The Penance Room

by Carol Coffey

  My father raises his eyes, obviously looking for more information.

  “I . . . was beginning to give up . . . I found it hard to go on. I was depressed and I . . . I tried to kill myself. I was put in a hospital for many weeks. When I was discharged I returned to my flat and realised how alone in the world I was. I took one last job. For this, I had to come to Broken Hill to take photographs of the dying mining industry for a magazine. I remember that all of the hotels were full and I came here looking for a room but something happened . . . I became so tired and I found I could not go any further. I was finished. I had enough money . . . enough to live for a long while so I just stayed. This was now eight years ago and still I am here. All that searching and, Andy, I never found them.”

  Wilfred starts crying, the pain of telling his story finally overcoming him. My father puts his arm around his shoulder and together they sit on the bench and stare out into the darkness.

  “You tried, Wilfred. You did the best you could do.”

  “Not enough, Andy. It was not enough.”

  “What could you have done differently?” Father asks.

  “I should have listened to my parents. I should have stuck to what they taught me and opposed the Nazis – I too could have been a political prisoner like those I saw in Sachsenhausen. At the very least, if I lacked the courage for that and had to join the Hitler Youth and the army, I could have stood there and thought this is not right. But for the Jews who were in that prison, I think I know . . . I have thought about it . . . for many years it has kept me awake . . . trying to see what other way there could be and I think I am only one man but if every man had said no, this is wrong, who then would the SS have to do their evil? We would have been shot but we would have died honourably. I know that I could not have saved the prisoners’ lives but I could have refused to become part of their persecution. That I think was all that I could have done differently.”

  “But you did make the right choice in the end, Wilfred,” said my father.

  “It was too late, Andy. It was much too late.”

  My father doesn’t know what to say to this. He can see that Wilfred has suffered terribly and that his mind is so tortured that he can no longer think straight. He sighs and puts out his hand to Wilfred and after a few seconds, Wilfred shyly takes it.

  “You are the first person I have ever told this to and I am no longer afraid,” said Wilfred. “Tell who I am if you wish. I cannot be hurt more than I have hurt others.”

  “You realise your mother and sister are dead, Wilfred?” my father asks.

  Wilfred doesn’t answer but simply nods, his face lowered toward the ground.

  “I am not going to tell anyone, Wilfred. I think you have suffered enough and what good will it do?”

  Wilfred stops and turns to my father. I move quickly to see his words.

  “Do you . . . think . . .” but he cannot finish his question.

  My father shakes his head and puts his hand on Wilfred’s shoulder. “I will always be your friend, Wilfred. You did terrible things in desperate times. I know that faced with the same situation now, you would do the right thing.”

  As my father and Wilfred walk slowly into the house, I can see that Wilfred is thinking about Father’s words.

  Wilfred eases the screen door open to avoid waking anyone up. The house is still in darkness but when I see my father run upstairs two steps at a time, I know something is wrong. I follow next and Wilfred is directly behind me. When he realises that it is Iren who is shouting, he lurks in his own doorway and watches my mother and father talking outside her room.

  “Where have you been?” my mother asks. She looks tired and angry. “Iren’s been calling for Aron for most of the night. Her row with Wilfred seems to have reminded her of the past.”

  I leave my father to explain and go into Iren’s room. She is more distressed than I have ever seen her. She is speaking French with some English in between and then some other words I don’t understand but I understand enough to know that she is asking to die. I leave quickly and watch my parents talking.

  “I wish God would take the poor woman out of her misery,” my mother says. She looks like she is about to cry and my father takes her in his arms.

  “There is no God. There is only us,” Wilfred says as he eases the rest of his large frame into his room and closes his door.

  My mother gives Iren another tablet and I sit with her as Iren’s breathing eases and her eyes gently close. My mother smooths her hair as she drifts off.

  When I finally get to bed, I dream of Wilfred marching toward Iren’s room in his soldier’s uniform. When he gets to her door, he looks around to see if anyone is watching. In my dream I have a voice and I shout “No, Wilfred! I am the guardian of souls and you shall not kill!” I shout again in my dream and try to wake myself up but I am tired and I don’t open my eyes until the sunlight has streaked across my ceiling telling me that it is at least ten o’clock. When I come out of my room I immediately sense the strange atmosphere. I walk down the hallway to where my mother and Greta are talking and realise that Iren is dead and Wilfred is gone.

  Chapter 25

  Later that morning, I watch as Doctor Alder tells my mother that poor Iren’s heart finally gave up fighting. I go back up to her room and look at her purple skin and blue lips. Doctor Alder signs the death certificate and sympathises with Mr Berman who looks even more lost than he did when Aron died. When Mr Berman leaves to organise Iren’s funeral, my mother comes into the office and sits wearily beside my father who has been on the phone all morning frantically searching for Wilfred. She strokes Father’s wild hair and he calms slightly.

  “You don’t think Wilfred did anything to Iren?” he asks nervously.

  Mother shakes her head. “Of course not. He wouldn’t do that, Andy.”

  I have nothing to add. I keep telling myself it was only a dream, just a dream.

  Father leans forward and places his chin in his freckled hands. “It’s just that he said something last night. He told me everything and at the end . . . he said he should have put the Jews out of their misery by shooting them to save them from cruel deaths. When we came in last night, you said you wished God would take Iren to put her out of her misery. It just seems . . . strange that she would then die.”

  My mother stares hard at my father. “She was dying, Andy. She had a heart condition. When my father was a minister I saw lots of sick people asking to die. Sometimes God answers them and takes them on their journey.”

  Father jumps up quickly.

  “Where are you going?” Mother asks.

  “To the train station.”

  I run alongside Father as quickly as my bad foot will allow and climb into his truck as he starts the engine. For the entire journey, he taps the steering wheel nervously and twice shouts at motorists who don’t move quickly enough when the traffic lights change. We pass Maria’s house and she is standing on the corner in the same white dress. I wave and she waves back at me. Her mouth is open in an O shape as though she never expected to see me driving by. She looks up at the orange lights on top of my father’s truck and begins to chase after us, waving her hands frantically. Sometimes I worry that Maria is mad but as I have no other friends, especially kids who don’t care about my deafness or my foot, I try my best to ignore her strange behaviour. As we turn the corner I sign to her that I will see her later but she just stares back with an open mouth and sad expression.

  When my father gets into the station I have trouble catching up with him. He doesn’t lock the truck but runs straight in to the ticket desk to ask if Wilfred has been there. The young girl shrugs her shoulders and tells him lots of people bought train tickets and that she only has names of people who paid by credit card. My father’s shoulders slump. He doesn’t think Wilfred would have a credit card as he keeps a large amount of cash in his room – he doubts that he even had a bank account. I follow my father on foot to the bus station but it is the same story there. Lastly, we chec
k the car rental service. My father knows the manager and asks if a German man hired a car that morning. Mr Palin laughs and says, “I’d remember a Kraut hiring a car for sure,” but my father ignores his racist comment and smiles weakly at him as he leafs through the paperwork. He knows that Mr Palin doesn’t mean any malice and sees no harm in using these terms.

  “Moll?” Mr Palin then shouts inside to a woman who is making coffee in the back. “You hire a car to a German?”

  Moll comes out wiping her hands. She smiles at my father and throws a sharp glance at her husband.

  “No, dear, but I did hire a car to a lovely Polish man. A tourist.”

  “Did he say he was Polish?” father asks.

  “No but he sounded Polish.”

  My father raises his eyebrows at her and she laughs nervously.

  “Well, they all sound the same, don’t they?” she says earnestly.

  “What did he look like?” father asks impatiently.

  “Em . . . he was . . . middle-aged . . . very tall . . . a good-looking sort. Hired it for a week to do some sightseeing. His name was . . . it should be here somewhere . . .” She leafs through the same pile of papers as her husband. “There – Carl – Carl Erlichmann. Has – has he done something wrong?”

  Father flushes. I know that he is thinking it is a bad sign that Wilfred has used his real name.

  “No! Em . . . no . . . he was staying with us at the boarding house and he forgot something . . . that’s all. Did he say what way he was heading? Maybe I could catch up with him?”

  Moll shakes her head, her light brown ringlets making her look like a little girl. My father begins to sweat. He knows that Wilfred could have gone in any direction so there would be no point following him into the broad expanse of the outback.

  “When he brings the car back will you tell him I really need to see him?”

  “No problem, I love your accent,” Moll says, smiling at my father the same way my mother does.

  When we leave the rental office, my father and I walk slowly back to the truck in silence. Father thumps the steering wheel.

  “What has he done?” he asks as he turns the truck around. I am relieved when he takes a different route home as I don’t want to see the sad expression on Maria’s face again.

  When we arrive back at the house, Steve has arrived and is dismayed that Wilfred has gone and disappointed that he will not hear his story.

  “You mean his confession?” my father says and I know he is being sarcastic.

  Steve is not put out and replies, “Whatever way you want to see it,” and walks away.

  A few moments later Father follows Steve out onto the porch and I watch through the window of the Penance Room as he apologises to Steve who shakes his hand warmly. Mother invites them inside but Steve stays a while longer on the porch with Aishling. He hands her a letter and, although I strain my neck, I cannot see what is written in it. I think it must be good news as Aishling reads it and smiles warmly at Steve.

  “You went to all that trouble for me?” she asks.

  “It was no trouble. Being an ex-member I was in a position to call in a few favours,” he jokes. “You said he went to South America so I started there. I wrote to the bishop telling him your story. I – I didn’t think you’d mind?”

  Aishling shook her head.

  “It seems you didn’t do him any harm after all. Father Kearns went on to establish three orphanages in the poorest parts of Columbia. He’s a bit of a national hero there. Maybe if he hadn’t been blamed for . . . well, they wouldn’t have shipped him off there and he’d be freezing in some old presbytery on some windswept island off the coast of Ireland!”

  Aishling laughs and I have never seen her look so genuinely happy. “A true priest,” she says, more to herself than to Steve as she reads the letter quickly again.

  “There’s an address on the top, should you ever wish to make contact.” Then he adds, “He said there are no hard feelings.”

  Aishling shakes her head slowly. She doesn’t need to contact him. Peter Kearns has forgiven her and that was all she needed and she has forgiven her parents for turning their backs on her. She has even come to understand, if not agree with, their actions. Steve has brought a feeling of peace to her life and to the lives of some of the residents also. She puts the letter back into its envelope and smiles shyly at him. I know she hates goodbyes. I saw her telling my mother once that from as far back as she could remember, she cried when visiting aunts and uncles were returning to America or England, even the ones she hardly knew.

  “So, where are you going to next?” she asks. Her eyes are beginning to water and she doesn’t want him to see her cry. Inside she is still a vulnerable girl and I can see that my mother is right. Aishling gets hurt easily.

  “Back to Bourke first, then Dubbo. I’ve a lot of interviews set up there so that’ll take a few weeks. I . . . I might come back to Broken Hill then for a bit before I finish the study. I was hoping I could see you. . . if you were interested?”

  Aishling’s eyes light up but at the same time she bites down on her lower lip. I wonder if she is thinking of what her parents would say about her seeing an ex-Catholic priest. Steve, like me, seems to know what people are thinking, sometimes even before they do.

  “I’m not a priest any more,” he said, his expression turning more serious.

  Aishling swallows. “Doctor Alder said that when we get old, we are least in a position to do anything about our regrets,” she says suddenly.

  Steve nods. “He’s right.”

  “Then I’d love to see you when you come back.”

  Steve leans in and kisses her on the cheek. I know she is disappointed. I know she is hoping for the type of kiss you see in movies. He laughs and kisses her again, this time more like how my parents kiss after a party.

  “Are you going to answer the phone?” Steve asks Aishling.

  Aishling nods but I know she wishes someone else would answer it.

  She runs inside, leaving Steve alone on the porch. He looks in the window at me as if he knew I was there all along and I tense, hoping he is not going to tease me about being in love with Aishling.

  “Christopher,” he says, making sure he has my full attention. “When I come back, you and I need to have a little talk.”

  I jump back from the window and go to my room. I am not accustomed to people talking directly to me and because I already know what Steve wants to talk to me about, I feel cold and shaky and not at all in the humour for his farewell party. I stay in my room for hours until I feel the screen door slam. Hoping it is Steve leaving I sneak downstairs but see it is Kora standing in the hallway smiling at my mother. I run down as quickly as my foot will allow as I have not seen much of my aunt since Jeff’s accident and I miss her.

  I move swiftly down the hallway as my mother hugs her adopted sister. It is an unusual sight as Kora doesn’t really like affection.

  “Married! When? Oh Kora. I’m so happy!” my mother says before bursting into tears.

  “Why wait? I’m not getting any younger. I thought I’d marry on Father’s anniversary,” Kora says, straightening out her smile a little and returning to her somewhat stiff way.

  “But – that’s – well – only – less than a month away!”

  “There’s hardly much planning. There aren’t many to invite. I think it would be too far for Jeff’s sisters to come. I was thinking of marrying here, in the lounge room. That way Jimmy can attend and, well . . . I’ll feel nearer to Father with his pews here and all.”

  Mother smiles and starts to cry again. “Oh, Kora, he would have loved to have given you away! He’d be so proud!”

  My mother tries to hug Kora again but the moment has passed and she is once again her sullen, abrasive self. I can see that there is something on her mind.

  “I wish . . . I wish my mother could have seen me get married. It would have been nice. Don’t mean to hurt you, Emma. You’ve been a good sister to me, I know that, but somewh
ere out there I might have a mother who loves me and who could be looking for me.”

  My mother bites her lip. Kora and her father had well and truly exhausted all avenues looking for her mother. She doesn’t know what to say so instead asks the question both she and I are dying to ask.

  “How do you think Jimmy will take the news?”

  I watch as Kora tenses up. She shrugs then to pretend she doesn’t care how her future father-in-law will react.

  “I don’t really care any more. He can get used to it. I’m through letting other people make decisions for me.”

  Now it my mother’s turn to tense but she decides not to be drawn into Kora’s anger towards their parents.

  “Well, whatever kind of wedding you want, I’m happy for you,” my mother says, smiling through watery eyes.

  “Well, what have I missed?” Kora asks, keen to change the subject. “Is everybody okay?”

  My mother decides not to tell Kora about Iren or Wilfred just yet and grabs her sister by the hand, leading her into the dining room where the residents, who are as yet unaware of what happened last night, are saying their goodbyes to Steve. Kai and Mina have made a cake for the occasion. Everybody crowds around Kora and wishes her well and she smiles awkwardly. My father kisses her and she tells him off for not shaving. He would normally laugh at Kora’s cranky ways but there is a faraway look in his eye. I know he is worried about Wilfred and will not rest easy until he is back with us. I walk out the front door and bang the screen door. I am not often angry but I feel threatened by something in Steve’s words. I feel as if he doesn’t want me here and I find myself thinking back to his conversation with Aishling out in the garden. I remember him saying that I would be better off away from here and I am suddenly worried that he is planning to send me away. I decide to tell Maria about it and make my way to her house but before I reach her corner, she jumps out on me and scratches my face.