The Penance Room

by Carol Coffey

  For most of the journey, my father held a newspaper in front of his face while my mother looked at me with that frown on her forehead that told me she was worried. I smiled at her and her eyes watered. She looked away and my father suddenly held out his hand to her and squeezed hers. I remember it all so well.

  I remember the sadness in my father’s face the following morning when the doctor told him the last of my hearing was gone and there was nothing to be done for me. My mother cried and Father hushed her gently. He doesn’t like to see her crying, even now. My father told the doctor that he was wrong, that I always knew what he was saying. The doctor insisted that I was already lip-reading. He told me he was going to ask me a question and turned me away from him. I waited but I didn’t hear anything until I was turned around again into my father’s arms. He hugged me so tightly that I knew it was bad news.

  That afternoon, we got on another train to a special school in Sydney that the doctor had asked my parents to visit before we returned home. I saw them arguing in the station. My father was saying “No. Never.” My mother was standing firm. She looked cross, an expression she doesn’t wear often.

  When we arrived at the school, it was brightly lit and children walked down white-painted hallways. I saw my father say the silence was creepy. He didn’t know what life was like in my world. Children were making shapes with their hands, moving them quickly and nodding to each other. Sign language. This is what the doctor wanted me to learn. My parents talked to a white-haired woman in her office and I was left outside watching the children talk with their hands, swinging my legs on the hard wooden bench.

  Then the office door opened abruptly and my father walked out quickly, startling me, my mother behind him looking upset. His face was red but not because of the sun. He was angry.

  He lifted me up into his arms and said to my mother, “No. I’ll get a tutor to teach him this language but he is staying with us where he belongs.”

  And so he did. A tutor named Thomas Smithers came and lived in Martin’s room. He taught sign language to me, my parents and even some of the staff. I have not had a tutor for a long time now.

  I know that my father regrets not sending me to that school where I might have learnt all sorts of things. I know he thinks that I would not have had my accident because I would not have been here. And I know my mother thinks this too and that, although she blames him, they rarely talk about it. They are both too sad.

  I sigh and pull my blind down to shield my room from the sun. We don’t have air-conditioning and the house needs a lot of repairs but my mother cannot afford it. I walk slowly downstairs and make my way to the lounge room, a large room with deep bay windows that have long stained-glass panels running along the sides of the glass. There the residents sit around in a large circle, staring at each other or into space. My father calls it the Penance Room because some of the residents, who were once at war with each other, now spend their days looking into each other’s faces. But there is another reason for the name. My mother’s father was a minister who came from England to work with the Aboriginal people when he was a young man. I don’t remember him or my grandmother who helped him in his work. When bushfires burned the roof of the church, some of Grandfather’s congregation helped him and my father to carry some of the smaller wooden pews to this house where they placed them along the bay window overlooking our garden. With the stained-glass panels behind, it does make the room look a little like a church.

  I stand by the doorway and look into the room. Mina Jensen is hiding food from the dining room under her skirt. Wilfred is sitting on a side pew which faces into the room, a blank expression on his face. Facing him are Mr and Mrs Klein. As usual she is calling him: “Aron! Aron!” He smooths her arms and says something in Hungarian which is the language of the country they were born in. Penelope and Victoria are of course wearing matching dresses and brooches and are reading the romance books that the staff buy for them. When they arrived here, my mother tried very hard to get them to wear different clothes but it upset them so much that she wondered if sometimes it is too late to help.

  Jimmy is staring at Martin. Kora said he hates Irish people and that he and Martin used to fight each other when they were younger. But Martin was born in Australia too and I wonder how long it takes before you get to be Australian. Kora is my aunt or a “kind of aunt” and she works here almost every day. Her mother was Aboriginal and Kora went to live with my grandfather when she was eight. Kora says that she doesn’t remember her parents and that because her father was white, she was taken from her mother when she was three and sent to an outback orphanage run by the evangelists. She remembers being very happy there. My grandfather was the minister for the home and when my mother and Kora became friends, Grandfather “adopted” Kora and took her with him when the family left to open a ministry in Broken Hill. But it wasn’t always a happy situation. I saw my mother telling Father that when Kora was a teenager, she became obsessed with finding out who she really was and she ran away lots of times. When my grandfather found her she would say that she was looking for her real family and that she hated him. Mother said Kora was very unhappy then and that she still resents my grandfather for taking her from the only place her real mother could find her. Kora told my mother that when she lived in the orphanage, she didn’t think much about her family or how she came to be at the home but, when she left its security, she wondered if every Aboriginal woman she saw could be her mother. She wrote to the home she had been at and found out that her father had been a drifter named Hill. Her mother’s name was not recorded and she didn’t even know if Kora, which means “companion”, had been the name her mother gave her. She told my mother that it was fitting that she had ended up in Broken Hill because that is exactly how she saw herself, Kora Hill, damaged beyond repair. Mother said that Kora wanted to know simple things like when her real birthday was and that until she found her family she could never get on with her life, that she could never be truly happy. With the help of my grandfather, she began her search but never found them. My mother likes to call Kora her sister and, even though they smile at each other and laugh together, I don’t think Kora likes this. She stopped writing letters many years back but she never gave up hope that her family would find her one day.

  I smile at Kora but she is busy with Mrs Soldo, one of the day patients whose families work and need someone to look after them during the day. Jana Soldo is from Yugoslavia and came to Australia as a war widow. She dresses in traditional Croatian clothes and has worn only black since her husband died almost thirty years ago. Her daughter is a teacher in the town and drops her mother off every morning. I often watch as Dora Soldo kisses her mother tenderly and sits her down in the Penance Room. It doesn’t seem to me that Jana has any penance to do.

  Usually, I sit in the room and watch the residents talking about their lives but today when an ambulance pulls up I remember that it is Tuesday and that Aron is due at the hospital for treatment. Iren is too weak to go with him and it would take two staff to accompany them both, which my mother cannot spare. I watch Tina, our part-time nurse, climb into the ambulance with Aron. He no longer understands why he has to go to the hospital and struggles for a moment with the ambulance driver. I think he is reliving memories of uniformed officers pushing him in the concentration camps. I often know what people are thinking. Like I said, I am an unusual child and I have seen some of the staff say this. One day, I was watching Tina from the doorway. She was talking to Rita, one of the other nurses. Tina picked up a photo of me as a little boy. When Rita, who was new, asked about me Tina put her finger to her head and made a “crazy” gesture. Even though she came to Australia from Italy as a teenager, she still speaks in a halting style. She said, “Very strange boy, always standing in doorways, always watching . . . crazy boy . . . but Emma and Andy, well, they never seem to notice,” and she shook her head as she dusted my photo. I tried not to cry and hid in my room for hours reading the schoolbooks that I had already read from cover
to cover.

  As the ambulance driver pulls away, Iren starts to scream for her husband: “Aron! Aron!”

  Wilfred, who was sitting quietly reading the newspaper, stands suddenly and leaves the room. He cannot stand to hear her calling out. It brings painful memories to him. Kora takes her by the hand and sits her beside Jana Soldo who is still smiling into space. Jana takes over from Aron and smooths Iren’s hands and she settles, if only for a while.

  Chapter 3

  At five thirty I leave my room where I have spent the afternoon reading and wander into town, hoping to pass a couple of hours. Just outside our house a magpie is screeching from the gum tree where she has made her nest. I watch her mouth open and close over and over. My friend Simon said magpies make an awful sound, almost as bad as the screech of bats that live in the barn at his farmhouse. I think that just once I would like to know what that sounds like for I have little memory of the sounds my parents say I used to be able to hear.

  When I reach the top of our road I turn left onto Crystal Lane where there are usually a few children playing in the late afternoon, but there is no one about so I venture further down side streets and laneways looking for company. I see a group of boys playing a game of rugby on some wasteland. They are older than me and I don’t know any of them so I move on.

  I remember my father taking a photo of the sunrise near here when I was about seven. I remember him putting his hands on my face and saying: “Look, son, a beautiful new sunrise in a beautiful new country. Fresh chances here, Christopher, fresh chances.” But I was younger then and didn’t know anything about fresh chances. My home and my mind were full of wars and disappointments.

  I turn down Beryl Street and go into the park to read the inscription on the Titanic Memorial. It was built for the band on the ship that played to the very end even though they knew the ship was sinking and they were going to die. I used to dream that one day I would be known for my bravery and that my name would be on a memorial stone for helping others.

  I leave the park and walk home via Sulphide Street where I will have to cross the tracks. I try to face my fear every now and then. On my way I see Maria Moretti standing on the street corner where she used to live before her house was torn down. Her grandfather’s tailor’s shop is just across the street but he is ill and doesn’t sell much stuff now. I saw my mother say that Joe Moretti was thinking of closing the shop after almost forty years in Broken Hill. Maria is wearing her usual white dress and she stares at me as I pass. We are the same age though she looks much younger and if she was a boy I would like to be her friend. I wave at her and her sad brown eyes look back at me. Sometimes I think she is as lonely as me and that I should hang around with her even if she is a girl.

  By the time I arrive back at my house, my father is returning home from work in his truck. It is spattered with orange mud from the mine where he works as an engineer, a profession he once hoped I would follow him into. My mother meets him at the gate and I watch as they kiss under the red sky. They both look tired as they lead each other by the hand into the house. I sit a while longer on the porch and take in the smell of the heat. The sky is a canvas of red and orange streaks and everywhere people and animals are looking forward to the cool evening.

  When I eventually come inside, Aishling is awake and ready for her night shift. She is writing another letter to Ireland even though no one ever answers her. Kora is still here and is tending to Aron who has returned from his treatment and is feeling ill. Kora is an excellent nurse even though she didn’t do her nurse training. My grandfather pleaded with her to travel to Sydney with my mother where he hoped they would both train as nurses, but she didn’t want to leave Broken Hill and still lives in the tiny house they all shared when my grandparents were alive. I saw her say that she had moved so much already that her roots would never grow. I look at Aron and know that my mother will ask the hospital to stop his treatment. I know her every move. She will not put him through it any more.

  In the evenings my father likes to liven up the atmosphere in the house and, though he is often tired, he doesn’t show it. Some nights Wilfred agrees to play the violin for the others. He usually needs coaxing but he will do anything for my father as they share a love of music and history. My father plays the fiddle but sometimes when he plays he looks so sad that I cannot bear to watch him. He plays traditional Scottish and Irish tunes and Aishling loves to sit in the window and listen. She looks so far away that I know she is imagining herself in Ireland with its cool rain and soft sunshine but I know that she can never go back there. These evenings rarely turn out as my father hopes. Most of the residents stare into thin air with moist eyes and quivering chins and I know that this is not what my father has in mind. He wants to remind them that they must have known happy times. They must have some happy memories. So on Tuesdays and some Fridays, Bill comes in with his guitar. He is a friend of my father and can play the sorts of tunes that cheer everyone up, everyone except Wilfred who is a classically trained musician and doesn’t like this sort of music. He says it is not pure. You cannot keep everyone happy. I often think it is my job to make people happier before they die even though I don’t know how to go about it. I think this is why I am here, to figure it out.

  Kora leaves just as my father brings around small glasses of whiskey for anyone who wants it. She doesn’t like alcohol and believes it was the ruination of her people, but it could also be because her adoptive father brought her and my mother up to believe alcohol was sinful and made the devil’s work easy. I know now that there is no devil. Just our own minds tormenting us for our failures.

  Bill sits himself down on one of the softer seats and takes a large sup of whiskey. He asks for requests and doesn’t seem to mind when only Jimmy and Martin answer him. As he breaks into song I can see some of the residents’ toes tapping. Penelope and Victoria sway slightly to the rhythm but are careful to behave like ladies. Iren sits bolt upright and opens her eyes so wide that it looks as though she has just woken up after years of sleeping. Her husband smiles and asks her for a dance. She agrees and they sit smiling together, neither getting to their feet. There is a part of them that knows that they will fall. Father Hayes is also smiling and tries to sing along even though he doesn’t know the words. I watch his mouth move differently to Martin’s and Jimmy’s who have both finished their whiskey and have beckoned to my father for more before my mother wakes up. Mina also looks happy and taps her tiny feet to the beat that I can feel in the far pew under the window, my favourite seat. My father asks her to dance and she laughs like a young girl. He lifts her to her feet and moves her slowly around in tiny circles, careful not to put pressure on her hip replacements. Aishling gets Father Hayes up and waltzes with him. His eyes are shining and he speaks to her in English. I see him say, “I’ve been looking all over Mount Tubber for you, Deirdre,” and Aishling plays along and tells him she was looking for him too and is glad to have finally found him. Her kindness brings tears to my eyes. Bill moves into a faster tune and my father asks Aishling for a dance. As they swirl around the room everyone claps except Wilfred who walks out briskly. Everyone ignores him but I can see the look of disappointment on my father’s face. He worries about Wilfred. Aishling leaves the room to check on the babies but returns quickly to enjoy the music. I wish that we could have the party in the babies’ ward so everyone could join in. It would be nice if the music woke them from their endless sleeping. It gives me an idea to ask my mother to put on the radio that is perched high on a shelf in their room. It is wrong to live in silence if you don’t have to.

  As Bill starts another song my father leaves the room. I am hot on his heels as usual. The evening is almost over anyway so I will not miss much. My father climbs the stairs and goes to Wilfred’s room. When we enter we find him kneeling at his bed crying. My father touches his shoulder to comfort him. I know that Wilfred is thinking of his family again. The war ended almost thirty years ago but he never gave up on finding them.

  “Wilfred
, come back to the party. Perhaps you’ll play a tune for us?”

  Wilfred shakes his head, which he has lowered to hide his tears. My father has seen him cry many times but Wilfred is still embarrassed by it.

  “I’m sorry, Andy, but I don’t feel like music tonight.”

  My father sits down on the bed and looks around the room, which is full of photos of Australian scenery. Wilfred has travelled a lot and my mother said he won awards for his photographs and that they were published in magazines.

  “So much beauty!” he once said to me as we looked at the photographs together. “I need to see beauty.”

  Even though I cannot hear I know when words are said with sadness. My eyes see everything. My eyes hear things that other people miss.