The girl next door

She walked around the garden, bare-feet, humming a song of devotion to Lord Krishna as she picked flowers, filling her little basket. She would decorate the altar where she offered her prayers in reverence to the divine god, every morning, the only beautiful thing in her young life-a life stalked by tragedy, fear and ill luck. She kept faith in prayers for everywhere else in the world seemed dark, a little glow gave the warmth of hope that one day, the soft, crackling embers would burst into flames to illuminate her life.

A little smile touched her lips as she closed her eyes and prayed.
Damien swung his cricket bat, practicing his shots from imaginary balls bowled to him in the backyard of his aunt’s home. He was feeling pretty bored since the first day he came from the city to stay with this aunt in the countryside while his parents were on a vacation for their anniversary. Two weeks to him seemed like such a long time.
“I could have stayed at home, he grumbled. I can take care of myself.”
A light shone in his eyes as he imagined going to the park with this friends, roller blading on the pavements and hanging out at the fast-food outlets. But his parents thought that they the impetuousness of a twelve-year-old merited a guardian, so here he was in a quiet neighbourhood where he knew no one. He stayed in most of the time, playing computer games, practicing his cricket shots in his backyard and shooting hoops in the garage. One late afternoon, the basketball bounced off the hoop and flew hitting the neighbour’s fence. Damien ran to retrieve the ball and froze at the sound of low, deep growls from beyond the thick hedge. He backed away wondering, “What the heck is that?”
From the very first day, Damien had felt intrigued by the bungalow style house bordered by a thicket of tall flowering trees and thick green shrubs, dark and mysterious. At night sometimes, his aunt told him, could be heard a woman’s screams, a girl crying, and the deep growls of whatever was guarding the property that always sent a chill in the neighbourhood. She warned him not to go close, but Damien’s adventurous nature could not heed that strict warning for too long and on the fourth day of his visit, he was determined to find a way to know what was happening beyond the thick hedges.
He awoke earlier than usual, the next morning, to formulate his plan and as he stood looking at the hedge, he heard her singing her song of devotion. The sweet sound, soft as a whisper, touched his young heart and it drew him like a magnet but he couldn’t see through the thick shrubs that bordered the yard. He searched along the perimeter but found nothing and using his ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ sword he had brought along just for fun, he carefully cut piece of the hedge and cautiously peered through.
She was standing in the middle of the garden, the little basket in her hand overflowing with flowers, looking up in the tree where a brown dove was feeding her chicks. The look she portrayed in a little dress, long flowing hair and bare-feet was almost like a fairy minus the wings. He wondered why someone so young which such fair beauty was living in such a dark place, hidden from the world when he heard a low menacing growl and turning his head slowly, he stared into the fiery eyes of a beastly animal. Damien gasped in fear and fell back as the animal lunged at him. He scrambled to his feet and grasped his sword firmly, fearful it may burst through the hedge but a soft voice spoke to the animal, calming it down and through the hole in the hedge, the girl saw the boy standing there on the other side with a sword in his hand like a handsome prince. The hint of a smile played on her lips and then she was gone.
Damien hesitated a little before walking back to hedge but she had left the garden and he saw two deadly pitbulls prowling around.
“This doesn’t look good” he said to himself, his determination a bit shaken.
Damien’s aunt alerted by the animal’s fierce growls called him into the house and when he told her about the girl he saw, she cautioned him, “For your own good, do no try to be friends with her. She’s a nice and loveable girl, so is her mother but the stepfather is a brutish man. No one dares to cross his path and the one man who did, died under mysterious circumstances.”
“Who was that?”
“The girl’s father.”
“And the mother knows that?” Damien asked, shocked.
“No, not at the time but the man imposed himself in their lives forcing the mother to marry him and now mother and child are like his prisoners.”
For a young boy, Damien should have felt scared but in his heart was now born a stronger determination to help the girl, to be her friend. She had been just five when her father had died and she was brought with her mother to live in the bungalow by the cruel stepfather and no one saw much of them since. Five years passed and over that time, she was not allowed to play and have friends, escorted to school and back, a childhood seemingly stolen, devoid of fun and laughter because of the controlling power of the stepfather.
Now Damien must find a way to befriend the girl next door, to bring a change in her life. The fear in her heart that she had been living with must be destroyed so she could be happy to smile and laugh.
“How do I do that?” he wondered, “With those killer dogs lurking around.”
No one was allowed to visit her at home and that night, an idea came to mind and Damien did something he did not know he could have done.
He wrote for her a beautiful little poem.
The next morning, he waited by the hedge and as soon as he saw her he hurled it into the garden. It landed close by her and she saw it but before she could pick it up, one of the dogs tore the paper to bits. She looked at the little opening in the hedge and he held his breath as her eyes centered on him, the sadness and the almost pleading look seemed for that moment to write sentences of her story that touched his heart. He made to speak to her but drew back out of sight as her stepfather appeared at the door, an angry look on his face and he said to the girl harshly, “Did I not tell you we have to leave early this morning?”
She nodded, scared and ran into the house, the flowers spilling from her basket but the man did not leave right away. He stood and surveyed slowly, the section of the hedge where the girl had been standing before he turned and left. Damien exhaled slowly and sighed regretfully that his first attempt to communicate with the girl had failed but it was just the beginning.
By the end of the day, he had cut with his sword, a little window through the hedge that only he could open and close and he waited for the chance when he could see her again. She did not come into the garden for two days and Damien started to get worried when early the next morning he heard her singing. He had written another poem and waited when she was close by before throwing it. She picked it up and secreted it in the flower basket nodding her head slightly, not saying a word.
The next morning, he saw a pink ribbon stuck between the hedge and on it was written the words, “It’s beautiful, thank you.”
Damien smiled and put the ribbon in his pocket, thrilled that she loved the poem. He made little cards and wrote beautiful verses that he stuck in the hedge for her and gradually she started to smile, a smile that was like the sunshine. A friendship bloomed slowly like the flowers in the garden and she came close enough one day to show him the baby bird that had fallen from the tree and for the first time, he had heard her voice.
“My name is Deepika” she said quietly.
“I’m Damien.”
She put her hand in his, knowing at last she had found a friend and as the baby bird chirped, she laughed, a beautiful sound like the music from Krishna’s flute but in a wink that beautiful moment was snatched when an angry voice, a crash and her mother’s screams came from within the house. Deepika gasped, “Oh no, not again,” and she turned and ran.
When Damien saw her the next day, she had become once more the sad, young girl.
What could he now do?
The young boy he was, he couldn’t dare cross the path of the tyrant stepfather but at least he could take comfort that Deepika knew she had a friend in him. There were tears in her eyes when it was time for him to leave and he told her, “I am leaving now, but I’m not saying ‘good bye’ for I will see you again and when I grow up, I will take you away from the sadness and give you a life of happiness so you can always smile.”
She smiled wryly and shook her head, “Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep.”
“I will keep my promise,” he told her sincerely as he kissed her hand.
From a slightly opened window in the upper flat of the bungalow, she watched him leave, the only friend she had known for the five years she lived there and she wondered with an ache in her young heart, “Will I ever see him again?”
The glow continued to burn, waiting for the day when the embers would burst into flames to illuminate her life.

(By Maureen Rampertab)

SHARE THIS ARTICLE :
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All our printed editions are available online
emblem3
Subscribe to the Guyana Chronicle.
Sign up to receive news and updates.
We respect your privacy.