemed to have grown stronger since the day before. He had seen so much in the town that he knew deep within himself that he would have to go down there again, but he would not yet admit it to himself. He was pulled both ways: he had a passionate desire to go back and learn more about what things were like outside the camp, and at the same time he was afraid he might forget to hide his fears.

  As long as it was still daylight he would think no more about paying another visit to the town. He had plenty of other things to occupy him: all that he had seen the previous day, all that he wanted to know and would have to find out for himself. And there was his piece of paper: even if it contained nothing of any use to him, he could always read the letters, comparing the words as they appeared in print with the way they sounded when they were spoken until he was sure he could read properly. And in between times, when his head began to buzz with the weight of too many problems that seemed to have no solution, there were all the things that he would never tire of looking at. The blue sea stretching farther than eye could reach and the land with its ever-changing coastline … the green hills, the bare red rocks … the brightly coloured houses gleaming like fruits here and there in the sun.

  When evening came David went down to the town again. And again the next evening, and the next … and each time he learnt something new, enough to occupy his thoughts all day long in his rocky hiding-place.

  He had hit upon a good story. During his second evening he had read something on a wall about a circus. He understood it was a kind of theatre that travelled about: if he was questioned he would say he came from one and was going to rejoin it somewhere else — somewhere far enough away to prevent people finding out immediately if it were true.

  But he had had no occasion to try his story out.

  He went down to the town again during the evening. He was gradually getting to know it inside out — the narrow crooked streets, the open space down by the seafront, the square where the church stood. He always went there last of all so that on the way back to the rock he would have fresh in mind the beautiful wall with its patterns of many-coloured stone. He had not summoned up enough courage to enter the church although he would have dearly loved to see what it looked like inside.

  David would sometimes stand in the shadows outside a shop and listen to the conversation within. It was easy enough for they always talked very loudly with frequent bursts of laughter. In that way he learnt what many things were used for, things that were strange to him but seemed to be taken for granted by the people round him.

  He had not yet heard anyone talk about them: sometimes the fact that there were obviously none of them in the town led him to be rather less careful. He always walked on if anyone looked at him, but he sometimes came very near to forgetting his fears, and he quite openly filled his bottle at the pump down by the seafront and accepted several loaves from the man who made them. At first he would stand for a long time hidden in the shadows outside the shop listening to the baker’s conversation with his customers — but it was never about them, and he never asked David any questions except whether he were hungry, and then he would give him a loaf and a friendly smile.

  And so it was almost out of habit that David now hid in the dark outside and listened. That evening the man was talking of someone called Guglio and the good catch he had had. For a moment David’s heart stood still with fear … Then he realized they were talking, not of people, but of fish caught at sea.

  He stood there a little longer, in his relief forgetting to listen. Then he suddenly heard the man say, “Who’s that boy that comes here every evening for a loaf? Do you know?”

  “What boy?”

  “A thin ragged boy, but always very clean. He looks a bit foreign.”

  David pressed himself flat against the wall and stood there as if glued to the spot. Another man was speaking now, one who spoke differently from the rest, more after David’s own fashion, “I’ve seen a strange boy every evening this week: he stands and looks at the church. I assumed he’d come over for the harvest. Signor Missiani takes on a number of casual workers about this time.”

 
; Then a woman said something. “No one’s come yet for the harvest, padre: Thérése would have told me. I’ve seen the boy, too. It must be the same one. He doesn’t look like the others and he always moves off when you look at him. He’s got very strange-looking eyes …”

  “In what way strange?” — that was the one they called “padre” speaking again: “padre” meant “priest” — “I’ve only seen him standing in the dark on the other side of the square … Does he look as if he’s up to mischief?”

  “No, no, I don’t know about that, padre, but he’s a strange boy. If you smile at him, he doesn’t smile back; he doesn’t run off, either; he just turns and walks away. And his eyes … they’re so quiet-looking. Perhaps we should get hold of him and ask him where he comes from.”

  David heard no more. With no more sound than a puff of wind he was down the street and inside the first open door — through a long dark passage and out again in another street. Never before had he found it so difficult to walk along calmly as if he felt no fear. He increased his speed, out of the town, out to the rocks — he must get away at once before they began looking for him.

  They might be sending for them already … David waited a long, long time, hiding by the side of the road, before he ventured scrambling down to his hiding-place. The last two evenings he had left his bundle there, and now he must take it with him. But first he had to make sure no one was following.

  When he reached the safety of the rocks, he lay down, but not to sleep, only because his legs felt as if they would not bear his weight any longer. As he lay there, he could see the lights from the town below. They looked beautiful in the dark. But he had been right when he sensed there was danger there: he must get away, that very night.

  The thought filled him with despair. He had begun to feel that it was his town, that the rock belonged to him. He knew every little irregularity in its surface, and every morning when he undid his bundle, he would arrange his things in the same way. The little stream higher up across the road had been his alone, and every morning he had found an orange.

  All the beauty of the place had been his: the sea and the coastline that curved along its shores; all the beautiful colours, the blues and greens and reds; and the gay houses, brightly-coloured, too, and gleaming like fruits in the sunlight.

  Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to decide things for himself; he had learnt what it felt like to wash in clean water in the sunshine until he was clean himself, and what it felt like to satisfy his hunger with food that tasted good; he had learnt the sound of laughter that was free from cruelty; he had learnt the meaning of beauty — and now he must leave it and never return.

  David cried — but not for long. He sat up and looked once more at the lights of the town. He had also learnt to think again without being afraid of doing it.

  And he could go on thinking; he was still free, and if he thought about everything carefully, as clearly and sensibly as he could, and remembered all he had learnt in this place, then freedom might be his for a long time yet.

  He had been right in supposing that they were everywhere, even where he was now. But he had also found it true that some people were good and kind. And if they no longer dared to pretend that they had not seen him about, then it was his own fault for staying there too long. But he must never stay in one place more than one evening. He must continue to avoid people as much as possible, and he must remember not to look at them.

  David wished he knew what was so strange about his eyes. What did they mean when they said they were quiet? Perhaps one day he would come across a mirror and find out what he looked like. David sighed a little. A boy could not very well disguise himself. Grown men could grow beards or shave them off; and if you had money, you could change your clothes, or wear glasses, or dye your hair. But when you were a boy with neither beard nor money, it was no good thinking about disguising yourself.

  David packed everything except his compass into his bundle and stood up. When he had crossed over the plank he drew it after him and carried it right up to the roadway so that no one would see where he had been living. He stood still for a moment and looked down at the lights of the town.

  Then he set off quietly up the mountain slope towards the north.

  3

  Tired out and scratched to pieces, David was glad when it began to grow light. He was no longer used to travelling at night-time and decided that as soon as he had got far enough away he would travel during the day instead. Travelling by night was too exhausting in a terrain where at every step you might run into something or trip over it — plants, tree-roots, an unexpected slope or a hole in the ground. He had noticed, too, that as long as people were not able to take a good look at him they paid him little enough attention — he was just a boy passing by. There must be lots of boys in the world. The many things he must have failed to notice in the town continued to fret him. There might have been boys there, too, but he had been so busy learning about what was in the shops, listening to what people talked about and reading notices that he had not been aware of them. He could read anything now, as long as it was in print, and that was a great advantage.

  He waited till it was light enough to see whether there were houses nearby and then found a good clump of bushes to sleep in.

  When he woke he had a shock. It was still daylight, and as he sat up he found himself looking straight out to sea! He looked anxiously at his compass. Perhaps it had broken? But the needle moved as it should. For a moment he thought he had lost his way in the dark and had wandered round in a circle till he was back again in the neighbourhood of the town.

  Then another thought occurred to him: perhaps the coastline curved right round and he had crossed a strip of land with the sea on both sides of it. Yes, that was it! David rose quickly to his feet and made his way down towards the shore until he could see along the coast. Then he found he had been right. The point where land and sea and sky faded into one another, blurred into the same shade of blue, now lay in the opposite direction — on his right as he stood facing the sea, instead of on his left as it had done from his rock.

  But what now? He must go northwards: that was what the man had told him. For the first time since he had arrived in Italy, David could think about the man calmly and dispassionately. He had told him to go north till he came to a country called Denmark. But why should he do what the man told him? Was not he David, his own master, who decided for himself? In the camp, of course, you had to obey the man. He was the commandant, and it had never occurred to David not to obey him. He had seen only too often what happened if you failed to obey even an ordinary guard.

  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 t
o 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.