I Am David by Anne Holm

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.
    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