The Penance Room

by Carol Coffey

  “My name is David Berman and I am a long-time friend of Aron and Iren Klein. I am here today to help explain Aron and Iren’s early life with the assistance of a French interpreter. I met Aron and Iren in Broken Hill in 1950. I was then twenty-six years old. My uncle was friends with the Kleins and he sent me every day after work to help them because they had no family in Australia. Aron Klein was then about, well, coming to sixty I think and Iren, of course, some years younger. We spoke many times of their life and Aron was like a father to me. My own parents were German and I was born there. After the – after the war – we came – my uncle and I – to Australia. Both my parents had died in the camp and my uncle worked long hours here. Aron told me that he was born in Budapest in –”

  Iren interrupted, the mention of a familiar place causing a huge smile to erupt on her tiny face.

  “Budapest!” she shouts. Her eyes light up for a moment and then darken. “Apa, Anya,” she says and she quietens again.

  Mr Berman pats her hand and smiles at her before returning to the story.

  “Aron was born in 1890. His family were well off. Aron’s father was a doctor and he wanted Aron to also become a physician. Aron’s older brother had already graduated from university in Italy but his heart was in physics so in – I think 1908, he travelled to France and began to study at the University of Paris. In Hungary, only a small percentage of Jews could enter university so he thought it was best not to hope to be among their numbers and to travel for his qualifications. It was there that he met Iren.”

  Steve turns his attention on Iren who is smiling and nodding at Mr Berman but we have no idea how much English she understands. He explains that he will speak in French first before translating into English to ensure that Mr Berman is in agreement with his questions.

  “Don’t change it to English,” Greta laughs. “I love listening to Froggies. It’s so romantic!”

  I am glad that Aishling was too tired to hear Steve speaking French. I am afraid that she will fall in love with him and leave here.

  “Iren, you met Aron in Paris. Can you tell me how you met?” he asks.

  She sits forward and stares into Steve’s face.

  As she answers him, he translates her words into English. We are amazed at the clarity of her mind and if we were not sitting here watching her mouth open and close quickly, I would think Steve was making it up.

  “My father ran a jewellery store in Paris. I was born in Budapest where both my parents were from but, when I was two, my parents left for a new life in France. My father was a brilliant goldsmith and rich French people came from afar for his pieces. My father knew friends of the Kleins in Budapest and they asked if he could put a young student up in the loft during his studies. My father said yes, of course. I was eight then and Aron came and stayed with my parents and me. I instantly fell in love but I was only a little girl with a handsome tall boy in my house. I had no brothers or sisters and Aron gave me extra lessons in written Hungarian. I could speak Hungarian but not write it very well and so he taught me. Aron also spoke German but I didn’t. He was very clever. When he comes home from work at the university, I will have cooked for him his favourite meal.”

  Everybody looks at each other and no one knows for sure how to handle Iren’s sudden departure from reality. Even Martin seems to be enjoying the story and only Wilfred is sitting with his back to the group, staring at the pup chasing flies in the garden. Steve decides to play along with Iren. Like the rest of us, he doesn’t want to break the spell.

  “Yes, of course, a fine meal will be lovely but in the meantime, could you tell me a little about your life with Aron when you were younger?”

  Iren nods and puts imaginary long hair back behind her ears and giggles at Steve as though she is still a young girl.

  “In the evenings, my father with no son would teach Aron how to make fine jewellery and this boy who loved only books liked helping in the shop. I was a little jealous for I too helped and I was also becoming good at making things. We were not as well off as Aron’s family but he took to our life and soon he and my father were good friends. When he finished his studies I was almost twelve and I cried when he left although he came back when I was sixteen and he worked as a research assistant in Paris. I was a silly girl at that time and didn’t yet know what physics meant. My mother had died and it was just me and Papa running the shop.

  “After I left school, I worked all the time in the shop and my father said it was a pity he didn’t have the time or means to make me a lady. Sometimes Aron honoured us and came for meals at our house. He now lived in an apartment and had fancy friends who he told me had breeding but no money. I was in love with him but to him I was just a little girl. And for many years that was how we met. He would come to my house and I would cook Hungarian food for him rather badly. My papa said: ‘Daughter, you are more French than like us and we shall have to find you soon a Hungarian husband.’”

  Li looks at my mother and whispers, “No wonder she didn’t think much of the Hungarian meal I made for Aron’s funeral. She didn’t know what it was!”

  Iren goes quiet for a moment and looks like she is reliving a memory.

  “Once he said this in front of Aron and my face went so red that I left the table and refused to return. My papa didn’t realise that I was in love with Aron and looked on him like an older brother for me. Then, when Papa got sick, it was too late for us to return to Hungary which had been his plan and I tried to run the shop myself and look after Papa. I was in my early thirties then, an old maid, and from time to time Aron would call and check that I was all right. I had given up on him seeing me as a woman and I was not so unladylike as to ask him if he had an interest in me.

  “When Papa died, Aron came and stayed for a few days even though his apartment was only about one hour away. When he was leaving, he kissed me and I asked him why he did not try to kiss me before. He said he owed a great debt to my father and that he didn’t want to offend his generosity. I realised then that perhaps my father was right, perhaps I didn’t understand Hungarian ways and that I was a French girl. Aron said he wanted to see me and asked if I wanted this too. I could not believe it. All those years and he didn’t ask. I think my father would have been pleased. I think Aron was wrong to wait. So when I was almost thirty-three and Aron forty-three we married and two years later our son was born.”

  Iren stops talking suddenly and sits up straight. She looks around the room and stares vacantly at everyone. It is as if her mind has shut down and is unwilling or unable to recall the rest of the story. Steve looks at Mr Berman who decides to fill in the gaps.

  “Aron kept his job at the university. He was becoming recognised for his research in the field and although it was unusual for the time, Iren kept the shop open and still made jewellery. I think it reminded her of her father and kept his memory alive. In the evenings Aron and Iren worked together and the shop did so well that Aron could have given up his job if he’d wanted to. They were quite well off. Their son, Jacob, was named for Iren’s father and he too learnt the craft from an early age just as Iren had. By the time Jacob started school, there were rumblings of war. People were talking about it and while Aron and Iren heard the talk, they didn’t believe it would ever come to anything.”

  Wilfred gives an involuntary cough and my mother crosses the room to check on him. He still has his back to everyone and I can only see him putting his right hand to his mouth as he waves her away with his left hand. He doesn’t want any attention on him and I know that he feels more trapped now than he felt during the war.

  Iren starts humming to herself and looks away from Mr Berman. She focuses on a tiny ray of light that has entered the room and she watches it dance and jump across the white painted wall. I follow its source and realise it is coming from Wilfred’s gold watch as he dabs sweat from his brow. He knows that he could get up and leave but somehow he decides to stay. He is forcing himself to listen to Iren’s story. It is as if his very soul depends on it.
r />   “On Iren’s forty-first birthday, May 14th, 1941, many Jews were arrested in Paris. By August, these Jews were detained in Drancy, north of Paris. Aron told me that at first the French police controlled the camp and that Iren was outraged that her own people were handing her over to Nazis because she was a Jew. Many French people helped their Jewish neighbours though and there were organisations that hid Jewish children and got them safely to Sweden and Britain. But Jacob was not so lucky. The police were walking up and down the street where they lived, shouting and taking people from their homes. Iren and Aron knew what was happening and they prepared themselves for the worst. When the police stormed the shop, Aron, Iren and Jacob were sitting together having a meal. It was the last meal they had together.”

  Steve looks at Iren and I know he feels a sense of guilt for the part his people played in the death of their native and foreign Jews. I can see that he fears Mr Berman’s words will upset her. She is humming louder now and I am acutely aware of Wilfred’s shoulders rising up towards his neck. He knows how the story ends. We all do.

  Mr Berman senses Steve’s discomfort and shakes his head. “She doesn’t understand what I have been saying. She only understands a few English words. She never really learnt the language.”

  Steve looks sadly at her and starts the tape recorder again.

  “I don’t know everything that happened to the Kleins after that but I too was in a concentration camp. Not at Auschwitz, which is where the Kleins ended up eventually. At first, they were taken to Drancy in occupied France which was just a holding place while they awaited transport to Auschwitz. I do know that the following March, in 1942, the Kleins and thousands of others were taken from France to Auschwitz by train. There they were separated, Jacob who was by then not yet seven years old being taken away with the other young children.

  “Aron was put to work sorting gold. For many months, it was not known that he was a highly educated man, a physicist with a brilliant future and he was recorded as a goldsmith. One time, a high-ranking soldier spoke to Aron and was impressed with his intelligence. He too was an educated man and he grew to enjoy Aron’s company. They often spoke about subjects only they understood. As a consequence Aron received special treatment and of course begged for Iren and Jacob to be with him but he was told Jacob was no longer in the camp and he feared the worst. As for Iren, moving her was too much for the soldier to achieve, Aron’s request was refused and she continued to endure a life of slave labour. I think Aron spent the rest of his life carrying a lot of guilt because he had received better treatment than Iren and he was very protective of her during the years I knew them in Broken Hill. She did get certain privileges though and that solider had someone look out for her in the women’s camp. Of course she didn’t escape every cruelty and many things happened to Iren there that she never wanted to talk about. But she did talk to my aunt who spoke Hungarian and I know that one time an operation was done to make sure she would not have more children. Some of the women were raped. It also happened at my camp. I don’t know if that ever happened to Iren but I know from my aunt that she kept many things from Aron to protect his sanity. Her son Jacob was –”

  Steve looks at Iren and interrupts Mr Berman with a wave of his hand. I know he is worried that she will be upset by the conversation but I have been watching her and each time the word Auschwitz, Jacob or Aron is mentioned she looks up but loses interest when she can no longer follow the conversation. He makes another signal to Mr Berman.

  “Perhaps we should call the boy ‘J’?” Mr Berman asks. Steve nods and Mr Berman continues. “J was not so lucky and was sent to the gas chamber as soon as he arrived at the camp but Iren did not know this.

  “In 1944 many people arrived in the camp from Hungary. Aron knew some of them but he never found out what happened to his parents or his brother. It was in January 1945, more than three and a half years after they were first captured, that the Soviets liberated Auschwitz. The Kleins were reunited and when Iren learnt of J’s death, she had a complete breakdown and spent many months in a hospital in Switzerland. She was very frail and thin and the years of starvation had taken their toll on her physical and mental health. When I was younger and our community got together, Aron would always be at her side. She seemed always to be nervous and would cling to him when loud noises occurred.

  “When the war was over, they didn’t wish to return to Budapest and for Iren it was not home anyway. Neither did she wish to return to France where she felt her people had betrayed her. The Kleins were a people without a country. Even though modern Israel was not founded as a country until about 1948, many Jewish people went to live there after the war where they felt they would be safe, but the Kleins wanted a new start and in 1947 they came to Australia.

  “I remember the goldsmith shop they owned and ran and, of course, it was not without problems because even in Australia Jews were mistrusted. Business was not too good. Not many people had money for such luxuries. I don’t know why the Kleins decided to come to Broken Hill. For me, this is where my uncle had a job to come to. There were more Jews here then than there are now and we looked after each other. The Kleins started to make jewellery that they sent to Sydney and their work became popular. They became well off again but there was always a sadness about them.

  “They were quiet, simple people and you would never know that they were so rich. They paid for me and my cousin and a few of the other young Jewish children to go to university in Sydney. But they were not only kind to Jews. They were generous to the whole community, helping to raise money quietly for charity and equipment for the hospital. They bought an old house outside of town and gave money for it to be turned into a local community centre for disadvantaged children. It is still there today and the council runs it for children’s activities. They loved Australia and the home it had offered them and they wanted to repay this kindness. They never boasted about this or spoke of their charitable work. When you visited them, they focused on you, on your life, on your achievements and asked nothing but your company in return.

  “Aron never returned to his research in physics and I think this saddened him but he never spoke much of it. He kept up reading about it and learnt to read and speak good English. I tried to be the son that they lost. I tried to give them some normality, some sort of life they would have had if Jacob had lived. I brought my wife to see them, and my children. Every-thing they missed out on because of the war, I tried to make right.”

  Mr Berman stops talking and dabs his eyes with a white cotton handkerchief. I know that as well as feeling the losses the Kleins endured because of the war, he is also reliving his own.

  “In all of those years of friendship though, I gained more than I gave in return. I was just a child when war broke out and spent my boyhood in a camp outside Berlin where my parents and sisters died. I was angry when I came here and my uncle, he often felt angry that he lived where his brother, my father, didn’t and he was bitter about the war until he took his last breath. It made me bitter as well. But when I visited the Kleins, I saw that it didn’t have to be this way. They showed me that there is a way to be at peace with what has happened, a way for you to live on. If not for them, I would not have the happy life I have now. I know I was meant to find them and if you are a believer in God, you will think as I do that the Kleins were my saviours and God, in his wisdom, sent me to be the son that was taken from them.”

  Mr Berman dries his eyes again. I look around the room and tears are flowing freely down all of the women’s faces. Even Martin looks upset. Suddenly everyone begins to look in Wilfred’s direction. I know they are listening to something. I follow their eyes and watch as he sobs into his open palms, his watch continuing to make pretty colours on the ceiling of the Penance Room.

  Chapter 17

  “Wow!” Steve says as he follows my mother into her office. “That was some story.”

  My mother nods. She looks tired. She sent Greta after Wilfred to ensure that he was all right and already Iren
has started to call out for Aron. My mother closes the door and Steve sits automatically.

  “Who’s next?” she says wearily.

  “I was thinking of the sisters the day after tomorrow. Greta said their nephew would come and help.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that you’ll get much out of them. One mention of their father and they go doolally.”

  “I love that saying – ‘doolally’.”

  My mother ignores Steve’s attempts to lighten the conversation. “You’re not seeing anyone tomorrow?”

  “Em . . . no. Aishling said she’d take me around a few of the sights. Is that okay?”

  My mother frowns. “Of course but . . . you’re going back to Sydney and Aishling . . . well, let’s just say that she’s easily hurt.”

  “You really do look out for everyone here, don’t you, Emma?”

  My mother frowns. “That’s my job,” she replies and I can see that she is slightly annoyed with how familiar Steve is with her.

  “And who looks after you?” he goes on. “Can you speak to Andy about the things on your mind?”

  I know his game. He is waiting for her to talk about me. To tell him what happened to me. But I don’t want Steve’s pity. Although I need his voice and his hearing, I am the one trying to save souls here.

  “I am fine, thank you, Steve,” she says and I can tell by her lips that her words were said sternly.