Tor Kung
My Mother Taught Me
Chapter One
I was trembling. I was going to see a woman for the first time in my life. Or rather, a young, attractive woman. We had matrons at the orphanage, but they were a hundred years old and didn't count as women. And when I say the first time, that isn't completely accurate either. Probably I had met women before I was seven, but since then I'd been in the orphan home, and I couldn't remember back that far. Now, after all these years of wondering and longing after that mystery, I was going to meet a beautiful woman.
I was born in Camden Town, North London, during the early years of the last war. I don't know much about my parents except that they were Swedes who were caught by the war while visiting England. I know that I had a sister and that my father died soon after I was born. My mother, as far as I can judge, was a respectable woman who managed to take good care of us until I was seven. Then, for some mysterious reason (something I did, something evidently shameful and awful) she placed me in the orphanage.
As the years passed and I grew older, I was obsessed with worry and guilt over what it was that I had done, but I could never, try as I would, remember. I tried in all ways to be good and proper, hoping this would somehow make up for it and that Mother would come back and love me. I thought, or hoped, that she might hear if I was good. But she never came.
Perhaps because of the great scandal in my past, or simply because I was so shy, no one seemed to want to adopt me. Occasionally people would come and look at us while we played in the recreation area and many of my friends were called for personal interviews with prospective parents, but until the spring of my fourteenth year I had not gotten even a nibble.
At this time I was a tall, slender boy with a shock of sandy blond hair over wide-set, light-blue eyes that they said gave me a simple and honest appearance. My mouth was a little too large and full-lipped to compensate for the tendency of my cheeks to freckle in the sun, but I was not an ugly boy. Nevertheless, as I walked back to the orphanage from school on the afternoon of my fourteenth birthday, I had given up hope of ever belonging to a family again, since so many years had passed without anyone evincing the slightest interest in me. Hence I was surprised when, entering the yard, I was told by a matron that a wealthy young couple was interested in adopting me and was, at this moment waiting in the Head Master's office to interview me.
I hurried in to wash, but for a few minutes I could do nothing, so great was my inner agitation. It was not only the possibility of being adopted that overpowered me, but more, the mere possibility of seeing the couple. For the matron had, described them as being young and I could not remember ever seeing a young woman! For some reason I wasn't allowed to. Each time a woman came to the orphanage I was always somehow shuttled away. Thus the prospect of just seeing a young woman had me trembling with eagerness and excitement. Soon, however, I composed myself enough to wash and hurry to the office.
As I approached I found the door slightly open and I was just raising my hand to knock when I heard, coming from within, the strangest and most beautiful voice I had ever experienced. It was deeper than a boy's and more rich and throaty, yet it was higher than a man's and sweet, like the song of a bird. It was saying…
“… and you say he doesn't even see pictures of women? That he never has?”
“No, Mrs. Brahe,” followed the deep voice of Mr. Anderson, the Head Master. “We cut them out of all his books and magazines before he reads them. This was the stipulation of his mother when she left him with us: he must never have any contact with women here.”
The magic effect of the first voice, coupled with the sweeping sense of shame at what Anderson was saying, brought me up sharply. I pulled myself together and knocked timidly.