Anna’s Black Girl

Teased by the wind, pine trees rustle blissfully above little Anna. She is squatting at the edge of a small muddy pond, swaying to and fro. She swings forward, peeps into the pond, giggles, and swings back. Yet the dark pond retains its gloom.

It is taboo. Don’t go near the pond, Mother had commanded. Taboo means don’t go.

Still she comes here everyday to watch the little black girl. She remembers the itching pain on her wrist when her mother had dragged her home. She looks down. The little black girl looks back at her. Her hair is tied back and her eyes are as wide as the gap in grandma’s teeth. Her nose is as fat as Toby. Her black skin is rubbing against the black water.

She loves to watch the little black girl who lives in the pond. She thinks, then looks down again. The little black girl looks back again. She stares so she stares. If Anna had tried to talk to her she would have known that it was just her image in the water. She believed in what she saw. The black girl is as silent as her.

Somebody violently pulls her back.

“How many times have I told you not to come here? One day you will fall into it and nobody will come to know!” Mother screams.

Anna understood her frown, the loud voice and the tight jaws better than the words. “I WILL go!” she screams back, knitting her brows.

Mother’s frown disappears. “Look sweetie, mamma is afraid that you might fall down into the pond,” she says quietly.

“She can fall down too, but her mamma doesn’t scream!”

The frown reappears. “Who is she?”

“The black girl in the pond.”

The frown stayed then disappeared. “Anna, that is you!”

A wide smile creeps up. “Mamma, I am not stupid.”

“Do you think I am lying? Oh dear God! I am sick of . . .” She is on the verge of losing her temper. Anna senses danger.

“You are right mamma. But I might be right too.”

Mother lifts up her hands, then drops them.

“Come and see! She lives in the pond. I want to go to her home and meet her. Or someday she will come here. I know she will. She comes to see me too.”

The same itching pain in the wrist. “Mamma, leave me!”

“Do you want to drown? Go to your room and if I ever see you near the pond, I will take you to the forest and leave you there.”

                                              .............

“Five revolutionaries attack Parliament. Five men from Motherland attacked the Parliament at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. All five of them were killed by the security guards after twenty minutes of firing. Motherland has taken responsibility for the attack.” Mr. Smith reads aloud from the newspaper.

“But why? What do they want?” Mrs. Smith cries out, as if in pain.

“They want democracy.”

“We HAVE democracy.”

“Oh, they want the green one.”

“Ah! There is so much anger in people, so much violence. What will happen to our children?” She looks out of the window. Anna is feeding ants.

“That is what my mom said. She will be fine. Don’t wreck yourself by worrying.”
“I am not!” A vein popped out from her forehead.

                                            ............

Before brushing off the earth from the earth, Anna carefully lays down the stick and the knife on the ground. Her tiny hands ruffle the soil four times, right to left, left to right, right to left, left to right. She sits down on it without caring for her white skirt. With her tiny palm, she tightly grips the stick and starts to scrape off the wood from the edge. Peels of wood start dropping down on her skirt. It doesn’t distract her.

It’s ready. It is pointed from the other side. Perfect. She brings her left thumb onto the pointed side and presses. A tight slap on the head. She turns around. Her stick is ruthlessly taken away from her.

“From where did you get the knife?” Mother screams. She is almost in tears.

“Mamma, I need this,” she says looking at the stick.

“You know what it does? It hurts!”

“I didn’t hurt you.”

Mother points at the stick. “This. It can hurt people it can hurt you. Why don’t you understand?”

“Give me my stick!” she screams out and begins stamping her feet, first the right, then the left, in quick succession.

“Baby, you can play with your toys. Didn’t I buy you a train yesterday?”

“M-y s-t-i-c-k. M-y s-t-i-c-k. M-y s-t-i-c-k,” she starts screaming at the top of her voice.

“No means no.” She goes inside with the stick.


“Where is Anna? It is growing dark.” Mrs. Smith asks her husband.

“I don’t know. I am reading. Maybe at the pond.”

“Oh no!” She runs.

When she reaches the pond, she sees Anna sitting at the edge, staring intently into the pond. The stick is half immersed in its dark waters and a frog is trying to do a catwalk on it.

“Anna!”

Anna smiles. “Look mamma. Now they can come here. Look at him!” she says happily, pointing at the frog. “And go back again,” she screams, as the frog jumps back to save his life from two monstrous creatures. “The black girl doesn’t come in the evening mamma. Maybe she will come to meet me tomorrow.”

“Yes. She might.”

Mother smiles and takes her hand.

“I know she will. Do you know how she comes to see me whenever I am there! She is as little as me mamma. And in her world, there are so many fishes and frogs and weeds and mud and water, which is not there in our world.”

“Yes dear.”

Anna talked all night, even when her mother wasn’t there.