I Am David

And then quite suddenly David decided he would do it. He had turned it over in his mind until his head was in a whirl, and he still could not understand why the man had told him to escape. David had no wish to make the attempt: it would only be a question of time before he was caught. But suppose it were a trap and they shot him—it would all be over quickly anyway. If you were fired at while trying to escape, you would be dead within a minute. Yes, David decided to try.

He had come to a close thicket of thornbushes, and the needle indicated that he should go straight through it. He had hesitated a moment and then tried running a few yards along the edge of it, but the compass needle immediately swung around. Perhaps he could have recovered his direction a bit farther on, but he knew so little about compasses that he dared not risk it. And so he plunged into the thicket, elbows up to protect his face.

He ought to call someone and get the boy hauled up into the daylight. Then, by the beam of his flashlight, 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.

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 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.

“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 . . .”

“God of the green pastures and the still waters. I’m not praying for help, because I am David and that’s something that can’t be altered. But I want You to know that I’ve found out that green pastures and still waters are not enough to live by . . . nor is freedom. Not when you know there’s love and you haven’t anyone you belong to because you’re different and are only a boy who’s run away. I’m saying this to tell You You needn’t help me anymore to escape from them. It doesn’t matter. Thank You for the times You helped me when I still thought life might be a little worth living. Amen.”

“Can you paint beautiful pictures, signora?”

The woman laughed. “No, they’re terrible! But just trying is something, isn’t it? You always go on hoping that one day you’ll manage it.”

“Yes. But one day you may realize you’ll never be able to.”

Now and then he would find himself in the middle of a wonderful, happy daydream where he would fancy she would be glad . . . she would see at once that he was David and would want to love him just as the children’s father and mother loved the children in the house. Then he would come to the end of his wanderings. He would have a place where he belonged and would be able to ask about all the things he did not know and learn all he wanted to. She would say “my son” when she spoke of him, and he would never have to be afraid again.