The Door

by Magda Szabo

  Emerence Metternich of Csabadul, arch-manipulator! Now she was laughing, down in her little flat, because, oh yes, she knew I’d have to go back, for the simple reason that Viola wouldn’t get up until he saw me or received different orders from her. She had sent him to fetch me. As I made my way it occurred to me yet again, with her unique combination of abilities, and her diamond-hard logic, what might she not have done if she hadn’t been so hostile to her own opportunities? I imagined her alongside Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, and the picture did not seem at all strange. What I couldn’t understand was why she hid behind a mask. If she were to turn around three times, whip off her headscarf, her smock and her face itself, and announce that it had all been a disguise, that divine command had fixed it on her at birth but thenceforth she would wear it no longer, I would have believed her. And why should I not?

  Viola danced around her. He knew, better than anyone, that the crisis was over. As so often before, Emerence had won. And as a matter of fact I was no longer even angry.

  Waiting for me on the table under a lace net was a freshly baked strudel, not yet sliced. She knew what I liked. Standing a good head and a half taller, she gazed down at me without saying a word. She had only to shake her head, and both Viola and I understood that I had behaved badly, thoughtlessly, improperly, though I was quite old enough to know that nothing happens without a reason. She sent the dog inside, and as the door opened the sweet aroma of the strudel was tinged with the even stronger smell of disinfectant that came spilling out. She pointed me to a place on the bench. Before her, under the makeshift paperweight of Viola’s round pebble ball, was a folded sheet of paper. She pushed it towards me. There was no sound from within. I guessed that Viola must have lain down. I would have loved to see what he slept on, and where, but he alone had access to those secrets. I didn’t. And I was about to be given a lecture.

  “You have an appalling nature,” she began. “You puff yourself up like a bullfrog, and one day you’ll explode. The only thing you’re good for is getting your friend in the helicopter to make trees dance by trickery. You never grasp what is simple. You always go round the back when the entrance is at the front.”

  There could be no reply to this. I couldn’t even be sure it wasn’t true.

  “I spoiled your Sunday, didn’t I? But that’s when these things are done, on a Sunday or public holiday. That’s when you tell people what is to happen when you die.”

  Now I knew what was on the folded sheet of paper.

  “I could have invited the master to come with you, but the two of us don’t always see eye to eye, as you well know. Not because he isn’t a good man — he is — it’s just that he doesn’t like sharing, and neither do I. We don’t much like one another, because we would each prefer to have the other out of our lives. Now don’t say a word, because I am speaking.”

  Once again her face changed. She was like someone standing in strong sunlight on a mountain top, looking back down the valley from which she had emerged and trembling with the memory still in her bones of the length and nature of the road she had travelled, the glaciers and forded rivers, the weariness and danger, and conscious of how far she still had to go. There was also compassion in that face, a feeling of pity for all the poor people below, who knew only that the peaks were rosy in the twilight, but not the real meaning of the road itself.

  “I couldn’t possibly have asked you to lunch because you are named in the will. I couldn’t even ask my nephew, until I had talked everything over with Adélka and Sutu, and they’d signed the document. I’ve worked for a lawyer and I know how to make a will. It isn’t very difficult. It’ll stand, you can be quite sure.”

  A lawyer. She had never mentioned that.

  “What are you staring at now? I told you that my grandfather put me into service when I was only thirteen, and the lawyer took me away. It was only later that I went to the Grossmans, when he and his wife could no longer afford to keep me. But by then they didn’t want to. Their son and I had grown up together. The reason I didn’t invite the two of you wasn’t that I begrudged you the food. I know we should be together at a time like this — it’s something I did learn from my religious instruction, that Christ took his last meal with his friends. There’s no need to jump up and down — I know it was a supper, and it wasn’t on Palm Sunday but Holy Thursday — but Christ had all the time he needed and I don’t. I couldn’t invite you or my nephew because you are my heirs.”

  Christ took his last supper somewhere in Bethany, perhaps in the house of Lazarus. Bethany still counted as part of Jerusalem. I resisted the vision of her there, holding the will in her sacred hands, seated between Sutu and Adélka on her right and her nephew and the Lieutenant Colonel on her left, with Viola and myself at her feet. I resisted, but I saw it all the same.

  “So, listen carefully. My nephew and I have agreed that any money I leave will be his. None of it will go to my relatives because, as you told me yourself, they neglected the graves of my family, and anyway they’ve got all they need. Józsi’s boy has proved himself trustworthy in everything so far, and he’ll gather together all my dead, and when the crypt is finished he’ll have me put in there as well. The money for the building work and funerals is in the Post Office savings accounts; the rest is in the regular Savings Bank. The books are here. Everything inside the flat, you inherit. My nephew has signed before the Lieutenant Colonel that he accepts my instructions and won’t contest a single clause. Anyway, he doesn’t need what I’m giving you. He wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s not his taste. And even if he could use it, he’s getting enough. He’ll inherit an awful lot of money. And don’t try to thank me or I’ll get angry.”

  I gazed into my lap, trying to work out how much it costs to build a crypt, and exhume bodies, but I knew only the price of headstones. My family hadn’t been buried in a crypt. But I didn’t even attempt to think what I would inherit. The last few moments had been so utterly improbable, it was like a dream. Emerence stood up and lit the flame under her coffee pot. She always made much better coffee than I did. Where had she learned that? From yet another employer she hadn’t mentioned?

  “Why have you started to think about dying?” I said at last. “You’re not sick?”

  “No. It’s just that there was an announcement on the radio that the lawyer’s son has died, and it brought everything back to me.”

  Once, as a child, I watched a butterfly circling round and felt the same desire to influence it, desperately willing it to land. I didn’t want to catch it, just to see it close up.

  “For days the radio has been in mourning, and you’ll be seeing all the films of the funeral on the news. I don’t want to watch them, and I’m not going to the cemetery. Not me. It’s a pity they didn’t ask me a few questions, along with all those other people. I could have told them a few things. When I heard all those stories about him from people he knew, I thought, it’s good there are so many coming forward, because I’m not going to. He rejected what I wanted to be to him, and I’ve been as good as dead to him for long enough now. It wasn’t easy to raise myself from the dead — it’s an expensive pastime. Well, that’s why I’ve made my will, so what I have goes to you, the way I want it, without anyone else helping themselves to what I’ve put together. I’ve been robbed once already. I won’t let it happen again. It’s only my cat they managed to kill twice. No-one will ever again steal my belongings, or my peace of mind.”

  Her eyes were cold and bright as diamonds. Jesus, I thought, she was hiding this too. Not just Mr Brodarics, or the man from the secret police, but him as well. And yet how, and when? The press is filled with nothing else but him. The whole country’s in mourning. When could it possibly have been? Only in the thirties.

  “The programmes will show you what sort of person his wife was. When they were after him and he knocked on my door, he wasn’t yet engaged. He must have got to know her later, when he was no longer in danger. ‘I’ll stay with you, I’ll go underground in your cellar
. You’ll be my cover,’ he said. ‘You, Emerence, are as dependable and as pure as water.’ Don’t think we got up to anything. I hope you know me, and if you know me then you know him. I didn’t even ask who was after him. I hid him in my room. By then the old couple had passed me on to the youngsters, and the young Grossmans had no idea what was happening. Do you think Éva’s mother took an interest in what went on in her servant’s room? Little Évike wasn’t born then. They were always travelling, and going out to have a good time. There were separate servants’ quarters in the house, and that’s where the two of us lived. Drink your coffee and don’t stare at me. Other people have been in love too.

  “When he slipped out of the country I thought I’d lose my mind; and it would have been a pity if I had, because I did see him again — at the worst possible moment. He came at night; there was a moon, a bright evening. He was in disguise but I recognised him at once — perhaps at times like that you see with the heart. So you see, that was when the trees and the bushes did move, right here by the villa. I saw the moon shining on his face, and that fir tree dancing behind him. I thought, this time he’s come for something else, perhaps he’s understood something after all that time abroad, and now at last he’s coming back to me, or perhaps, since he’d gone to the trouble of finding out from the Grossmans where I was, he’ll take me away. I was sure it was the reason he’d come looking for me, even though he hadn’t promised to. He’d never promised me anything, never lied to me. He made it clear straight away why he’d come. Could I give him refuge again? He had forged papers, identity documents, food rationing coupons — all he needed was somewhere to stay, just for a while. No-one would see to it better than I that he wouldn’t be found. And then, as soon as he possibly could, he went off and left me here. And now he’s dead.”

  I couldn’t swallow the sip I had taken. I looked at her.

  “So I took up with the barber, to get back at him. Haven’t you heard the gossip? I would have gone with the devil himself if he could have persuaded me that I might be desirable to a man. But there must be something wrong with me, because he didn’t just dump me, he also robbed me. I wasn’t ugly. Not that it matters. It didn’t kill me.”

  She was silent for a while; then she crushed a leaf of mint in her fingers, and sniffed it.

  “You don’t die that easily, but let me tell you, you come close to it. Afterwards, what you went through makes you so clever you wish you could become stupid again, utterly stupid. Well, I got clever, which shouldn’t surprise you, because I was given training round the clock. He lived with me for two years in the Grossman’s servant’s quarters, and here also, for a while. When I could spare the time he talked and talked, about everything he knew. Do you think I’ll ever in my life again hear a propagandist through to the end?”

  Now that too fell into place: her anti-intellectualism, her contempt for culture.

  “Soon after he’d gone the war finished and he came back — not to stay with me, or live with me, but to explain everything all over again. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted something else. Something that would have fitted in with the new world, with our freedom. So I laid into him. I said he’d lectured me quite enough, now it was time to move on. He wanted to enrol me in a school, but he would have had to wait for ever for me to go. He had recommended me for some sort of honour. I told him there’d be a scandal to surpass all others if I appeared in Parliament to collect it. Did he really think I was interested in the plans he was spinning in there, either alone or with his cronies, while I loved him and he had no love for me? I did love him. Do you hear? Not his head, his knowledge — that was what had taken him from me, his great big head with all its learning — but his body, the thing they’re burying the day after tomorrow. But no matter. You wouldn’t believe it, I know, but he told me he often talked to his wife about me. He even wanted to introduce me to her. I told him straight, don’t bother about me, stay with her, like a good husband. You get on with rebuilding Budapest, and I’ll rebuild my life. I took up with the barber; he found out and was furious. I was glad.”

  She didn’t look like someone who was glad. Her face was a mask, her mouth a single straight line.

  “Do you know how happy I was when they took him away in 1950, accused him of being a British spy, and almost beat him to death? I thought, go on, beat him, let him suffer as miserably as I did, like a dog. He couldn’t even speak English. At the Piarists, where he grew up, they taught only French, German and Latin. I was with the family at the time, I know what he learned at grammar school. What a stupid accusation! But I was happy, because I’m an evil person, and stupid, and full of envy. Now, that’s all in the past. Next comes the state funeral. There’ll be his velvet pillow with all the decorations God sends, Hungarian and foreign. I believe he didn’t mention me in his autobiography. But I was there, in his life.”

  “He did mention you, Emerence,” I said, and felt such a terrible weariness it was as if I too had been beaten up. At that moment I understood our recent history as I never had before. “Not by name, only that he had been hidden for a long time, by many people, but longest of all by a truly admirable comrade. I heard it yesterday, on the third news broadcast.”

  “He was always very correct,” she replied drily. “Now, I’ve chattered quite long enough. At least his death got me to make a will. You know, he was so brave, and full of life, so cheerful, he was like someone who could never die. And the great pile of books and all that boundless knowledge! Tell me, who would want to study all that? Not me, for sure. But you mustn’t think him a cheat. I’ll say it once again. He never promised me anything, so make a note of that. He did the right thing, hiding in my house. If he’d dared touch me I’d have thrown him out, I’m that stupid. Now clear off. I’ve had enough of you.”

  She produced a plate and piled it high with strudel.

  “The master has a sweet tooth.”

  I stood up, but she held me back while she opened the door again, just a crack, and let the dog out. Again that peculiar smell filled my nostrils. Sensing her eyes on me I turned back to face her.

  “One more thing — just a word,” she said. “There’ll be another inheritance, so it’s better that you know about it. The flat is full of cats. I’m entrusting them to you. You won’t know what to do with them, because apart from me they don’t know anyone, just Viola, and if they got out into the street there’d be no hope for them, because they see dogs as friends. You’re a good friend of the doctor who gives Viola injections. When I die, he must do away with the poor things. You can’t give anyone a greater gift than to spare them suffering. That’s why I don’t open the door, because what would happen if it got out that there were nine cats living in here? But I won’t give up a single one of them. And there won’t be another hanging here. They’re prisoners, but they are alive. This is my family. I never had any other. Now off you go, I’ve got things to do. It’s been a long afternoon.”

  LENT

  For several days I was unable to focus on anything other than what had taken place. Emerence had assembled her private parliament on the afternoon of Palm Sunday and, without any consultation or advance notice, had published her edict, like the Pope. The fact that Józsi’s boy telephoned me suggested that he’d been hit by the same wave of feelings that I had. He asked if we could sit down and talk it over. He would come to me. We settled on the following Tuesday. I too thought it important that we meet.

  What troubled him was the wisdom of Emerence keeping the two different sorts of passbook in her home when she possessed what to them was a substantial amount of money. He wondered whether the money shouldn’t be held in some other form, because if the books were stolen, both the bank and the post office would pay out to whoever presented them. The passbooks bothered me too, but for a different reason. If somehow Emerence did lose them, I would be in an impossible position. I was the only person Viola would allow into the flat, and one thing I didn’t need at that point in my life was the nephew’s inevitable suspicion
, however irrational it might be. We gave much thought to what might be done. The young man was anxious about the money, I was horrified by the unexpected responsibility I had been saddled with. And there was something dreadful in the fact that suddenly Viola had come to play a central rôle. In Emerence’s republic he was the bodyguard, the source of security, the custodian of her wealth. As for the cats, I tried not to think about them. It wasn’t only the fact of their number. What distressed me most was the duty I was charged with after her death. Who could do such a thing? I wasn’t Herod. The nephew suggested that Emerence should open a deposit account, and we should put this idea to her. He would feel more comfortable if the Lieutenant Colonel and I dealt with it. He didn’t want to look like someone who lived only for the money and wanted to tie it up in every possible way, and yet so many things could happen. What if she left the gas on, or Viola was killed, or the antiquated heating system gave up and a fire broke out one winter, while she was out? I promised to give it thought and we parted on the understanding that we would ask the Lieutenant Colonel. After that, nothing more was done. In most people there is a dull sort of shame.

  My first idea was to bring the matter up with Emerence in a gentle, sensitive way. But after Palm Sunday she was clearly avoiding us. Small as our neighbourhood was, she managed to hide herself away like the Invisible Man. The ability to vanish ranked among her many accomplishments — she would have made an ideal member of any conspiracy. I finally caught up with her on Good Friday. I set out earlier than usual, so I could call in at the cemetery before the service. She was working away with her huge broom in front of our door. She advised me to give generously since on such occasions it would surely count double, and she hoped the charitable ladies would be pleased. I began to move away, not wanting to be upset by her and then unable to take communion as I had been on the last occasion. I told her that I’d be grateful if, on Good Friday at least, she would spare me her cynicism. The sufferings of Jesus were tragic — if she could see them performed, she wouldn’t stand there dry-eyed. And anyway, if she asked me to do her a favour I didn’t look for payment, I just did it; so perhaps she could stop annoying me and, when she’d finished, would she be so good as to make the plum soup? The fruit was already out on the kitchen sideboard.