The Door

by Magda Szabo

  The reception area to which access was permitted was rectangular in shape and quite spacious, with the doors of the larder, shower and lumber room opening on to it. As it was clearly a sacred place, the Forbidden City, I guessed, must have been grandly furnished with the Grossman family’s belongings. The porch itself was always spotlessly clean. So long as the season permitted, the old woman washed the stone floor twice a day. There, if she had a free hour or two during the day, she would play the hostess at a table placed between two benches. I often saw her, either through the hedge as I walked past or from my window, serving tea or coffee to guests of varying ages and social classes. She would pour out refreshments into fine porcelain cups, with the smooth, confident actions of someone who had done it a thousand times, and who had learned how to conduct herself at table from someone of importance. I remember attending the opening night of Shaw’s Man and Superman, in which a famous actress played Blanche. Throughout the performance I kept wondering who the lovely young artiste had reminded me of in the tea-serving scene. Then I realised. It was Emerence, entertaining guests at the entrance to her forbidden domain.

  At one time a number of prominent people lived in the neighbourhood, and a policeman would regularly walk our street. Later the politicians moved away, or died, and as they disappeared so too, one by one, did the surveillance men. By the time Emerence came to work for us the only person in uniform appearing with any regularity on our street was the Lieutenant Colonel. For many years I puzzled over their relationship, and why it didn’t bother the friendly officer that entry was denied him, when she might be hiding anything in her home. Later I discovered that he had been inside, and knew its secrets. In addition to the accusations of pigeon poisoning and desecration of graves, politically-motivated and totally libellous “information” had been received. The police had to see, if only once, what needed to be hidden and kept secret, and was of such value that no human eye might ever gaze upon it. Emerence, grumbling and muttering, opened up her entire premises to the Lieutenant Colonel — then still a Second Lieutenant — when he dutifully called with his canine assistant, but all they found was an unshapely cat (the third she had owned since moving in) who, as soon as he saw the dog, fled to the top of the kitchen cupboard. There was no secret transmitter, no escaped convict, no stolen goods, only a dazzlingly clean dining area and a room fitted out with a stunningly beautiful set of furniture under covers, in which no-one appeared to be living, since there were no personal belongings to be seen. And in fact the friendship between Emerence and the officer began with an argument. As soon as she had shut the door behind them she started shouting. Was there a law that stated that she had to open her home to everybody who happened to be passing, and let them in if they felt like ringing the bell? Why didn’t they go and look instead for the bandit who kept filing reports about her? In fact the real insult was the honour of regular visits by the police. First it was the dead pigeons, then the business of the dead cat, now they were looking for weapons or the source of an epidemic. She’d had all she could take of the police. Enough was enough.

  The force had by now assumed a defensive, conciliatory stance. The Second Lieutenant was deploying all his eloquence to calm her down, but Emerence’s voice rose louder and louder. She told him that the politicians who lived locally carried guns. They had nothing better to do so they shot crows. The police, sure enough, gave them every protection, and then came to snoop around her place with a dog. She hoped the sky would fall on the lot of them! On them, mind you, not on the poor dog. It wasn’t his fault if he was misused. She wasn’t angry with the dog, just the Second Lieutenant. And then the force’s cup of bitter humiliation was filled to overflowing. Instead of digging up a second corpse or any other incriminating object buried in the garden, the officiating dog, in breach of every regulation, allowed Emerence to stroke his head, wagged his tail anxiously, and then — the climax of shame — abandoned duty to gaze up at her with baffled, loving eyes. The whine he let out was a coded plea to his superior, begging forgiveness and explaining that he couldn’t help it, a will stronger than any other had forced him to the feet of this strange woman. The Second Lieutenant roared with laughter. Emerence’s face of thunder slowly began to clear, and she stopped shouting. Somehow, for the first time, they became aware of each other. The police officer rarely went into homes where people were so totally unafraid of him, and it was the first time Emerence had met a public official with a private sense of humour and a positive attitude. So each made a note of the other. The investigator apologised and left, but later returned with his wife. Their rare and beautiful friendship held strong even after the young woman unexpectedly died. The Lieutenant Colonel told me subsequently that Emerence had helped him through a very difficult time.

  Ever since our days had fallen under the timetable coordinated by Viola and the old woman, I had come increasingly to doubt my earlier suspicions about the provenance of the christening bowl and the cup. After all, if the Lieutenant Colonel had become a regular visitor, and had himself examined what she had in there, he must have made checks on how she had come by it. If he hadn’t arrested her, then it could well be that I was mistaken, and that the family had left her their belongings in return for something she had done for them. At that time, help often took such strange forms.

  Meanwhile the number of our acquaintances continued to grow, and Viola and Emerence got to know more and more people, who began to greet us too. Emerence’s three longstanding friends now stopped more often to exchange a few words with me. These were Sutu, who ran a fruit and vegetable stall, Polett, who did ironing, and Adélka, the widow of a laboratory technician. One summer afternoon, when the four of them were taking coffee with some temptingly aromatic pastries, Emerence beckoned me over to join them. I was out walking Viola and could hardly snub her and her friends, but the question was decided when the dog hauled me in and began to beg at the table. He crowned this achievement by refusing to leave when I was ready to go home, which made me very angry.

  That evening, when the old woman arrived to walk him before he went to bed, I asked her if she would like to have him permanently with her. Our original intention had only ever been to give him a refuge, not a home. If she had him, she wouldn’t have to keep her door locked, because the dog would need only a word from her to see any intruder off.

  While I was speaking, the old woman stroked the dog’s neck with so much tenderness and affection you would have thought she was caressing a flower or a new-born babe; but all the while she shook her head. It wasn’t possible. If she were allowed to, she would have got a dog for herself years ago. But according to her lease she could only keep an animal inside the dwelling — and then only a chicken or perhaps a goose — while it was being prepared for the table, and she was almost never at home. A dog needed freedom, somewhere to move about, a garden; he wasn’t a criminal in need of punishment. Being locked up wasn’t easy for a cat, so you had to think what it would be for an animal like Viola — so full of curiosity, so eager to make friends and explore everything. That dog wasn’t born to be a slave, even if he was happy to guard the house. And anyway, old people shouldn’t keep dogs, because sooner or later they’d be orphaned and then what happened? They were kicked out and left to stray. But if it upset me that Viola was so fond of her, she could put a stop to it. You could alienate animals as well as people.

  I felt that she was evading responsibility and got very angry with her. If she didn’t want to have him, why entice him to her? Only later — very much later — when I began to consider the warning signs, did it occur to me that no-one had ever taken on board the fact that one day she would die. I too had always felt that, somehow, she would be with us as long as we lived; that, with Nature itself, she would be renewed with the spring; and that her refusal to conform was not limited to banning entry to her locked-up house but applied to everything, even to death itself. But just then, I thought she was lying. I made Viola pay for my own weakness and banned him from the television room.
The dog loved the TV screen. He would flick his head from left to right as the ball flew, and prick up his ears at birdsong and the sounds in wildlife documentaries. He even recognised things he’d never experienced himself: no-one had ever taken him up János Hill. By the end of the week I felt utterly ashamed. I couldn’t blame him for something he wasn’t responsible for; and even if he was, I didn’t have the right. So I accepted it. I acknowledged that the old woman and the dog belonged together. I was too sleepy in the morning, too busy at midday, and too tired in the evening to give him attention or take him for walks with any regularity. My husband was often unwell, and we made frequent trips abroad. Viola needed Emerence: that’s how it was. In every practical sense, he was her dog.

  I then began to wonder why she had brought up the question of her age at this point, for the first time. It had never entered our conversation before. Emerence lifted unbelievable weights, she ran upstairs with the heaviest parcels and suitcases; she had the strength of a mythological hero. And never once had she mentioned how old she was. We’d only worked it out from what she had revealed about her life, that she was three when her father died, and nine when her stepfather was called up, and then almost immediately killed, in 1914. If she was nine in 1914, then she must have been born in 1905. She was shockingly, appallingly old. So it was only logical that she would give thought to the time when she finally collapsed. Others, those to whom she hadn’t entrusted these facts, could only guess at her age. When that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten day did arrive it was only possible to bury her with the help, yet again, of the Lieutenant Colonel. In all the drawers hauled out for decontamination there was not a single document confirming her identity. Quite possibly she was the only person in the country who had completely shut the authorities out of her life, the moment she could. But back in the early days the Lieutenant Colonel had seen some papers of hers, and had actually leafed through her old employment book, which was used at the time as proof of identity. Later, for some reason we would now never understand, she must have destroyed everything. She hated passports, certificates, even tram tickets. We also had to set aside the nonsense she had scrawled about herself, in great crabbed letters, among several eccentric entries in the tenants’ book we found when sorting through her things — that she had been born at Segesvár on 15 March 1848. It was the sort of frivolous, flippant remark that was typical of the way she retaliated against intrusive questions. Emerence’s little acts of revenge were savage but nicely varied.

  Sutu had been a teenager when Emerence arrived in the street, and she told us later that, neither before or immediately after the war, would Emerence have been able to get occupancy of the place, or even move home, without papers. Even so, she had taken over the caretaker’s flat in the villa, bringing the legendary furniture with her. The owner himself had installed her, before leaving for the West. So there must have been documents relating both to her and her permanent companion. He was the cause of her starting to lock everything up, this unfriendly friend. She wouldn’t let anyone in, she watched over him jealously — as if anyone would want him! — and of course he wasn’t well. He had papers exempting him from service. He hardly ever went out. He wasn’t fit for the army or for work and, according to Emerence, he was riddled with arthritis. She always got involved with this type, both animals and people. Wrecks interested her. It was the same with Mr Szloka, right up to his death. He too wasn’t the full measure of a man, and to crown everything he had no family.

  Sutu’s tale contained so many disturbing elements that I made her repeat it, twice, until it sank in. It implied that Emerence had lived with someone, both during the siege and before it, so from the start she didn’t just have a cat but a lodger (or whatever) as well. Furthermore, her circle of admirers included this Mr Szloka, who could neither escape nor fend for himself in his total abandonment because he had such a severe heart condition. He couldn’t even do aircraft alert duty, and then he died suddenly at the most inconvenient moment. It was a confused and difficult time. The siege had begun, and Emerence ran in vain from Pontius to Pilate, looking for someone to dispose of the body. She tried everyone, but it was the start of a national holiday. No-one would take responsibility, and the result was that they had to get rid of the poor fellow themselves. Emerence agreed to bury Mr Szloka in the garden in return for his bicycle. Later the bicycle went missing, probably taken by her “friend”, because he too vanished, Sutu had no idea where. Emerence buried Mr Szloka under the dahlias, and he mouldered quietly away until the council finally exhumed him in the summer of ’46.

  Up until then the occupants of the house had changed constantly, and included every sort of nationality. Emerence washed for the Germans and then for the Russians. Then the world returned to normal and people once again lived in peace. Malicious reports began to be made about her, not about the alleged pigeon poisoning or political slanders, but accusations of interfering with corpses, because she had buried the hanged cat in Mr Szloka’s grave. However when she explained to the Lieutenant Colonel that this cat had been her entire family, he told her he’d teach these good neighbours who made extra work for the police a bit of respect. He’d have them sent on community service to help clean up Vérmező Park. There were at least as many rotting horses there as there were people, and they would be required to separate what was left of them, and then bury the humans in sacred ground and the animals where they could. Didn’t they have anything better to worry about when the country was struggling to get on its feet again after total collapse? How he envied them! If they kept dragging up these cat stories, he’d investigate the piece of human trash who couldn’t stand Emerence Szeredás’ cat so he’d strung it up, in his murdering Fascist way, rather than come to an understanding with its owner. There were laws against cruelty to animals.

  * * *

  One day, Emerence did not arrive to walk the dog. There was no reason for her absence, but I saw nothing of her all day. It was autumn, still a long way off the first snowfall, yet she failed to appear. I walked the dog myself, through a soft, gentle rain. Viola looked for her at home in the morning, but his sensitive nostrils told him she wasn’t behind the closed door, so we went to each of her houses in turn. He even led me down to the market, but his dejected behaviour continued to signal that she was nowhere around, perhaps not even in the district. She wasn’t anywhere Viola knew about.

  Back home, he cowered miserably while I set about the cleaning. Whenever she failed to turn up people asked for her at our flat, and the doorbell rang constantly. Everyone who knew her was concerned. What had happened? She hadn’t swept the leaves off the pavement; the rubbish bin wasn’t outside the front door; she hadn’t brought the finished laundry; the night before she hadn’t been to babysit; she hadn’t even done the shopping. I opened and closed that door non-stop. Viola howled, bared his teeth, refused to eat, and waited.

  THE MURANO MIRROR

  It was late evening when Emerence finally turned up and took Viola for his walk. His cries of relief defied imagination. On their return, she tapped on my door and asked me if I would go home with her. There was something she had to discuss with me that she didn’t want the master to hear. We could have gone into any of the rooms, but she insisted I go with her. So off the three of us went, Emerence, me, and Viola dancing along ahead of us. At that time of night there was no need to put him on a leash to stop him bounding up to other dogs and getting into fights. Once on the porch, Emerence offered me a seat at the table, which was covered with a spotless nylon cloth. I sat down, and was hit by the usual dense, heavy smell, a nauseating blend of chlorine, cleaning fluids and some sort of air freshener. The rest of the house was silent, and no lights shone in the windows. It wasn’t yet the witching hour, and by day the thought would never have struck me, but now, with just the three of us on the porch, I suddenly began to sense something of the presence, or presences, that inhabited Emerence’s home. Some sound was audible in the deep silence, a low, soft sound. Viola crouched down by the gap bene
ath the door and began to snuffle noisily. When he wanted to get in somewhere, he produced this special signal, rather like a human groan or heavy, painful breathing.

  It was an extraordinary evening however one looked at it, not harmonious, but filled rather with a sense of foreboding. In normal circumstances I tend not to analyse my situation, but I found myself reflecting that I knew almost nothing about Emerence, beyond her general mania and her deftly evasive answers to my questions.

  “Sometime in the next few days I’m having a visitor,” she began. It was the voice of someone emerging from anaesthesia, speaking with the exaggerated precision of a wandering mind striving for clarity. “You know I never let anyone into my home, but I can’t make this visitor sit where you are now. It’s impossible.”

  Experience had taught me never to cross-examine her, she’d only take fright and reveal even less. If she was expecting the sort of guest who couldn’t be entertained on her porch, let alone taken inside, then it wasn’t just anybody. Could it be the two golden-haired siblings who were burnt to cinders? But perhaps they never existed except as characters in a story. Or even God himself, in whom Emerence did not believe, because he had given her an evening gown instead of woollen cast-offs? This person must be even more important than either her “little brother Józsi’s son” or the Lieutenant Colonel.

  “Would you allow me to entertain this person in your flat? Other people would gossip about it, but not you. We’d act as if the person was your guest. The master is out working that afternoon. If you ask him, he’ll agree to anything. Will you do it? You know I’ll make it up to you.”