I Am David (12 page)

It was not that he liked anyone to touch him. He hated it: it made him feel tense inside. But sometimes when he saw the children and their parents touch one another, he felt a stab of pain and remembered Johannes. Perhaps he had been like everybody else to start with; perhaps it was only when Johannes died that he became different.

David tried not to think about it, but he had to admit that when Maria touched him he did not hate it. Sometimes she would take him by the hand when they walked side by side, and her hand was small and soft, not in the least like a boy’s. And when Maria held his hand, it was as if they were speaking of pleasant things together without saying anything. Yet it always made him a little uneasy, like something important that had escaped his memory.

David turned over in bed. There was something else he had forgotten — what was it? Something about Denmark, something he had been on the point of remembering the first day he was there.

It had something to do with what the man had said about his having to go north till he came to Denmark. Suddenly he knew what it was — milk!

The children’s parents were very good to them. They gave them everything they needed and talked a great deal about what would do them good. Every day the children were given milk and things called vitamins. David was given them, too. And he had had milk before …

Twice a week, for as long as he could remember, on Tuesdays and Fridays, he had had to go across to the man’s quarters, and the man had given him something white to drink. It tasted horrible, but the man told him he must drink it or else he would shoot one of the prisoners. He also threatened to shoot a prisoner if David ever told anyone where he went and what he did. Nothing happened except that David drank the horrible white stuff. At the time David had thought that it showed how stupid they were as well as evil. It did not make him ill, and he did not die either. The man must have realized it was not poisonous enough to kill him and yet he went on giving it to David to drink.

The milk he was given here did not taste unpleasant, and it was whiter, too, but it was the same for all that. And the first time David happened to bite one of the pills that were called vitamins and drank his milk right on top of it, it tasted horrible in just the way it used to in the camp.

So the man had given him something that was good for him! Something to make him strong and not always ill and weak like the other prisoners.

Why? David sat up in bed wide awake. Why had he been forced to drink something that was good for him? If he had been of some importance as a hostage, then obviously he must not be allowed to die … but in that case why had the man told David to escape? It had all happened as the man had told him: there had been the bundle lying beneath the tree, and he had got to Salonica, and there had been a ship there …

David got up and dressed. He could not sleep, he could not stay inside the house. He must think …

But no matter how much he thought, he could not find an answer. He walked quietly downstairs into the garden so that no one should hear him. But although he stared right out into the darkness and thought about the man as hard as he could, he still could not make head or tail of it. The man hated him. David knew all about hate, and he was sure the man hated him.

An important hostage would have to be kept alive … but he must not be allowed to escape, must he? If only he knew more about it. If only he knew something about Denmark. If there were a king in Denmark, then he would have to try to get there. There must be some reason why he was told to escape. For one moment he thought he knew what it was. You could not bribe honest people, but they took bribes. Being bribed meant doing something you knew was forbidden just to get something for yourself.

But who would bribe the man to let David escape? He was just David, a boy who had always been a prisoner. Someone he stood hostage for without knowing it? But who could it be? And if he had been an important hostage, then the man would never have dared to let him escape. In that country, they were all terrified of one another. Perhaps if the bribe were big enough … but if that were the answer, then they would be hunting for him, everywhere, and he would have to be on his guard day and night.

It must not be true. David’s hands clutched his fast-beating heart. There must be a reason he could not understand: he did not want to be an important hostage for he could not go on being as frightened as he was. The next morning he would ask the children’s father if there were a king in Denmark. And if so, then he would leave at once, and he would travel by car as often as possible or he would not manage the journey. But it would not do for him to believe he was an important hostage, for if he did he would not dare ask for a lift or earn money or buy bread or anything.

But he never got as far as asking the children’s father if there were a king in Denmark.

He decided he would creep back to bed again; but just as he was going past the big living-room that gave on to the terrace, the light was switched on and the children’s father and mother entered and sat down.

David pressed himself against the wall and stood still. When they began talking he would creep off in the other direction so that they would not spot him.

Through the slats in the shutters he saw the children’s mother take up her sewing. She put it down again almost at once and turning to her husband said, “Giovanni, I think you’ll have to do something about David.”

David moved with infinite care away from the slatted shutters: sometimes when you were looking at people they became aware of it. He leaned against the wall and shut his eyes.

“What should I do about him, Elsa? Is there something the matter with him?”

David would never forget what they said.

“The matter … Yes, I … I mean, how long do you suppose he should stay here?”

“Have you anything against the lad, my dear?”

“Yes … no … Oh, I’m bound to love a child who’s saved my own child’s life. But I don’t understand him. If it didn’t sound so absurd, I’d be inclined to say he frightens me.”

“He’s an unusual child, that I grant you. But I can’t see what you have against him.”

“I … well, let me put it this way. I’ve nothing against David as David, but I do object to him as company for my own children. He must leave here, as soon as possible.”

“Can’t you tell me exactly what it is about him that you object to?”

“I don’t know who he is. I don’t know where he comes from and I don’t know where he’s going to. I don’t believe he’s truthful. That story of his about belonging to a circus — it doesn’t hang together properly, Giovanni! If he belongs to a circus there are things he ought to know which he obviously doesn’t. And at the same time the story’s so carefully worked out — as if he were a hardened little liar.”

“With eyes like his, Elsa?”

“Yes … And his eyes frighten me, too. they’re the eyes of an old man, an old man who’s seen so much in life that he no longer cares to go on living. They’re not even desperate … just quiet and expectant, and very, very lonely, as if he were quite alone of his own free choice. Giovanni, a child’s eyes don’t look like that! There’s something wrong there. And his smile — if it weren’t so incredible, I’d be tempted to say he looks as if he’d never smiled before he set eyes on Maria. He never smiles at the rest of us: he just looks at us politely and with dead earnestness, and when he smiles at Maria, it’s …”

“It’s very beautiful, Elsa. I’ve seen it myself. It comes so hesitantly and yet so tenderly.”

“Oh, you make me feel so heartless! But I must put my own children first and think of their welfare. And there’s something wrong with a child who smiles like that. Where does he come from? You can tell he has no relatives, but he makes it quite clear he doesn’t like us to question him. He answers politely, but his face becomes watchful and he replies as briefly as he can. It’s not that I want to pry, Giovanni, but you must admit he’s a strange child! He arrives here out of the blue, dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt both in such a shocking condition that even the poorest beggar would scorn them. He owns a knife and an empty bottle which he obviously regards as vital necessities. And yet he speaks Italian like a Florentine nobleman!”

“Yes, and French like a senior member of the French Academy!”

“He does what?”

“I found him with a French book the other day and he asked me to read a few lines to him. I naturally thought he wanted them translated, but he only wanted to compare the sound of the words with their appearance in print! He’s obviously never seen French written, but he speaks it like a native. And like a very gifted and well-educated native, too!”

“Yes, and then I suppose he explained it away by saying, “There was a man in the circus who was French”?”

“Exactly. Heaven knows what kind of a circus it is!”

“I’m quite sure there is no circus. Can’t you see there’s something mysterious and wrong about it all? At first I imagined he’d run away from school or something of the sort, but to judge from his speech you’d think he came from a family that would have moved heaven and earth long enough ago to find him. Yet there’s not been a word about a search being made for a child of any of the people we know. So where does he get his speech from? And he doesn’t speak like a child at all. His conversation is completely adult, and he often fails to understand what the children mean until they explain to him … He really makes you think he’d never before spoken to another child!”

“Wherever he comes from, Elsa, we are deeply indebted to him, and since it worries him to be questioned about his background, then I think we ought to let him alone. And I can’t see either that any of the things you’ve mentioned make him unsuitable company for our children. He talks beautifully, he has really charming manners — often better than our own youngsters’. Elsa, Elsa, why don’t you use your eyes? He can’t be a bad influence. David’s the gentlest boy I’ve ever seen in my life! And he’s had an effect on our own children — I haven’t once seen them fighting since he came!”

“No, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to say I wish you had! You ask me what I have against David: I object to his attitude to Carlo, and I object to his relations with Maria. Haven’t you seen that David hates Carlo? Not like boys who fight and then forget about it because there is really nothing serious to fight over. David hates Carlo as a grown man hates. He talks to him only when he has to, and then he speaks politely and coldly and refuses to look at him. Try watching Carlo a little more closely tomorrow! He’s grown quite subdued, and when he sees David and Andrea chattering together, he just stands there looking miserable. He seems to know that if he joined in, David would immediately bring the conversation to a polite close and go off elsewhere. Carlo’s a good boy. He’s a little wild and somewhat domineering; but otherwise there’s no harm in him. Do you suppose it gives me any pleasure to see my eldest son trying to ingratiate himself with a lying little vagabond and being rebuffed with hatred and contempt?”

“No, of course not. But don’t you think you might be mistaken? Suppose we asked David …”

“And I like his influence over Maria just as little. Maria worships the ground he treads on. Everything David thinks and says and does is right. She is aware of the existence of her own brothers only when it suits David. What she likes best is being alone with David — the other day she sat quite still for a whole hour listening to the gramophone with him: Mozart’s violin concerto! What do you think of that? And Maria’s about as musical as a sucking pig!”

“Well, yes, but … it can’t do any harm, my dear. Small girls often admire boys a little older than themselves. And you remember that it was David who rescued her from the fire. It’s quite natural for her to admire him. She used to admire Carlo and Andrea as well.”

“But not in the same way. She admired the two bigger boys because they were stronger and more daring. With David it’s himself that she admires. She seems to want to know and understand everything he thinks so that she can learn to think the same way herself. Giovanni, I won’t have it! I’ve listened to the two of them together when they didn’t know I was there. With the rest of us David is silent and reticent, but he talks to Maria because it never occurs to her to question him, except to ask him what he thinks about things. He tells her the most abominable things — about wickedness and misery and brutality … and treachery. And he’s told her how you can die so that it doesn’t hurt. I don’t know where he gets it all from, and I don’t care either. That boy must go!”

“I should never have thought David had a brutal mind or an inclination to cruelty.”

“He hasn’t. He tells her about such things so that she can take care of herself and so that she may know how fortunate she is. But I’ll not have Maria’s innocent, carefree childhood spoilt by a knowledge of evil she had no idea of. Children have their own troubles — they mustn’t be expected to bear the miseries and sorrows of the grown-up world.”

“Well, since you feel so strongly about it, then … But don’t you think perhaps I should speak to the boy about it?”

“Do you think that anything at all that anyone could say to David would alter by one jot what he thinks? Do you think anybody in the world could stop David being David?”

“No, my dear, I don’t think they could, and I must say I respect him for it. The lad isn’t obstinate or headstrong, and he wants to learn, but he reserves the right to think for himself and he’ll not surrender his personality. And that’s good: it shows strength of character.”

“Giovanni, I’m not heartless. I really am grateful, and I’ll willingly do anything for the boy but keep him here. I don’t believe there’s any real harm in him, and I can see that a great deal of what you say about him is right. If he weren’t a child I should most probably like him for those very things. But I don’t understand him, and I won’t have him influencing my own children. Can’t you find out something about him? Try to tell him we wish him well and see if you can discover where he comes from? If he’s done something wrong, then you could use your influence with the police. We could send him to a home or a monastery or something of the sort, and pay for his education. But he’ll have to tell you the truth so that we can decide the best thing to do.”