In the Land of the Long White Cloud

around them as Lucas and had been very happy to find a job as a stable boy. In exchange for keeping the stables neat, he was allowed to sleep there. He worked construction during the day.
    “I’d really like to become a carpenter and design houses,” he admitted to Lucas.
    He smiled. “To design houses you would have to become an architect, David. And that’s not easy.”
    David nodded. “I know. It also costs money. And you have to go to school for a long time. But I’m not dumb; I can even read.”
    Lucas decided to give him the next copy of
David Copperfield
that came into his hands. He felt inexplicably happy when the two finally said good night and curled up in their sleeping bags. Lucas listened to the sound of the boy sleeping, to his even breathing, and thought about the lithe way he moved despite his gangly limbs, his bright, high-pitched voice. He could love a boy like this.

    David kept his word and introduced Lucas first thing the next day to the stable owner, who was happy to clear him a place to sleep for free.
    “Just help David out a bit in the stalls. The boy works too much as it is. Do you know anything about horses?”
    Lucas explained that he knew how to clean, saddle, and ride them, which was true and seemed to be enough for the stable owner. David spent his Sundays cleaning the stalls thoroughly since he could not always get around to it during the week, and Lucas was happy to help him. While they worked, the boy talked the entire time, reporting on his adventures, hopes, and dreams, and Lucas was an enthusiastic audience. He swung the pitchfork with unexpected élan to boot. Never before had work been so much fun.
    On Monday David took Lucas along to work construction, and the master carpenter assigned him straightaway to a lumberjack camp. The jungle had to be cleared for the new houses, and the exotic wood they felled was either stored in Westport to be used for building later or sold in other parts of the island or even in England. Wood prices were high and climbing higher; moreover, steamships now crossed back and forth between England and New Zealand, simplifying the export of even the most cumbersome goods.
    The Westport carpenters, however, did not think beyond the construction of the next house. Practically none of them had studied his craft, let alone heard of architecture as a discipline. They built simple log houses for which they fashioned equally simple furniture. Lucas regretted the destruction of the exotic trees, and the work in the jungle was hard and dangerous; there were constant injuries due to sawing and falling trees. But Lucas did not complain. Navigating life seemed easier and less troubled since he had gotten to know David, and he found himself in consistently high spirits. What was more, the boy seemed to seek out his company. He talked with Lucas for hours, and quickly realized that this older man was very knowledgeable and could answer considerably more of his questions than any of the other men around him. Lucas often found it difficult not to give away too much about his origins. Outwardly, he could hardly be differentiated from the other Coasters these days. His clothing was ragged, and he had practically no money. It was a feat just to keep himself clean. To his delight, David was also very concerned with his physical hygieneand bathed regularly in the river. The youth seemed not to feel the cold. While Lucas began shivering on the approach to the river, David was already swimming to the other bank with a laugh.
    “It’s not that cold!” he teased Lucas. “You should try the rivers in Iceland sometime. I swam through those with our horse when ice blocks were still floating in them!”
    When the boy waded ashore, wet and naked, Lucas felt like he was seeing his beloved Greek statues of boys come alive. To him, this was not Dickens’s David: he was Michelangelo’s David. The boy had heard as little about the Italian painter and sculptor as about the English writer. Nevertheless, Lucas could help with that. With rapid strokes, he drew sketches of the most famous sculptures on a sheet of paper.
    David could hardly hold back his astonishment, though he was less interested in the marble boy than in Lucas’s drawings themselves.
    “I always try to draw houses,” he confided to his older friend, “but they never quite look right for some reason.”
    Lucas’s heart raced as he explained to David where his problem lay and then introduced him to the art