The Penance Room

by Carol Coffey

  “I told you that you don’t need sign language any more, Christopher,” Maria says and I hear her.

  I am weakened and I kneel down on the wooden floor. Maria stays with me and I can feel her tiny cold hand in mine.

  “Listen,” she says. “Listen to your mother.”

  My breathing quickens and I don’t look around but I can hear her words. I can hear my mother tell the sorrowful story of the day I ruined her life.

  “I remember saying ‘Stay with me, Christopher, stay with me’ but I knew. I needed him to keep his eyes open so he could see my words but he closed them so slowly. I ran to the house. Aishling and Kora were screaming. I can still see it. The ambulance. The doctors trying to stop the bleeding. The waiting . . . and yet he slipped away from me. I kept praying . . . I said ‘Stay with me, stay with me.’ It was 3 a.m. when he died. Andy and I sat in that room and watched him drift away from us. Our only son.”

  I gasp and kick out at Maria.

  “I am not dead!” I scream but she soothes me and shakes her head sadly at me. I jump from the window and move toward my mother. I scream again into her face. “Mother, I am here, please, Mother! Look at me!” but she stares blankly ahead and wipes tears quickly from her face.

  I kneel on the ground in front of my mother and collapse into a heap at her feet, sobbing loudly. Maria kneels beside me and dries my tears with her tiny hands.

  “She cannot hear you, Christopher. We are both gone. Only our sadness remains. Sadness for what we caused – for the damage we have done.”

  My mother touches the locket around her neck, her favourite photo of me. Not a photo of me when I was younger as I like to believe but the last one taken – taken days before the accident.

  “But I always feel him near me. I sometimes think that this is what he remembered as he died. Me calling him, begging him not to leave me and I – I have often felt him here. I know he guides me. I know he somehow makes things happen . . . I just hope . . . that I have not stopped him from moving on to where he is supposed to be . . . from finding peace . . .”

  My mother starts to cry and moves her hands to her face. Joe Moretti looks at his shoes that he will never walk in again.

  “I feel her too. Maria . . . all of the time. Sometimes I hear her playing in the garden. I can sense her. My son, he say I spend too much time alone and that I am imagining it but I know is true. She is watching over me but I am fine now and I want her to go to God. I want her to go to a happier place. I want her to know that I will be all right.”

  My mother looks at Joe Moretti as if she too should feel this way but I know she needs me and she knows this to. Maria stands and tugs my hand as she looks toward the window. She wants me to go with her but I shake my head. She smiles to tell me that she understands. I look down at her white dress and her shiny hair, full of pretty ringlets. She kisses me on the cheek and lets go of my hand as she disappears from my sight and my mind.

  I am alone now and I move from my kneeling position and look around the window, anxious to see her, the only person I can communicate with. But it is Steve I can see looking in at me. Without feeling myself moving through the house as normal I find myself on the steps with him. He is sitting beside me, his eyes imploring me to do something, something I cannot agree to.

  “You knew?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he replies.

  I can hear his voice and wonder how this can be.

  “You must have known,” he tells me. “Did you not notice people ignoring you?”

  “People have always ignored me,” I sign.

  He frowns so I speak. I repeat, “People have always ignored me.”

  “But your mother, your father, people who love you?”

  I lower my head to the ground and nod. I knew . . . a long time ago I knew but I tried to forget.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened on the train line that morning? I mean what really happened?”

  I nod and clear my voice anxiously. I know now what this felt like for the residents. My heart beats faster and I flush with the shame that I have been telling you about because what happened to me was not all my parents’ fault.

  Steve nods but this time there is no tape recorder. I open my mouth and I am amazed that I am no longer self-conscious about my voice. I can hear each word and I am mesmerised by the clear sound coming from me.

  “Simon was my best friend. He didn’t mind that I was deaf but when he started school he had new friends. He still came around here sometimes but his new friends were not interested in playing with me so he called to the house less. My mother was worried that I was lonely and sometimes I’d go red in the face when she’d phone Simon’s mother and ask that she send him over to play with me. I hated when she did that because I needed someone who wanted to spend time with me. Someone who wanted to be my friend.

  “On the day of the accident, I was alone throwing stones into a water hole on the opposite side of the railway line. I saw Simon coming up the track with his friends Jude and Philip. I didn’t like them much and I knew that they made fun of my voice. I watched them from the distance playing ‘chicken’ on the line. Each time the train approached, they’d jump on the line and jump off quickly when it got near. They took turns and dared one another to stay longer on the track, laughing and slapping each other’s backs with every success. I thought if I could do that, they might think I was okay and would let me hang around with them so I went against my mother and father’s rule that I stay far away from the train line. I walked up to them and asked if I could join in. I could see Simon looking nervously at me. ‘Careful!’ he warned as I took a turn. He was nervous the whole time I was there and I knew he felt responsible for me. I . . . well, all I wanted was to be like every other boy. I didn’t want anyone thinking they had to watch out for me. Anyway, I could feel the rumble of the train before any of them could hear it so I was even better at the game than they were. After about a half hour, they got tired of playing chicken and said they were going home for their lunch. I was enjoying their company and I realised just how lonely I was as I pleaded with them to stay, offering them some of my toys if they stayed a while longer. When Jude and Philip walked off, Simon stood in front of me and told me to go home. ‘It’s dangerous here,’ he said. ‘I’d feel better if you went home now, Christopher.’ I remember thinking that – that he was talking to me as if I was stupid. I wanted to prove to him that I was just like any other boy.

  “When he walked away, I quickly tied my shoelace to the joining bolt on the line and called for him to look back. I stood on the edge of the line and tried to keep my balance. I waved at Simon and I was happy when Jude and Philip turned to watch me. They were a good distance from me but I could see by the expression on their faces that they thought I was brave. Simon started to walk back towards me. I could see his jaw drop but I thought it was because he was impressed at my courage. He started waving his hands frantically. He kept pointing for me to look behind me. I thought he was joking as I knew the train timetables by heart and it wasn’t until that moment that I felt the vibrations moving up my feet. I – I tried to run but I fell backwards onto the long strip of grass that ran along the side of the train line. I panicked and tried to untie my lace but it was stuck in the bolt. I tried to pull my shoe off but the lace was caught so tightly that there was no room for me to get my shoe off. I – I was frightened. I could see the train moving quickly towards me on my right while on my left Simon was still running toward me, shouting. In the distance Jude and Philip stood and didn’t move to help me. I kept pulling at my shoe but I didn’t look at the train. I looked at Simon and when he stopped running I knew. I knew that it was too late and that the train was going to hit me.

  “The next thing I remember was my being lifted up in my mother’s arms and being carried to the house. I felt very cold and my mother kept telling me to look at her, to stay with her. I could not stop myself from closing my eyes but as I drifted off, I knew that I could do this one thing she asked me. I could
stay with her and this is what I have done ever since.”

  Steve sighs and I know that my story has made him sad.

  “You cannot stay here, Christopher. What is left of you must move on,” he says and I nod.

  “There is one more thing I am waiting on,” I tell him. “One more thing.”

  Epilogue

  Ten months later

  I sit and coo at my brother, using my real voice. He came two months earlier than expected and confirmed my mother’s suspicions that she was further on in her pregnancy than Doctor Alder thought. I am relieved that he can hear me as he laughs at the faces I pull and the silly sounds I make. He can see me but all babies can see ghosts. After a while most people lose this ability, except people like Steve and me. My mother looks up from her book but Father beats her to it and lifts young Andy Christopher and bounces him on his knee. Mother smiles and her watery eyes are not due to sadness but happiness. One night shortly before my brother was born I sat in the Penance Room and listened to my parents having the conversation that they should have had about me a long time ago. Father told my mother that every day since my death he regretted his decision not to send me away. Mother told him that she was angry with him and that she was sorry she did stand up to him. They both cried and I watched from the window in the darkness as they made their peace with the past and with me. There is a part of me that is glad they kept me here where my special abilities went to good use with the dead and the dying.

  I move outside and look at the renovations on the house that are now complete. Downstairs Mina is sitting in the extended kitchen with Li looking through the most recent photographs of her grandchildren and talking about how Kai is the top student in his confectioner’s course in Sydney. Father Hayes died but he received several letters from Deirdre after her visit and when her daughter wrote to tell us that she died the day after him, we were not surprised. Upstairs, Victoria and Penelope have been given separate rooms and although Penelope has not yet moved into hers, she stops at the door every day and smiles in at the pink décor and new piano that her nephew bought for her. Victoria is sitting in her room and is dressed in a flamboyant orange dress tapping away on her typewriter. A publisher rejected her novel because it didn’t have a happy ending. I watch as she tells her sister that her new novel is about a pianist who falls in love with a much younger violinist. Penelope tut-tuts at such nonsense and gathers up her music sheets for her lesson plans with Wilfred which is her favourite part of the day. Together they now run a small music school, as well as the voluntary work they continue to do at the renamed Klein Community Centre, which has given them both a nice wage. As Penelope makes her way across the lawn to one of the self-contained units where Wilfred now lives, I visit with Jimmy who is also living here until the lift is installed in the main house.

  Jeff and Kora are there with their new son. I smile as she tells him that they have decided to call the baby Nathan after Jimmy’s real father. Jimmy’s eyes water as he holds the tiny sallow-skinned baby in his arms. “He looks like him,” he says through his tears. I listen to Kora tell him that the baby must look like both sides as her mother swears he looks just like her brother who died as a young man. Kora and Jeff understand most of what he says but he still misses Martin interpreting for him. Kora spent a couple of days with her mother and sister after her honeymoon and while she enjoyed hearing about her past and her ancestors, I heard her tell my mother that it is too late to form strong bonds with her family and that she found herself to be very different from them and more like my mother than she would previously have admitted and that while she will always mourn this loss, there is nothing she can do to change it, so she has accepted it and is trying to move on with her life. She never found out when her birthday was. Burilda could only tell her that she was born one bright starry night in January. She visits her mother and sisters regularly and is glad to have found out who they are.

  Kora no longer works at the home. We have new staff now and a lot of new residents. Greta is still here as is Tina but Aishling moved to Sydney to be with Steve. On the table in mother’s office there is an invitation to their wedding. Three weeks after she left, a letter finally arrived for her from her family. My mother posted it to her but no one knows if she read it and, if she did, if she replied. I go back inside and sit down on my favourite pew in the Penance Room and I can hear them all, the voices of those that passed through here, Aron and Iren, Father Hayes and Martin and all of the other souls who I hope are now happy and at peace. I got my wish about the plaque. A week after the renovations were finished, my father planted a gum tree in my honour. Following Steve’s suggestion, he nailed a little silver plaque on its trunk saying: “Christopher Monroe. Died 1967 Age 8 years but lived a special life. Sadly missed by his parents and all of the people he helped at Broken Hill Nursing Home.”

  I look out of the stained-glassed window and I know that it is time for me to go. As I drift away, I can see Maria waiting for me. I can see my grandfather and grandmother and all of the past residents and as I look down I can see my father place his arm around my mother as she holds my brother in her arms. I don’t need to be afraid. They are going to be okay.

  The End

  An Interview with Carol Coffey

  1. The theme of migration plays a big part in this book. Have you had personal experience of living abroad?

  I lived in Australia for over ten years and this experience gave me an understanding of the losses and gains people experience by leaving their home: the loneliness and longing for familiar surroundings and yet the independence and opportunity that migrating to a great country such as Australia provides. For most of the characters in this book, the experience was even more difficult. Due to the long distance and the cost involved, many of Australia’s earlier migrants never saw their families again and many experienced more prejudice than later migrants who were welcomed and who could afford to return home for holidays.

  2. Did you do a lot of historical research when writing the book? Was it interesting/time-consuming?

  Yes, even though I love history, a lot of research was necessary for this book. It was time-consuming but very interesting and worthwhile. I learnt a lot about Chinese history post Japanese invasion, something I had no prior knowledge of and the fate of many surviving Jewish people post holocaust. Of particular interest to me was the fate of German soldiers who fought for Hitler, either willingly or unwillingly. Not a lot has been written about these people and I feel this would have been useful to help the outside world understand the mindset of German people at that time. I feel that there must have been a lot of reluctant soldiers during this period of Germany’s history and that they were to some degree also victims of this terrible tragedy.

  3. Do you have a favourite character in The Penance Room?

  Overall, Christopher is my favourite character because despite all that he has lost out on, he remains a good person who has everyone’s best interests at heart. However, almost everyone in the book endured great hardship, so I feel sympathy for them all. Aron and Iren’s kindness to those around them despite such hardship was admirable as was Penelope and Victoria’s gentle disposition despite the violence they had endured. Mina’s strength in such adversity and Wilfred’s quest to find his family to make up for his wrongdoings are equally inspiring. Martin Kelly and Jimmy Young’s belief that they were victims despite their own wrongdoings and their eventual embrace of the truth was also emotive. In short, everyone in the book suffered either from their own doing or by others, but in the end made efforts to make peace with their past.

  Wilfred is the character I feel most sorry for. Mina had her husband and brother to face her post-war years with. Aron and Iren had each other and their community for support, but Wilfred had no one to confide in and this isolation prevented him from facing his demons and trying to make a success of his life after such a dark past.

  4. What character/scene was the most difficult/interesting to write?

  Two characters stand
out for me. Writing about Kora’s experience, while uplifting in many ways, was also very emotional and upsetting. I think writing about Wilfred in his youth was difficult but what I wanted to portray was that everyone has their story. Everybody has a reason why they took a particular road in life and thirty or forty years later it can be difficult to reconcile those decisions with the person they have become in later life. This is often where great personal suffering and regret can occur and the penance phase of life begins.

  5. Redemption is also another focus in the book – forgiving yourself and dealing with and facing up to the past. Most characters in this book struggle with their past. Why is that, do you think?

  Someone once said to me that we are forced to face our pasts when we are least in a position to deal with them, for example when we are old and perhaps unable to make amends to those we have wronged. This theme interested me and I decided to create a cast of characters that are forced into a situation where they have to face up to the wrong they did and forgive the wrong that was done to them. Peace of mind is a less obvious theme in the book but failing to face up to your failings and refusing to accept what you cannot change makes peace almost impossible to obtain. Also interwoven throughout the book are the themes of racial, class and religious prejudice.

  6. Australia and the Aboriginal people are an integral part of everyday life in the nursing home. However, Jimmy’s prejudice affects Jeff and Kora’s relationship. What are your views on this issue?