I Am David Read online

  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.”

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bsp; “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.

  And manage he did during the following weeks. Only two days later, in a town called Naples, he found a mirror. A woman walking along the street dropped it. A corner broke off, and she pulled a face and left it there. David waited till she was out of sight and then picked it up: you could still see yourself in it, anyway. Clutching it in his hand, he walked on till he came to a place where there were trees and dried grass right in the middle of the town. There was a seat, and there David sat down and held up the mirror.

  At first his hand shook so much he could not see properly, but very soon a face appeared clearly in the mirror — his own!

  It did not look ugly. No, he honestly could not see what would be wrong with it. It was thin, but so were many people’s faces. The colour of his hair perhaps was not quite right: maybe it should have been a darker brown. He held the mirror close to his face to take a good look at his eyes. Johannes had had blue eyes. Here in Italy they all had dark brown or black eyes. But you could have other colours. David strove to recall what the eyes of the men in the camp had looked like, but all he could remember clearly was that they were dull, whereas his own now looked as bright as eyes should do. Was there something wrong with dark grey eyes? Perhaps there was a touch of green in them if you looked carefully. He still could not understand in what way they were strange, so he dismissed the thought. He would just have to turn away when anyone looked at him for any length of time.

  Many times a day during the days that followed he took out his mirror and practised smiling, but he could not get it right: he could not make it look the way it did when other people smiled, and in the end he gave it up.

  He continued as far as he could to go northwards. Not that he wanted to do as the man had told him, but he obviously had to go somewhere, and that was the direction the English people had taken. Without being fully aware of it, David had some idea at the back of his mind that he might perhaps go to England.

  During his first days of freedom he had had but one thought from morning to night: when he woke up it had taken the form, “If they haven’t caught me by this evening …” and as he lay down to sleep, “If they don’t catch me tomorrow …” He now began to believe that he might remain free for a long time to come — perhaps until winter overtook him. And as he opened his eyes in the morning to the warmth of the sun, he would sometimes feel sure that he would reach a country where he could live in safety.

  The idea of earning some money had bee a good one. He had earned no money in Naples, but he had fetched coffee for people who sat eating in a restaurant and the waiter had given him a loaf of bread for his pains. And in a small town farther north he had been given money by some strangers who were afraid of having their luggage stolen from the car while they went into the church. He realized afterwards that he did not know what he would have done if anyone had attempted to take the bags, but fortunately nobody had tried and he had been given so much money that he was able to buy enough bread for two days.

  David’s chief difficulty was that people asked so many questions, but as he gained in experience from all he saw about him, he was gradually able to improve upon his story of the circus. The Italians did not ask so many questions, but it was easier to earn money from the tourists who were on holiday from other countries, so David embroidered his tale until he thought it sounded absolutely genuine. When he was asked where he was going to rejoin the circus, he would invent a name so that however suspicious his questioners might be afterwards they would not be able to trace him.

  The sun continued to shine with a pleasant warmth day by day, but it was now beginning to grow cold at night time. David was quite determined, however, never to enter a house. Houses were dangerous places: you never knew but what someone might be standing in the doorway barring your exit the very moment you wanted to slip away.

  Every time he came to a town, he would walk round till he found the church. He promised himself that if he were not caught and came to a country where he could live in security, he would go inside one and see what it looked like. Not that he really expected that he would be able to preserve his freedom long enough for that: it was best not to hope too much. But sometimes when he had had enough to eat and found a comfortable place to sleep in and sat gazing at the hills and valleys and the sun shining on the distant mountains, he could not help feeling that perhaps he might be lucky.

  It was now a long time since he had seen the sea, but there did not seem to be one dull or ugly place in the whole of Italy. All his life David had seen nothing but the same ugly, flat, grey scene, and now he never grew tired of tramping through the ever-changing countryside. Every time he came to a bend in the road he was afraid the beauty would disappear, but each time a new beauty was revealed in the green and undulating hills and valleys. David had now learned what some of the trees were called. There were olives with their gnarled trunks and pale grey-green leaves whispering and quivering in the lightest breeze as if they were alive, and there were cypresses, tall and slender, pointing straight up into the sky. Best of all were those places where a river flowed through the valley. There he could sit for hours on end wondering where the river came from and where it ran to.

  There, too, he could wash. His piece of soap had grown quite small now, although he did not use it every day. He dared not wash in the towns when he filled his water-bottle at the pump, for he had never seen anyone washing there and it might be forbidden.
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  It was Sunday today, the day the people were most full of laughter but the shops shut. But that did not matter today since David had not earned any money for two days and could not have bought bread anyway. He had found a bunch of grapes, however, and he was used to doing with very little food. It would soon be evening, and he was sitting by the roadside thinking over a plan he had had in mind since the day before. He could not make up his mind whether he dared try it. The day before he had seen a man walking along the road and when a car came along he had held up his hand and stopped it. The driver had put his head out and asked if the other wanted a lift, and the man who had been walking said yes please he did.

  But you had to say where you were going — and suppose the driver became suspicious? If he did you were caught: you could not get out. David trembled at the thought but still could not quite give up the idea. A car travelled at an immense speed, and if he kept going in the same direction he must at some point leave Italy behind. It was very beautiful there, but as the days went by David seemed to prize his freedom more and more. When he had first arrived and was living on the rocks by the sea, his freedom had not meant so much to him since he had not expected it to last above a day or two. But now he could no longer think of giving it up.

  David wondered whether it were always like that — whether when you had something you not only wanted to keep it, but wanted something else as well … It seemed greedy, but he could not help it. Freedom and a country where he could live in safety: David wanted both. “But nothing more,” he told himself. “Just those two things and that will be enough. Johannes said greedy people can never be happy, and I would so much like to know what it feels like to be happy. Johannes said that when you very much want something you haven’t got, you no longer care for what you have got. I’m not sure that I understand, but I suppose he meant that things are only worth having if you think they are.”