I Am David (9 page)

They said they were going to play something they called Davy Crockett and the Indians. First the little boys were going to play at being Indians. They would capture the girl, shut her up in the shed and go off. Then when they came back they would pretend to be Davy Crockett and set her free.

David thought it sounded silly — but that was probably because he did not really know what ordinary children were like.

The girl had gone into the shed now and so there was nothing more to watch. He was very tired, too, and thought he might just as well take a nap before the little boys returned. Then perhaps they would go off with the girl and David could go on his way.

David was wakened by shouting and crying … and a strange smell in the air.

“She’s on fire! She’s on fire! It was your fault, Cecha — you thought of it! You know very well we weren’t to play with fire …”

It was the two little boys. And it was the shed that was on fire! A shed was feminine in Italian.

“What shall we do then? Run and get Carlo, Cecha. Oh, if only she doesn’t get burnt while you’re gone …”

Both the little boys were crying. One of them set off running in the direction David had come from; the other just stood there and wept.

She was burning … the girl! It was not the shed, it was the girl they were talking about — the little girl who looked so like a flower was inside that fire!

David sprang up and took a step forward. then he turned round, and grabbing his clothes flung them into the river and jumped in after them. They were now sopping wet again …

So many thoughts flashed through his mind as he ran that it seemed like hours to David before he reached the shed. A man in the camp had once escaped from a burning building by wrapping wet clothes round his head to keep the smoke out and prevent himself from losing consciousness, and he had not got burnt about the face. If only he could get her out now. The wall was not yet burning so fiercely, but the door was a regular bonfire. And all those dry leaves and stalks the roof was made of — he would have to have her out before the fire got a proper hold …

He was just going to call on God to help him when a thought occurred to him. God certainly would not want that little girl, so like a flower and so beautiful to look at, to die. Here, then, was something he could do for God in return!

He could not say it aloud because he was running too hard, and so he said it to himself: “God of the green pastures and running waters, please don’t help me. I want to do it by myself so that you’ll know I’ve found something I can do for you … I’m David. Amen.”

By that time he had reached the burning shed. The little boy who had stayed behind was still crying … and David could hear other voices down by the river, but he had no time to look round. With all the speed he could muster he undid his bundle and took out his knife, picked up his wet clothes again and with one hand held his trousers up in front of his nose and mouth. Then he sprang into the blazing fire.

The flames had hardly reached the inside, but it was full of smoke. In the middle of the floor sat the little girl tied to an old chair. The tears were streaming from her eyes, and between fits of coughing she was shouting hoarsely for help.

David’s first impulse was to run straight to her; then he realized he must stop to consider what to do. He must think quickly, but as carefully as if he had all the time in the world. He must have time to cut through her bonds. The blaze from the door was now beginning to spread rapidly, the flames licking along the floor where dry leaves lay by the wall. There were no windows in the shed … they would have to get out again through the burning doorway. Near it stood a pile of baskets and boxes, which David removed as far away as he could from the door, leaving a train of three or four pieces of wood behind him. Then he seized a birch-broom, already smouldering slightly, and swept all the dry leaves away from the other walls towards the pile of baskets so that, as he hoped, the fire would be encouraged to burn in that direction instead of filling the whole room at once.

In the meantime he was coughing, too. He could not hold his wet clothes up to his face and shift the baskets and sweep the floor as well.

Then he turned his attention to the girl. “Shut your eyes,” he said. “And your mouth.” He wound his wet shirt round her face, taking care that she could breathe freely inside it. Then he started cutting through her bonds. Luckily they were only a coarse loose twine. If they had bound her to the chair, it would not have been so easy! But the knife was not very sharp, and he had to saw backwards and forwards several times, and the little girl was beginning to wriggle her feet. David gripped them firmly to show her she must sit still. He dared not speak and risk getting more smoke inside his lungs, and the heat was quite unbearable, but he was going to do it, he was going to … he must.

The cords were cut through at last. The little girl rose unsteadily to her feet and pulled the shirt from her face. Their eyes were hot and smarting, and they had to blink all the time, but David saw she was looking at him with big black eyes. Then she shut them and stumbled, and would have fallen if David had not taken hold of her. She had fainted. That meant she could not run out with him: he would have to carry her.

For one moment David felt he had promised God too much … he would not be able to do it. Perhaps she had died from the smoke. He laid her down on the floor and put his ear to her chest, as the men in the camp had always done to see if one of their fellows was still alive. He could hear her heart beating.

David wound his shirt about her head again, and pulled his trousers over his own. They were well worn, so it was easy enough to stick his fingers through a hole and make it bigger. He would have to see where the door was. If he could not carry her through the fire, he would throw her clear. He would be able to manage so much before he succumbed to the flames. He was terrified of being burnt to death, but perhaps it would be over quickly, almost as quickly as being shot. It would be better not to think about it at the moment: he must concentrate on getting her up again and trying to run. She was heavy. It was a good thing she was not as big as himself, for if she had been he could not have done it. For a split second David hesitated in front of the raging, crackling fire which had been a door. Then he made straight for it.

And then it was all over. He had got through and he had the little girl with him. He could not remember afterwards the order in which things happened. There were the two little boys outside and several other people as well. He was overcome with coughing, and would certainly have fallen if he had not had the little girl to look after. The others shouted and wanted to take her, but he pushed them aside, and seating himself and the little girl down on the ground, freed both their faces from his clothes. They were scarcely even damp now.

Then he discovered that the little girl’s hair had caught fire. One of her long curls had hung outside his shirt. So the fire thought it would cheat him of his prize! David failed to hear a car draw up, nor did he hear his own shout of anger. He cast his clothes aside, and seizing the little girl’s hair in both hands squeezed it tight, smothering the fire and not even aware that he was burning himself. The flames were nearly out, and he pressed her head against his chest to destroy the last sparks. Then he had another fit of coughing and in a daze wiped his eyes with his free hand. Then he looked down at the black curly head again. No, the fire was all out now … and it had not touched the little girl, only her hair a little.

She was on the point of coming round again, as he could see from the slight flutter of her eyelids. He had beaten the fire and kept his promise. The girl who looked like a flower was still alive. She opened her eyes and they looked straight into David’s, wonderingly, not as if she were afraid but as if she were now quite sure that everything was all right.

“Who are you?” she asked.

Not “Where do you come from?” or “What are you called?” or “What do you want?”, the questions people generally asked him, but “Who are you?”

“I’m David.”

She was smiling now, only slightly, but enough to show a gleam of small white teeth between her red lips. David felt something happen inside him — as if he heard music … something wonderful. And something happened to his face, too, a movement that took him by surprise.

“David?” repeated the little girl, not as if she had not heard him, but rather as if the sound of his name were something good to hold on to. She did not stop smiling, and David realized that he himself was smiling.

“Yes,” he said.

One of those who were standing round them and whom David had not noticed before was drying his eyes: and it was not one of the little boys, it was a grown man. But it was a familiar voice that he finally heard, a voice that said, “And I said you were a cowardly pig! I’ve never before seen anyone do such a brave thing. Father, you didn’t see what happened. The two littl’uns had tied her up, and he went right through the burning doorway and cut her free and carried her out again through the fire.”

“Yes, I saw him coming out, Carlo. He’s saved Maria’s life — and only just in the nick of time. Look, the roof’s caught fire now. We should have been too late, Carlo. If he hadn’t been here, Maria would have been lost.”

“Even if I’d been here in plenty of time, I don’t think I’d have dared. And I … Father, I chased him off this afternoon.”

“The boy’s burnt himself, Father. Just look, his arms and legs are all black, and he’s got no clothes …” It was one of the little boys who had at length stopped crying.

David heard their voices from far away. He could not bring himself to take his eyes off the little girl’s face, for he knew it was she who had made him smile. And suppose his smile went when he stopped looking at her, then he would never find out how one came to smile. One smiled for joy, of course! Or was it happiness? Johannes had said there was a difference … joy passed, but happiness never completely disappeared: a touch of it would always remain to remind one it had been there. It was happiness that made one smile, then.

So there sat David on the ground, burnt and black with soot, stark naked but full of happiness and triumph, clinging to the prize he had cheated death of. He had done what he said he would do. He, David, had promised God he would give Him the little girl, all by himself and without help — and he had done it. And God was clearly pleased with his gift: had not He immediately shown him how to smile? And the little girl who was so beautiful and soft to touch — she did not ask a lot of questions: she seemed quite satisfied that he was David.

“Shall I carry her for you, David?”

David looked up startled. The man who was the children’s father was smiling at him. But he was not holding out his hands to take the little girl. He seemed to understand that she now belonged to David who had rescued her from the fire, and he would not take her without permission.

David suddenly noticed how painful his hands were and how dreadfully tired he was. “Yes, please,” he said.

The little girl resisted slightly, and as soon as her father had lifted her up so that she could no longer see David, she called out, “David …”

David began to get up, and the vicious boy who was called Carlo stepped towards him as if to help him to his feet. He did not look vicious now, but David drew back from his touch and stood up by himself.

“You needn’t be frightened, you know,” Carlo said eagerly. “I didn’t know, you see. I think you’re the bravest boy I’ve ever seen and I’m terribly sorry I … I gave you a hiding. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not frightened,” said David curtly. then he moved away to where the little girl could see him and said, “I’ll go with you to the car.”

The girl smiled again and held out her hand. David hesitated, and then took it in his own. “David’s hand hurts him, Maria,” said her father. But the little girl did not let go. She tightened her grip a little so that David had to go with her. “David,” she said.

David could feel himself smiling again, and he wondered whether smiling was something you could not help, something that happened of its own accord. When they had driven off, he would see if he could make himself smile by thinking of the way the little girl looked — as if she were a flower, and as if she were pleased he was David.

But they would not let him go. None of them would, neither the two little boys who were carrying his clothes between them, nor the two big ones, Carlo and the other who was called Andrea. And their father said there could be no question of it but David must go home with them.

David tried to explain that he had to be on his way, but when he held out his hand for his clothes, the two little ones started jumping round him, laughing and shouting, “You can’t have ‘em! You can’t have ‘em! Not before you come home with us!” The boy who was called Andrea laughed, too, and slung David’s bundle across his shoulder.

David began to grow angry. They might be glad he had rescued the little girl from the fire, but that gave them no right to tell him what to do. Nobody had that right.

Then the children’s father said, “My name’s Giovanni di Levana del ‘Varchi, and these are my children, Andrea and Carlo, the two little ones, Cecha and Guglio, and of course Maria. We shan’t keep you long if you’ve a lot to do, but you mustn’t deny me the pleasure of thanking you properly for what you’ve done. And what do you suppose Maria’s mother would say if I let you go without giving her the opportunity of thanking you for saving Maria’s life? No, David, you mustn’t ask me to do that.”

David’s anger vanished. They did not want to tell him what to do, they were only asking him to do something for them — to give them pleasure. He could not bear to spoil anybody’s pleasure.

The man with the long name was smiling at him, but David could not manage to smile back: he could only do it when he was looking at the little girl. So he said earnestly, “I won’t ask you to do anything, and of course I’ll do as you wish, signor.”

He put his hand out for his clothes again, and this time the boys gave them to him, but their father said hastily, “No, boys, let David have the travelling-rug from the back seat to wrap round him. It’s softer and won’t irritate his burns so much …”