Kim looked horrified in her mother's face.
But her mother only shrugged her shoulders.
She looked at her stubborn daughter, who was not able to understand, that her mother always knew, what would be the best for her child. But Kim tried again to convince her mother. So she tried to look right in her mother's eyes and whispered:
Her mother seemed to lose her mind: Her well-educated daughter wants to play the guitar???
asked she very friendly and she was concerned about doing it very harmlessly. Kim didn't understand the background of the question and so she answered very fast:
Arden's eyes were penetrating into her daughter's eyes.
she stopped an whispered to herself:
She looked at Kim, who was waiting for her answer and followed:
All the time during the weeks was filled like this and when Maude joint the school – she wasn't in the kindergarten, too – Kim went to another school. Their mother was all time bringing and searching them. To school, from school, to ballet and recording-hours. Arden always said, that it was too much for her and that it costs a lot of money, but never mind: she will make sacrifice to a lot of things for her children, to make the best for them. The two girls were obliged to learn hours and hours after school, most of their free-time was filled by the "hobbies" her mother had chosen for them. Kim lived a very secluded live, warmth and understanding she only found, when she spoke with her grandmother. She often opened her heart to the old lady, but more than to comfort her, when she was crying, the grandmother wasn't able to do. Kim's mother didn't hold her daughter in her arms and never gave her a good-night-kiss since Kim was six years old. She always said, that she wouldn't give "childish and unnecessary soft soap" to her girls. Often Kim was crying without noise until sleep came to her. Often she had nightmares and her health wasn't good at all. Sometimes, when she left bed too fast, she was feeling dizzy and became black before her eyes. But because all the rest of the family was never ill, she had fears to say what happened to her. One morning she fainted and fell down in the bathroom. When her mother found her, she called the urgency, but when the doctor told her, that Kim was growing too fast and had to be treated, she declined all medicaments and tried to help her daughter with some herbal teas. So Kim was still suffering a long time, before she became well. But this episode told her, that she could never count on her mother, to help her or to understand any problem. She concealed the first rose points in her slip, but was convinced to have a cancer. The first day of her period she lost a much of blood and thought, that she was going to die. She screamed very loud and begged her mother to come to her room. When her mother entered and saw the blood, she was very astonished and screamed:
And she ran away. When the ambulance arrived with its blue light flashing and wailing, Kim was sure, that this would be her last hour. Especially, because she got strong convulsions, too. When the young doctor entered the room and saw the girl in fears, he laughed gently.
asked he Kim's mother, who shook her head.
whispered Arden with a short look on her daughter's face.
answered the young doctor. Then he gave a smile to Kim.
He gave her some pills and left the house. Kim was glad, because she understood, that she's not deadly ill, but there was something naturally happen with her. So she asked her mother to explain her.
Her mother took a chair an set down, but wasn't able to look right in her daughter's eyes. She began hesitantly and with a lot of wrong shame her explications. Because they never spoke about sex in the family and the intimate body-parts where taboo to mention them, it was not easy to give a sense to her speech. The essential, Kim understood, was, that these things are not good, that one was not obliged to talk about it and that she had to be ashamed about. These things were a burden, God sent to women and they have to take this burden without speaking about it. There were no books or TV reports for Kim to get more information and so she turned her head and became red, when classmates were talking about those themes. To make much more pain to her, Kim's mother obliged her daughter to wear big sanitary napkins, because she was convinced, that when her daughter will take tampons, she will loose her virginity. Kim always hesitated to go to school in pants, when she had her period, because the sanitary napkins could be seen by her classmates. Anyway she had a medical certificate, which allowed her to take not place in sports when she had her period. So she became more and more the target of mockery. More she was frustrated, more she was eating, until she was over weighted. Her mother gave her, what she wanted, cakes and chocolate, noodles and fat sauces. But she always told her daughter, that she became a fat pig. Kim wasn't interested at all, she was an outsider yet and she became it more and more. Only her little sister was at her side. Maude gave her sisterly love and understanding. They always played together, spoke together and – slept together, in two beds side by side.
said her ballet-teacher, while Kim was suffering, when she made the exercises.
shouted Kim out of breath. She stopped an sat down on the floor, while her mother was sitting on the only chair which was in the room. Kim just began to take off her dancing-shoes, when her mother arrived and pulled her up with a strong grip on her arms.
whispered she in her daughter's ears, while her eyes were throwing lightning's at Kim. She let Kim go to the mirror, where the teacher was waiting and set down again. Kim forced back her tears and continued to dance, but her thoughts were already at home. She became afraid when she looked at her mother, who showed a hardened face. After the hour, they went home in the car without talking, but when Kim was hurrying into her room, her mother followed her. Arden hit her daughter in silence and Kim tried to scream without noise. When her mother finished with her and left the room Kim hide under her blanket, crying silent tears and trembling with all her body. During a long time she never tried again to contradict her mother. It was winter and Kim had to prepare another competition in recording. Three hours a day she was making exercises, while her mother was listening. The rest of the evening she was wrapped up in a fleecy quilt, lying on the floor, listening the radio and reading horse-books. She dreamt of long rides on a fast horse, with at her side a young and gentle man, riding a big stallion, who loves her and whom she loves. She was dreaming of freedom and liberty and a life of her own. In this stadium of puberty she had two dreams, often coming back. In the first she tried to rescue a small dog who had one paw caught in a rail, while the train is coming. She wasn't able to help, but the nightmare always ended, before the train was hurting them. In her other dream she was a young baroness, whose stepmother didn't allow her to marry a young doctor. The stepmother will touch the heritage of her and so she's provoking an accident. After this the young baroness is confined for the rest of her life to an wheelchair, but one day the young doctor will rescue her, make her escape from the castle and marry her, in spite of her handicap. They will live in love and peace in another country, far away from fears and the stepmother. Only one time Kim had a dream, what made her happy and gave her the force to continue:
In a friendly winter-landscape the moon is shining brightly and throwing his silver light on the snowy trees. Kim is sitting in a small and comfortable blockhouse. A bright fire is blinking in the fireplace and playing magic shadows on the walls. Kim is waiting. A strange feeling of happiness is flooding her body. The sound of fast hoofs is coming nearer, deadened by the snow. Kim runs to the door and opens. When she looks to the rider, she feels indescribable good. The young man is sitting on a big, noble, white stallion and Kim is approaching. The mysterious stranger wears a dark clothing, white pants and old-fashioned boots. A black cape hangs from his shoulders and he wears a hat with a wide brim and some feathers. His face seems to be the face of Gérard Philippe, like the dead French actor a little strand of his curly, brown hair is falling into his forehead and his dark, brown eyes are looking like unfathomable, deep lakes into Kim's face. With a gentle and light, but strong movement he helps Kim to sit down on the horse, just before him and then he's pressing his lips on hers in a never ending kiss of love. When they are out of breath, he gives a little sign to his horse and they are leaving the place in a gallop. The white mane and tail of the stallion are flying in the winter-breeze and the snow is flying under his hoofs. Then the dream-picture became indistinct and Kim awoke. But after this dream Kim even more longed for freedom and love, two things she never knew.
Kim was looking at her mother, begging her to understand the wishes of a teenager.
answered her mother strictly. Kim was forced onto the defensive.
was she mumbling after a long silence of hesitation. Kim was already fourteen years old, not really a beauty, because she was too small and too fat, but with a nice face full of expression. Her long, curly red hair was falling over her shoulders like a fire-mane and her big, soft, green eyes often became blurred, while Kim was far away in her thoughts – perhaps in her own dream world. Thick eyebrows swung in a bold arrow on her high lofty brow and the straight nose was sitting over full lips which were waiting to be kissed for the first time. Arden was watching her daughter, like she never had seen her before. Was this the first step of revolution? And why wanted her gentle and well-educated daughter so unexpectedly to listen this – loud, horrible and lower-classes – music?
asked she her daughter.
But when she saw her mother's face, she was sure, that she failed.
Then she turned out of the room. Kim was angry and sad. Why couldn't her mother understand, that she wished to be like other children? At school the girls talked about the new songs, the life of rock- and pop stars and how they would dance to the new music. Kim stayed always besides and wasn't able to discuss with them. Very strange for a young teenager! But she was living like in a convent. Surrounded by order, classic music and films and books strictly chosen by her mother. When she watches television, she liked romantic movies with an Happy-End, trying to hide her tears. Tears, because love won and tears, because she perhaps never will meet such a love.
Christmas was – like in all other years before – a family-event. Always the same five faces under the tree, always the same music, always the same ceremony! After a long lunch, the children were waiting in the living-room of her grandmother, while their parents were preparing the gifts. Then a small bell rang: giving out of Christmas presents began! The whole family was dressed in their best clothes and the children were hurrying upstairs. But their mother stopped them right before the door, they had to wait for the others and then enter with measured steps.
answered the children together, while their eyes were searching for the gifts. What might be hidden under the gift-paper? But before all: the obligatory photograph! Keep smiling please!
whispered Kim.
hissed ten years old Maude to her sister. Kim smiled.
Even she was excited. Was the record she liked so under the gifts or not? Had her mother understood her begging? But what a disappointment! Kim only found some warm clothes, two non-fiction books and a music stand covered by the gift-paper! Only Maude was happy. She had found the game, she waited for, some warm clothes, too and a nice soft toy.
Maude showed the little tiger to her sister.
whispered Kim, then she tried to say thank you to her parents and grandmother for the gifts.
shouted Arden.
answered Kim proudly.
With a deep sigh Kim began to blew out the candles. Later they took all together a good dinner in the grandmother's living-room, then the family prepared the walk to the Midnight Mass. The parents weren't very practizising Christians, but the grandmother was a good Catholic and obliged her daughter, to give some Christian education to her children, too. So one time a year the whole family went to the church and Arden always said, that she was doing this "for the girls" because "later they could have a Christian marriage".
For her next birthday – the fifteenth - Kim got the approval from her mother to go to a dancing-school. All her classmates had been there at last one year before her, but she was happy, that she had been allowed, at all! Sure, that her mother knew the dancing-school since her youth and sure, that she was bringing Kim in her car, staying before the house and waiting, until Kim had finished, to carry her home. And sure, too, that Kim had to do all other things like ballet and recording besides her dancing hours.
asked the friendly teacher, when Kim entered for the first time his school. He was astonished, because Kim was so much older than the other girls, who came with their boy-friends or classmates to his establishment. But he knew Arden since her youth and she told him very clearly, what she expected from him. But he couldn't help feeling sorry for Kim. Even when there were the "old guys", older boys or young men, who had already finished the dancing-school, but came back for the ball, when they were paid for. But during the hours, Kim was alone. So the teacher did his best, to comfort her.
he joked, but when he saw Kim's face, he thought, that he had made a mistake. Kim was crying silently. Why was she always an outsider? She couldn't hear no more the word "private-hours" and she was tired to be considered as someone different.
The teacher took her by her arm and began to dance with her.
told he Kim, while they were dancing a slow waltz. Kim followed him with light feet and began to like dancing. After three month the day of the ball approached. Kim haven't found a partner, so the teacher called an "old guy" for her.
When the great day arrived, Kim was very nervous. What does it look like, her partner, she'd never seen before? Like the prince in her dreams? Would he take her to the ball like Cinderella? Was she obliged to leave the ball like Cinderella at midnight or was she allowed to stay until the ball ends? She hoped so, because she was sure, that her first ball would be her last, too. It was clear, that her mother wouldn't allow her to take part a second time. So she entered the hall ten minutes before nine o'clock. Her robe was made by the family-dressmaker, cheap and not very nice. Her mother had chosen the model, so the evening dress was discreet and boring and – red! Horrible with Kim's red hair, but the mother had not found any cheap material in another color. The robe was very simple, the top with a large ruche, the long and wide skirt ended over her feet. The only jewelry was a small necklace and a little bracelet. But Kim felt light and well, like Cinderella and hoped, that her charming prince would be there on time. Her mother brought her with the car to the ballroom, but what a deception, when she went there in a ball-clothing, too. She had got an invitation, too. As chaperone she would supervise her daughter all the night. Kim was unhappy but had to accept. And then came a blond, spotty, unshaven man in the late twenties to her, with simple metal-rimmed spectacles on his big nose and an indescribable physique – and he had a white carnation in his pocket!
asked he with contempt.
whispered Kim, before her voice broke. Her dream of an charming prince suddenly ended. He was ugly as sin and his manners were very bad. During the whole night he made Kim feel, that only because of the money he supported this agony. After the first few compulsory dances, he let Kim sit at the table and eclipsed with some friends to the cold buffet, where he drank a lot of alcohol. After midnight he returned to the table, where Kim was watching her mother in secret, who had a place on the gallery and always had an eye on her daughter. Kim took a glass of orange juice, because he knew very well, that she wasn't allowed to drink any alcohol.
>Wwwwill yyyou dddance wwwith mmme?> asked her partner with a drunken voice and staggering. Kim was disgusted. While she looked at him in silence, he continued to stutter.
>Iiiif yyyou wwwwouldn't, Iiiiiii wwwwill ggggo hhhome!> Kim had seen drunken man beside the pubs on the streets, but never met one so closely. She shook her head.
>Good night!> more she wasn't able to say to the horrible person whose stinky breath was near her face and made her nausea. So the man left her, hold by two of his friends what avoided him to fall down. Even the ball wasn't finished, Kim knew very well, that nobody would ask her to dance and the show had finished, too. Her mother had seen the scene from the gallery and when Kim stood up, she left her place, too and joint her daughter in the lobby. Kim thought, that her robe had one hundred pounds, her feet were lead and her head began to turn because of the cigarette-smoke in the ballroom.
asked her mother, when the went back to the car. Perhaps her mother thought to make something good with her question, but Kim felt that it was only sheer mockery.
she said, then she moved back to her own, without another word. Might her mother think that she was tired, so much the better!
Squealing tires, bursting metal and then the white, bare room in the hospital. The young Lady - Kim - in the wheelchair, pushed by her stepmother. Malicious words came out of her mouth: "Now you never can't leave me, you are dependent on me for the rest of your days!" And then the young doctor, who risked his life to set Kim free out of the influence of her stepmother. He took her with him and married her, a disabled woman. But their love was strong enough and freedom and peace were the results.
The night after the ball the nightmare came back to Kim. But when she woke up, she thought to understand, that this nightmare could have a sense, a message for her. Was it possible that her mother tried to paralyze her – not physically, but in a spiritual way? Would her mother like to totally determine her, Kim's, life and do not allow her daughter to make her own steps and experiences in life? Was the wheelchair a sign of dependency and total submission? But in her dream there was a solution – the liberator! In reality there was nobody who could play this role. And how things looked like, it wasn't probable, that anyone would come! From this day on she began to starve. And starved and starved, until she had only 48 kg for 1m67. Her mother noticed it with pleasure and said nothing to stop her daughter. What more, she always said, that Kim was too fat.
remarked her mother one day, when she entered the room in surprise and saw Kim naked before the mirror. This happened always like this. Silently like a cat the mother opened the door to see, what the girls are doing. Telephone calls were intercepted or listened, because the one and only telephone was near the staircase. Letters were opened and read. When the mother gave them back to the girls she always said: "I hadn't seen, that is was for you" or "I've thought that is was only an advertising". While other teenage-girls had a boyfriend and were allowed to take him at home, Kim shared her room with her twelve-years old sister. Their mother put out the light in the evening and opened the shutters in the morning, to wake up the girls. So Kim could only be in love with the old movie stars, some of them dead since a long time, but who stayed immortal by their films. Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly or Gérard Philippe were the loved men, when she watched them in the television in their best roles as noble heroes. At school she was the best of her class, because her mother was always supervising the homework and made her daughter learn by force. And day by day there was the same way of life!
remarked Kim's mother one day, while her daughter was exercising.
asked Kim a little bit out of breath.
asked she her mother, who was thinking for a long time.
Kim shouted by surprise.
was the only thing, her mother told her. Then she staid in silence. Nothing surprises Kim any more. Should she became much more thinner, than she was yet? And why? Sure, her mother was in her youth a well known beauty, but after the birth of Maude she became slowly fat and fatter and now she looked like a ton. A few day later Kim was lying on the floor in her room, dreaming and listening soft pop music in the radio. She was singing with a low voice the female part, when her mother entered the room. When Kim heard her mother's steps, she stopped singing immediately and turned out the radio, but it was too late!
Like a drumfire, her mother posed the questions. Kim made a pout and shrugged her shoulders.
Then she left the room and Kim alone with her sad thoughts.
She went to her bed and started to stroke with her fine hands the bedspread, which had smooth, long fibers, a little bit like the winter fur of a pony. She closed her eyes and imagined, that she strokes a horse of her own. Wishing to have one, to go to the stable and tell him all the things she has on mind. Sure, a horse couldn't give her any answer, but it would be an animal, which could give her warmth and affection. She felt in sleep and dreamt, that her wishes became true.
The angry voice of her mother made her awake. Drowsily Kim looked at her mother, who showed any sign of anger.
It was very clear, that Kim had forgotten not only the recording hour, but all other thing around her when she was dreaming of her wishes and hopes, but it was never reasonable to tell such things to her mother. So she took another dress and her bag with the instrument and the sheets of music. Her mother started the car and they went to the teacher's house. There the woman was already waiting.
Kim didn't understand, what her mother meant, because Arden stayed with her during the hours and so she could hear, when the teacher praised or criticized Kim. Could it mean, that her mother wouldn't stay no longer with her? But the teacher had to tell them another thing.
First Arden seemed to become angry, but than she forced a small smile on her lips.
answered Kim, while her mother took the sheets.
answered Arden. Then she looked at Kim.
They said goodbye to the teacher and went home. In the car Kim started to speak.
She didn't expect any answer from her mother and so she wasn't very surprised, when her mother staid in silence. When she entered her room, Kim hid the recorder and the sheets of notes deeply in her wardrobe, hoping, that she would never be obliged to look for them.
The swimming teacher shouted with a terrible voice through the nearly empty swimming baths.
complained Kim with a slow voice, so her mother, who was sitting on the other side of the pool couldn't hear it.
hissed the teacher.
So, that it was! The kindness and magnanimity of her mother! Who was always watching her daughter from besides the pool! Who never allowed her daughter to swim with other teenagers, but alone, during private hours! The mother and always the mother! But this time Kim accepted, gnashing her teeth. She had convinced her mother, that she wouldn't continue to play the recorder and this one time her mother said yes. But as a countermove to this consent, she expected, that her daughter was thankful and followed the swimming lessons with joy! So Kim suffered silently, during weeks and months. Then one day she missed the five meter springboard, the one-and-a-half somersault turned not right and she hit water with her back. For a moment she stopped breathing and thought that she had broken all her bones. While her teacher rescued her, her mother was shouting for an ambulance, but Kim was already up on her feet. After a few days in bed her mother told her, that diving was too dangerous and that she had finished the contract. Kim expected with fears to hear, that her mother has found another occupation for her, but funnily enough nothing happened. So she continued to go to ballet – but three times a week.
The class teacher had brought with him a lot of information material, books and catalogues and opened the discussion. Some boys and girls took place in the discussion, they proposed places like "London", "Rome", "Florence", "Paris" or "Madrid" in countries they had been during the vacancies with their parents or alone. Only Kim had nothing to say. Since her earliest youth, her parents went with the children for two weeks to Connemara. Two weeks with sailing, wandering, fishing or doing nothing. And it was already her mother who organized the trip. After a short discussion the teacher told them, that there would be a parents' evening Friday at eight o'clock, where a decision would be taken.
With a happy smile on her face, Kim ran into the kitchen, where her mother was sitting and eating.
asked her mother shortly. Kim seemed to be flabbergasted. Wasn't her mother happy, that her daughter would visit something else than Connemara?
shouted her mother.
Kim pleaded her mother with her eyes to understand her, to say yes. Never before she had the possibility to leave Ireland. Sure, in Ireland there were a lot of nice places – but when the other children came back to class after the vacancies and spoke of the exotic destinations, they had been, Kim was always ashamed, when she had to answer the teacher's question. Year after year she had to answer "Connemara" and year after year when they had to make a written report she had to write about the same things. Other children had been in Florida, Spain, France, South Africa or even Australia, she had been in "Connemara"!
was the answer, what didn't satisfied Kim at all. When the parents' evening took place, Kim wasn't able to sleep. She waited and waited and waited, it was later and later and her mother didn't come to tell her the results! Then she felt in an exhausting sleep. In her dreams her mother came and told her that they will go to France and that she, Kim, will take part! But when the morning came, her mother opened the shutters as all the other days before.
The same sentence as all the other mornings. Not a simple word about the last evening!
Kim was hidden under her blanket, because she wouldn't show, how excited she was. But after a few seconds she couldn't hold on.
She looked in her mother's face and what she saw, filled her with fear.
Told her the mother.
Kim screamed desperately, but her mother didn't get worked up.
Kim tried to hold back the tears, which were burning in her eyes like fire, because she knew very well, that there was nothing, her mother hated more, than tears and making scenes.
Kim even now was a very innocent girl for certain things in question, but at school she heard a lot of things concerning sex and love. Some of her classmates told the whole world, if they would like to hear it or not, their experiences (really or invented) with boys. So Kim knew very well, what her mother thought.
shouted Kim in her mother's face, but very quickly her mother's hand gave her two strong slaps around her face, leaving bright, red strings on her cheeks. The mother left the room and Kim returned to her bed, crying silently. Good luck, that today she had not to go to school – how to explain the marks to her classmates and the teachers?
And once more a part of her young soul died.
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AJÁNLOM AZ OLDALT
