The Door

by Magda Szabo

  She looked at me, then offered me the broom. It had a good solid handle; would I like to try my hand and help her with the sweeping? I went to church to remember, and to cry, so a little hard work wouldn’t do any harm. I could do penance by sweeping. The broom was heavy, and the wooden handle was hard on the fingers. In her opinion, only those who knew what physical labour was actually like had the right to mourn for Jesus. I didn’t even look at her. I scuttled off to the bus, the solemn serenity of my morning completely evaporated. Why did this woman needle me all the time? How could she dismiss the church, with all its claim to respect, its past history and its striving for good, on the basis of one, clumsily distributed aid package?

  She’s making these underhand remarks to settle the score, I told myself, but I quickly dropped the thought because I knew this wasn’t true. Emerence wasn’t getting even. The matter was more complicated than that, and rather more interesting. Emerence was a generous person, open-handed and essentially good. She refused to believe in God, but she honoured him with her actions. She was capable of sacrifice. Things I had to attend to consciously she did instinctively. It made no difference that she wasn’t aware of it — her goodness was innate, mine was the result of upbringing. It was only later that I developed my own clear moral standards. One day Emerence would be able to show me, without uttering a word, that what I consider religion is a sort of Buddhism, a mere respect for tradition, and that even my morality is just discipline, the result of training at home, in school and in my family, or self-imposed. My Good Friday thoughts had taken quite a battering.

  There was no question of plums for lunch. Waiting for us were paprika chicken, cream of asparagus soup and crème caramel. The plums remained unwashed and unprepared, still in their blue skins on the sideboard where I had left them. Good Friday was the one day of Lent on which my father had expected us to fast, as he in turn had been taught in my grandfather’s house. On that day the only nourishment taken at lunch was plum soup. We didn’t even lay the table for dinner, as no-one had dinner. On Holy Saturday there was caraway soup for breakfast, without bread. In the afternoon the fast melted away, but only to the extent of a normal weekday meal, without meat. Within the microcosm of our family, we were served substantial nourishment only at dinner, and then custom required that no-one should eat too much. On Holy Thursday the piano lid was locked in case any member of our fanatically music-loving family forgot himself and started to play. Emerence had known for years that I held to what I had learned at home, and had never commented on it. She would bring over some delicacy of her own for “the master”. At these times the two of them always joined forces against me, and amused themselves with little conspiratorial gestures passed between them at my expense.

  So I didn’t eat any lunch. That evening, I angrily cooked some caraway soup for the next day, and its taste defied imagination. But by that stage I could barely see from hunger. I gulped it down, and went across to Emerence.

  Spring had come early that year, and she was sitting outside on her bench looking out, as if she was expecting me. She listened in silence to my assessment of her character, which was that she forced people to take on impossible tasks, and then insulted them whenever she could. She needn’t look so smug, because I hadn’t even tasted the paprika chicken, and I wasn’t going to pay for it. If she made it, it was community service, because I hadn’t ordered it. Even in the deepening gloom I could see her smiling. I felt like tipping the table over her.

  “Now listen,” she said cheerfully, without a hint of anger, like someone patiently instructing a slow-witted child. “I am going to hit you so hard you’ll really feel it — though I first came to like you because you could take a few knocks. I’ve watched as your life has taken shape. I’m not interested in your fixed ideas. Believe me, it would have been a lot less work for me to do your plums than to cut up a chicken. I’ve always done them for you up until now, but you can eat what you like if you think it’ll make any difference in heaven. You have a strange God who judges people on the basis of plums. My God, if I have one, is everywhere — at the bottom of the well, in Viola’s soul, and over the bed of Mrs Samuel Böőr because she died so beautifully. She didn’t deserve to — only the very good deserve that, but that’s how she went, without suffering, and with dignity. What are you staring at? Didn’t you see Mrs Böőr’s granddaughter running along the other side of the street this morning, when I was sweeping — or were you paying attention only to yourself again? The child had come for me, and I went. Well, you can believe that if I’m holding someone’s hand in the hour of their death, it’s not difficult for them to die. I washed her, all very nicely, and prepared her for her journey. And I can tell you it wasn’t easy finding the time. In between, I had done that lunch for you, for which you have thanked me so graciously. Pay attention, because this is going to hurt, but it’s what you deserve. The master isn’t going to live very long, as you well know. Do you think he’s going to get stronger on plums? And what will he take to the other side as a memento? Because everyone going there takes something. Mrs Böőr took the honour that I, Emerence Szeredás, had seen to her, and that I’ll be keeping an eye on the child. And you’ll have to take care of her too, I promise you, because I’m not going to let you off that. I don’t want her getting into the clutches of the charitable ladies. They don’t even know that Mrs Böőr has a granddaughter with no-one to care for her, but you won’t be able to forget it, because I’ll remind you every day. So don’t send the master on his way with plum soup, or that stupid diet food you keep him on; and it doesn’t help that you’re always running around somewhere, and pounding your typewriter all day when you are home. You left him again today, and went off to church. Make him laugh for once, that’s a real prayer. What must you really think of Christ, of God, when you make pronouncements about him as if he were a personal friend? How cheap you think salvation is! I wouldn’t give a farthing for your week’s religiosity. Your apartment is a mess, but you love order in your little life. I find that despicable. At three o’clock on Monday afternoon, heaven and earth can collapse into each other, but it’s the dentist. You bare your teeth at each other, then come back in a taxi because there isn’t time to walk. Every Thursday it’s the hairdresser. On Wednesday, the laundry — never at any other time. Thursday is ironing day, whether the clothes are dry or not. On Sundays and holidays, church. On Tuesday we speak only English and on Friday German, in case we forget them. The rest of the time we hit the keyboard non-stop. When he’s dead the master will still hear the keys clattering.”

  I burst into tears. I cannot now tell whether I was crying because of what wasn’t true or what was Emerence, who was meticulous about her fine laundry and her starched, long-sleeved smocks, drew an immaculate white handkerchief from the pocket of her crisply ironed front and placed it before me. It was as though a child at nursery school was being reprimanded, and was so very ashamed of herself that she’d be a good girl from now on.

  “Now, surely you didn’t come about the chicken?” she asked. “So long as the master is alive there’ll be no fasting in the house; at least, I shan’t be cooking food for a fast. What are you doing here, on a holiday night? It’s Friday. Go home and practise your languages. It’s time to jabber away in German. Even the dog laughs at you. Tell me, what on earth are you practising for? God knows every possible language, and you’re not likely to forget anything you’ve ever learned — your brain is like resin. Whatever gets stuck in it never gets out again. You pay back everybody who upsets you, even me. If only you’d shout and scream — but all you do is smile. You’re the most vengeful person I ever met. You sleep with a knife under your pillow, and you wait till the time comes to stick it in. If it’s something really bad you don’t just scratch — you kill.”

  Pay her back? How? With what? They only thing I could possibly hurt her with had been hers from the start. Viola was her property, not ours. And — though he’d avoided the political errors of Imre Mező — they were burying the one p
erson she had loved. I tidied up my face; her handkerchief was cool and lightly perfumed. I told her what Józsi’s boy had asked and I could see from the set of her mouth that it made her very angry. That day I had seen her in all sorts of moods, but she became deadly serious when she heard the word “money”.

  “Now, listen here. You can tell that scoundrel not to keep pestering me with advice; and not to bother you either. The passbooks will stay where they are. Nothing will change, and there’ll be no bank deposit book. Why that, in the name of thunder? Anyone who finds them in my house deserves to keep them. Not one of you has ever known me do anything stupid, so why should there be a fire here? I worry about my home too. The brat’s obviously buried me already. Tell him from me: one more piece of advice and I cut him out of the will. You’ll get everything. Let him come after you, if he dares. You’re such a saint you’d deserve having to chase after my dead, and build the crypt. You’d really have a chance to pray there. The only reason I won’t do it is because the ungrateful wretch would sue you. For money he’d even make his peace with the people in Csabadul, and whatever I think of you I won’t do that to you. But you deserve it, my Sugar Plum Fairy. Now, off you go. It’s Friday. Go home and read your German Bible.”

  I was dismissed. Viola looked up at her for his orders. Emerence put her hand on the dog’s forehead, and he closed his eyes dreamily, as if there was no other way to respond, receiving a benediction that flowed from those fingers, so gnarled and twisted by work. I walked away, slowly and with difficulty, like an old person. The events of the day, and everything leading up to it, weighed on me like lead. But it wasn’t only the dog who followed me. Emerence came along too. I had become absorbed in the hedge of jasmine beyond the fence, and hadn’t heard her footsteps — whenever she could, she wore cloth shoes with felt soles to ease her heavily-veined feet. I thought, with some bitterness, why is she coming after me? She’s painted my portrait. She thinks I’m a hypocrite, that I’m stuffy, a snob. She doesn’t understand how I’ve distracted my husband from thinking of death all the time; and if he was seriously ill, would I be likely to sit calmly at my work day after day? She finds fault with the one bit of me that is most utterly pure, the warrior who wrestles with the Lord.

  “Now come back here, like a good girl. The master will have the radio on, he’ll be listening to his music and enjoying the fact that Viola isn’t home yet. Come on, I won’t hurt you. In truth, I never want to hurt you. You’re just slow, a bit of a thickhead. Why pay attention to my grumblings? Don’t you see? You’re all I’ve got left. You, and my animals.”

  We stood there. Soft sounds filtered out from behind the closed windows of the villa. The tenants who lived above Emerence were very quiet. They had turned the evening broadcast down low, but I could still make out the black and gold vision of the Mozart Requiem. There was no possible reply. After all, she had said nothing new. She didn’t understand that it was because of our mutual love that she went on stabbing me till I fell to my knees, that she did it because I loved her, and she loved me. Only people truly close to me can cause me real pain. She might have grasped that long ago, but she understood only what she wanted to.

  “Please come back in. There’s no need to be stubborn. You’ve got the same cursed nature that I have, because we’re both from the plains. Come on, don’t stare at me. I’ve a reason for asking you.”

  Why? What more did she want? She’d finished the painting, she’d held the mirror up to my face, but for all her wisdom, she couldn’t see the silver lining on the back, she’d simply used it to beat me over the head.

  “Come on, I’ve got a present for you. A bunny rabbit laid it — the Easter Bunny.”

  Her tone was of one charming a child. When she spoke like that to anyone in the street I would turn round or stop where I stood. Children swarmed around and clung to her, just as Viola did. The Easter Bunny, on Good Friday. She hadn’t cooked the plums, she mocked my mourning for Jesus, but of course she’d bought a present for me. She was allowed to give, I wasn’t. For me, it was forbidden.

  “I’m not coming, Emerence. We’ve said all we have to say to one another. I’ll telephone your instructions to your nephew. You can keep Viola here for the night if you want to.”

  I could no longer make out her face. The sky had suddenly clouded over. All day I had been expecting rain and so far it had held off, but it is almost always windy on Good Friday, with driving rain. Now, towards the end of the day, the tears of lamentation for Christ were arriving once again, if rather late. I couldn’t go back. They were falling in fat drops, and the legendary wind had sprung up afresh, signalling the outbreak of a storm, as if the universe were panting for air, or had begun to breathe in our ears. I knew the one thing Emerence dreaded was a storm, and that there was no point in resisting. If I didn’t go with her she would drag me back in. Viola had drawn his tail in and was whimpering. He was already on the porch, scratching at the eternally closed door, wanting to hide. The lightning had begun to slash the sky and thunder rumbled between the howls of the dog. It was all pure electricity, a sudden sheet of pure blue flame, then nothing but pure water and perfect blackness.

  “Quiet, Viola. It’ll be over soon, my boy. Very soon.”

  The sky turned deep blue, then silver. The thunder raged. The lightning lasted long enough for me to see her fish the key out of her starched pocket. The dog whimpered.

  “Shush, Viola, shush!”

  The key turned. We looked at one another in the flashes of light. Emerence didn’t take her eyes off me. I’ve got this wrong, I thought, I must have got this wrong. That door never opens. It can’t be opening now. It’s impossible.

  “Now, pay attention. If you tell anyone, I’ll put a curse on you. Anyone I curse comes to a sticky end. You’re going to see something no-one has ever seen, and no-one ever will, until they bury me. But I’ve nothing else you would value, and today I hit you harder than you deserve, so I’m going to give you the only thing I have. You’ll see it one day anyway — in fact it’s yours. But you can have a look at it now, while I’m still alive. So come on in. Don’t be afraid. Step inside.”

  She went ahead and I followed. Viola had slipped through the gap in the door. For the first few moments, while my feet picked their way step by step through the pitch black uncertainty, she left the light off. Viola was panting heavily and moaning. Along with his familiar voice I could hear tiny noises, as soft as that of a mouse scurrying across the floor in the deep of night. I stopped, afraid to take another step. I had never before trod in such total blackness. Then I remembered the shutters. In all the time we’d lived here, no-one had seen them open.

  The light that flooded around us was harsh and raw; not yellow but a wintry white. Emerence didn’t economise: the bulb must have been at least a hundred watts. The room we stood in was a large one, wide and white as snow, and looked freshly painted. It held a gas cooker, a sink, a table, two chairs, two large cupboards and the little sofa under an enormous violet-coloured cover which was frayed and had clearly seen better days. Its velvet upholstery had been shredded to a fringe. It was a “lovers’ seat”, of a type once in vogue. Emerence’s home was as spotless as the row of glasses behind their translucent curtain in her old-fashioned sideboard. There was even an icebox, though it too was very old-fashioned. I stared at it, trying to think where she bought the ice for it, since the man hadn’t been this way for years. Viola crawled under the lovers’ seat, signalling that the storm was approaching its climax. The smell in the room — the familiar chlorine and air freshener — made me want to cough. Apart from that, it struck me as a lovingly and carefully furnished kitchen-dining area, one that held no secrets, even if it was hidden from curious eyes. There was nothing particularly odd about it, apart from the unusual arrangement by which the interior, which should have been the living room, was hermetically sealed off from the kitchen. An extraordinarily large, steel safe had been dragged in front of the door. Unless the thieves organised themselves into brigades, they w
ere unlikely to move it. Former property of the Grossmans, I thought to myself. Beyond it must lie the furniture she had inherited. But who would ever manage to get past the safe, and how? Not even Emerence would manage it without help. Outside, the thunder roared and the rain poured down. She was deathly pale, but controlling herself. I discovered later that the safe was full of ceramic mugs.

  Somewhat disconcerted, I gazed around. There were some flowers in a vase and several small pieces of carpet on the floor, as if someone had carefully cut up a tattered oriental rug and salvaged the pieces that could be used. Then my glance fell on what Emerence most wished to conceal from the eyes of the world: a line of bowls and trays of sand, essential requirements for cat hygiene. Under the sink, in the corner of the wall next to the sideboard, were nine small enamel plates, empty apart from a few leftovers, and nine little bowls. Between the two cupboards, like a statue, stood my mother’s dressmaker’s dummy, pinned all over with pictures, like a stark-naked female marshal clad in nothing but her medals. Among the pictures was a faded photograph, taken from a newspaper, of a rather intense, somehow old-fashioned, young face.

  “Yes, that’s him,” she replied, to the question I had not asked. “When he left me I found the cat, the multicoloured one; the one that was hanged. There’s no need for pity. I don’t deserve it. You should never love anyone, or any animal, that much.”