The Door

by Magda Szabó

Magda Szabó’s novel is a study of survival tactics, of finding voice out of silence, and of the ways in which authenticity dismisses fakery at every turn not just in art and culture but in a life truly lived, and truly ended.

She told me that she needed neither priest nor Church, and she never contributed. She’d seen enough of God’s handiwork during the war. She had no quarrel with the carpenter and his son: they were ordinary working people. The son was taken in by politicians’ lies. The moment he started to make trouble for the leaders, they had to get him involved in something, so that he would be executed. The person she felt most sorry for was his mother. She couldn’t have had a single happy day. The strangest thing was, the first time she got a proper night’s sleep must have been on Good Friday. Up till then she’d had nothing but worry over her son. As

Mother told him not to keep speaking of his fears because it would make them come true. In his terror he gabbled away: he feared the worst because he’d dreamed that if he was called up he would never see us again. And he didn’t. He was the first conscript from Nádori to be killed. “Mother

“So, are you surprised that my mother threw herself down the well? It was all she needed, a sight like this, and my hysterical screaming. I was screaming so loud that when the storm stopped I could be heard as far away as the main road, and of course the house. Mother ran out, barefoot and still in her nightgown. She hurled herself at me, and beat me. She had no idea I’d been running away from her tears and bad temper, her endless worrying and complaining. She didn’t know what she was doing. In her despair, she wanted to hit out and destroy, to strike the nearest living thing as a way of striking at life itself. Then she saw the twins and realised why I had called her. For a second her face blazed, then she flashed past me and sped away in the rain, her wild hair trailing along the ground behind her, screeching like a bird. “I saw what she was going to do, but I couldn’t move. I stood there, next to the tree and the corpses. The thunder and lightning had stopped. If I’d run for help at that moment they might have saved her. Our house was right by the main road — the threshing yard was just beyond the garden — but I stood there as if bewitched, my mind blank. My brow was dripping wet, but my brain had gone numb. No-one could love the way I loved those two little ones. I stared at the stumps. I still couldn’t make myself believe I had anything to do with them. I didn’t cry for help. I stood there gaping, and then began to wonder vaguely what my mother was doing all that time...

returned with my confidence boosted, resolved that when I saw her again I would tell her nothing of what the doctors had said. I wasn’t going to bore her with my private affairs. She obviously wasn’t interested. And how could I even be sure she’d been telling the truth, on that evening of the mulled wine? I mean, the things she said were impossible, folk ballads in prose. Why on earth was I so obsessed with Emerence? Was I insane?

Until that moment I hadn’t realised she had any idea where our things were kept — she’d always insisted that I put them away myself, so terrified was she of taking something that wasn’t hers. But she obviously knew where these things at least were in our cupboards. She might not touch anything, but she made a note, double-checked, and remembered. Other people were not allowed secrets. I

For as long as I felt that Emerence’s attachment to the dog was based on her passionate need to serve, it was all very pleasing, but when I realised that she had become his real mistress I was furious.

Viola guarded Emerence’s home all through the winter. I put a stop to it only after a certain Saturday night, when he came home drunk. When she brought him home, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The dog was reeling, his belly was like a barrel, he was panting heavily and rolling his eyes. I couldn’t even pick him up because he kept toppling over. I crouched down to examine him. He hiccuped, and I smelt the beer. “Emerence, the dog’s drunk!” I gasped. “We had a little drink,” she replied calmly. “It won’t kill him. He was thirsty. It did him good.”

The statement over — with matters of importance Emerence didn’t say things, she made an announcement — she turned on her heel and left. Viola collapsed and began to snore. He was so drunk he didn’t even notice that he’d been abandoned. The problems didn’t begin immediately, only the next morning, when Emerence failed to come for him. She had always served him his breakfast, given him his walk and then taken him away with her. He controlled himself and made no messes, but from six-fifteen he was whining so loudly I was forced to get up. It was a while before I realised there was no point in waiting for Emerence. She was like Jehovah: she punished for generations.

I had been dismissed. Slowly I made my way home, alone, through the thickly falling snow.

I stared at her. “You want to receive a guest in our home?” The question was superfluous. Emerence had planned everything down to the last detail. Of course that was what she wanted.

The international situation had been normalised for some years, so Emerence’s guest could have been the French President himself without her fearing political consequences.

Let me be. I don’t like it when you lecture me. If I ask for something and you give it, do it without preaching a sermon, otherwise there’s no point.”

So why had I, too, hit out at her? When I thought about the way she beat Viola, and yet the dog hadn’t taken it badly. That animal understood everything. It absorbed information through so many secret antennae, so many mysterious channels.

I don’t much like alcohol, but on that night of all nights I had to accept whatever I was given, or my visit would be pointless. I had no idea who I represented at the table, but I knew that I was standing in for someone else, for the visitor who had failed to come, the person for whom she had gone to so much trouble. I did my best to personify a stranger of whom I knew nothing. Together we massaged Viola’s ears and played with his paws, and, when I was ready to leave, Emerence escorted me home, as if we were going all the way to Kőbánya on foot, in slippers and dressing gown. We spoke only about the dog, as if he were the most important thing — his bearing, his handsome build, his quick understanding. Neither of us mentioned the failed guest. When we reached our apartment, Emerence handed me the leash, waited while I stepped into the garden, then slowly, with precise enunciation, as if she were taking a vow, whispered after me — on this Virgilian night, with its mixture of real and surreal elements — that she would never forget what I had done. My

Chorei aqui

Hearing his (for once) unmodulated tones, I rushed in. Never before had I heard my husband express himself with such force, or realised what blind fury lay hibernating beneath his habitual calm. He did not confine himself to an analysis of what might reasonably wake a man in his own house. The argument assumed a wider philosophical scope. What was the point of living if such things were possible — if a godless garden gnome could take over his rug, next to half of a pair of cavalry boots with spurs shaped like eagle’s wings? In his rage he leaped from one topic to another. It was a dreadful morning. I didn’t know what to do. I tried in vain to explain to him that the old woman expressed herself through means determined by her own interests. Everything there — he had to accept — was motivated by love. This was her peculiar way of demonstrating her feelings. Her choices were an expression of her individual point of view. There was no need to jump around from topic to topic, and no need to shout! It was horrible to listen to. I would sort it all out myself.

Just before they sprinkled it with petrol and set fire to it, I caught sight of Emerence’s ikonostasis. We were all there, pinned to the fabric over the doll’s ribcage: the Grossman family, my husband, Viola, the Lieutenant Colonel, the nephew, the baker, the lawyer’s son, and herself, the young Emerence, with radiant golden hair, in her maid’s uniform and little crested cap, holding a baby in her arms.

I had to break her habit of demonstrating her attachment to me by these undisciplined, insane means. I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.

If people want to go, then let them. Why should they linger? We made sure she had enough to eat; nobody tried to burgle her home; they let her live in that little pigsty for nothing; I even arranged for her to have company. But obviously we weren’t enough, not Sutu, not Adélka, not me. We listened sympathetically to all her nonsense, even if we couldn’t understand because she spoke French. We knew that, most of the time — even in a foreign language — her cackling amounted to the same old thing. She was lonely.

“People who don’t know you wouldn’t believe how clueless you are,” she continued, “though I tell you again and again. You think life goes on for ever, and that it would be worth having if it did. You think there’ll always be someone to cook and clean for you, a plate full of food, paper to scribble on, the master to love you; and everyone will live for eternity, like a fairy tale; and the only problem you might encounter is bad things written about you in the papers, which I’m sure is a terrible disgrace, but then why did you choose such a low trade, where any bandit can pour shit over you? God knows how you got yourself a name. You’re not very bright, and you know nothing about people. Not even Polett, you see; and yet how often did you drink coffee with her? I’m the one who understands people.”

There was no force that could overcome Emerence. The propagandist, shocked to the depths of his heart, gave her a wide berth thereafter. She couldn’t be fended off or stopped in her tracks; he couldn’t take a familiar or friendly line with her, or even make simple conversation. She was fearless, enchantingly and wickedly clever, brazenly impudent. No-one

And in truth she didn’t need the country. She had no wish to join the people who oversaw the sweepers.

I listened in silence. St Emerence of Csabadul, the madwoman of mercy, who asks no questions but rescues all alike, since whoever is being pursued must be saved, the Grossmans and those hunting the Grossmans; on one side of her banner a drying rack, on the other Mr Brodarics’ helmet. This old woman is not just oblivious to her country, she’s oblivious to everything. Her spirit shines bright, but through a cloud of steam. Such a thirst for life, but so diffused over everything; such immense talent, achieving nothing. “Tell me,” I once asked her. “You only rescued people? You never handed anyone in?” She glared at me, with hatred in her eyes. What did I take her for? She hadn’t even informed on the barber, though he had cheated her, robbed her of everything. Even his dreams were lies. When he left her and made off with his loot, she said nothing. If he needed it, let him have it. But from that day on, if a man got close to her, he reminded her of the barber, and she wasn’t going to lose everything she’d put together again, especially not the money. She made a plan for the future, and there were no barbers, or Kennedys, or flying dogs in it. There was no place for anyone but herself, and the dead she would gather in.

They hadn’t yet closed the door, and when it heard me it jumped down from that great height. Children are stupid; I didn’t know what I was doing when I called out to it. It landed on its front legs and broke them both. “They sent for the gypsy to hit it over the head. My grandfather was cursing and swearing. It would have been better if I had died, rather than valuable livestock — I was such a useless good-for-nothing. “They butchered it and weighed it. I had to stand there watching while they killed it and cut it up into pieces. Don’t ask what I was feeling, but let this teach you not to love anyone to death because you’ll suffer for it, if not sooner then later. It is better not to love anyone, because then no-one you care about will get butchered, and you won’t end up jumping out of wagons.

By now, without ever acknowledging its full worth, she no longer fought against the view that my work represented some sort of achievement, and she constructed an elaborate theory to avoid having to reject us. Writing was an occupation comparable with play. The child took it seriously, and carried it out with great care, and though it was only play, and nothing depended on it, it was tiring.

Once again, she had arranged her cleaning rota so that I’d find her here just before the service, and be reminded of her eternal message: how easy it was to be pious when your lunch would be ready and waiting when you arrived home from church.

“You don’t die that easily, but let me tell you, you come close to it. Afterwards,

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.

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.

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.

“Your ideas about everything are very different from mine. You were taught how to do a thousand things, but not to be aware of what really matters. Can’t you see that there’s no point in trying to dazzle me? I don’t want anyone unless they are completely mine. You like to put everyone in a box, and then produce them whenever they’re needed: this is my girlfriend, this my cousin, and this my elderly godmother. This is my love, this is my doctor, and this pressed flower is from the island of Rhodes. Just let me be. Once I’m no longer here, visit my grave now and then, that’s quite enough. I rejected that man as a friend because I wanted him as a husband, but don’t pretend you’re the child I never had. I offered you something, and you accepted it. You’ve a right to a few of my things, because we got on well even if we had our little tiffs. You’ll get something when I’m gone, and it won’t be just anything. That should be enough. And don’t you forget that I let you in where I never allowed anyone else. Beyond that, I’ve nothing else to offer you, because I’ve nothing else in me. What more do you want? I cook, I wash, I clean and tidy. I brought Viola up for you. I’m not your dead mother, or your nursemaid, or your little chum. Leave me in peace.”

Emerence made it a condition that if you loved her, she should be the leading figure in your life. Of all those around her whom she considered really important, only the dog took that as natural and accepted it — even as he bit her.

We didn’t dare say a word to each other. My husband had come to the same realisation. We were too ashamed to continue looking, and turned our backs on Emerence and her broom. Viola scratched at the door to the balcony, wanting to go out, but I didn’t let him. Neither of us spoke, and why should we? The need was for action, not words. But we went back to our own television. Even now I cannot forgive myself when I am reminded of what I ought to have done, but went no further than the thought. I’ve

I knew what she was saying wasn’t true. I had seen the “fridge”. It wasn’t electric, and it was years since ice was last sold on the street. As in that moment when I’d watched her sweep the Christmas snow, I registered only part of what I saw. I knew she was lying, but I didn’t think through what she and the cats might be living on.

When you do something truly unforgivable, you don’t always realise it, but there is a certain inward suspicion of what you have done. I told myself the bad feeling clamped up inside me was stage fright. But it was simple guilt.

That was the very first moment — there were countless more to follow — when I shuddered at the realisation that, whatever kind of award I’d received, even if I’d been not just a contributor in a group discussion but had the entire TV network for a day, with every member of the government wishing me peace and comfort while I broadcast all the humiliations I had suffered to the four corners of the world — even then I should never have left Emerence alone, to face whatever it was that had happened.

But now I knew I should have been with her at the precise moment when she lost her independence, when they forced her door open, even if it was only wide enough to let a doctor in, and took her protesting from her home — that idea had never entered my head. The prize, I reflected bitterly, had already begun to work its influence. I had rushed off in a TV car towards its radiance, away from illness, old age, loneliness and incapacity. Once

The simple, rational garb of terminal illness had translated her into an aristocrat. A truly great lady lay there before us, pure as the stars. It was then that I realised what I had done in deserting her.

The TV could make their programmes without me. It was more important that I ward off the shame of strangers ravaging her home, whose real nature I alone had seen.

Viola, who knew the way better than anyone, refused to go anywhere near the wreck of her home. After her death, the flat was refurbished and soon found a new owner, but the dog wasn’t interested. The light on the porch shone as before, without the slightest attraction for him, and every summer her lilacs bloomed in vain. He looked for her in all the places they had walked together, but never at her home. He recognised the field where the battle had been fought and lost, even though he hadn’t witnessed it himself.

The photo of me that would be filed away in an official album would immortalise a quite surreal image — the lingering horror on the face of some ancient heroine who had looked on the Medusa. I

Emerence no longer wished to live, because we’d destroyed the framework of her life and the legend attached to her name.

She had been everyone’s model, everyone’s helper, the supreme exemplar. Out of her starched apron pockets came sugar cubes wrapped in paper and linen handkerchiefs rustling like doves. She was the Snow Queen. She stood for certainty — in summer the first ripening cherry, in autumn the thud of falling chestnuts, the golden roast pumpkin of winter, and, in spring, the first bud on the hedgerow. Emerence was pure and incorruptible, the better self that each and every one of us aspired to be. With her permanently veiled forehead and her face that was tranquil as a lake, she asked nothing from anyone and depended on no-one. She shouldered everyone’s burden without ever speaking of her own, and when she did finally need my help, I went off to play my part in a TV show and left her, in the squalor of advanced illness, for others to witness the single moment of degradation in her life.

I had long known that the more simple a thing was, the less likely it was to be understood; and now Emerence would never have the chance to make anyone understand either herself or her cats. No matter what she might say, her credibility had been destroyed by the stench that had poured out of her home and the dirt that remained there to be cleaned. The chicken and duck carcasses that surrounded her, the rotting fish and boiled vegetables, testified to what had never been true, that she was mad, not that her body had left her iron will stranded. After

The doctor had forgotten to tell me one thing: the department had ordered immediate action, including the total destruction of all the furniture (with full compensation) in the interests of public health.

When everything was finally outside, and some pieces of furniture and other objects had been separated out from those selected and officially recorded as being for destruction, they sprayed the lovers’ seat and chairs with petrol, and set them on fire. As I stood watching the flames I thought of Viola. This was where he had grown up, on this sofa; this was where the old woman had always rested; it had been her bed. And here too the cats — the sometime, never again, eternal cats — had sat, like birds on a telephone wire. Into the conflagration went Emerence’s shoes, stockings and headscarves. Now,

a TV person was grilling me about what I thought and who I had to thank for helping me get where I was. I had named Emerence, as an example of someone who had taken care of everything around me that might have kept me from writing — behind every public achievement there was some unseen person without whom there would be no life’s work. The

Emerence showed total indifference and said nothing. She was on all sorts of medication, and that might have been the reason for her silence. I knew better. Emerence had understood perfectly well, but she didn’t give a damn. She had loathed publicity and polished phrases all her life. I should have been with her in the lion’s jaws, at her Golgotha, and I wasn’t, and she had had to stand alone and bear what was done to her. So now she had no interest in my chatter, my cheap phrases — I’d spend my time lying on the bier at my funeral service, looking around to see how many people had come. She knew me like the back of her hand. She knew that no shock to my nervous system could ever be so great as to stop me finding the right words.

He became angry, and raised his voice. I’d made quite enough mistakes already, did I want to cause even more trouble? Those foreign officials wouldn’t be pleased if a delegate failed to arrive. They’d think of every possible reason, including that we’d been banned from travelling. I had no right to involve the country in my private business, so would I please go? There was

The moment she saw me enter the room she pulled a hand towel over her face, just as ancient kings, following royal tradition, veiled the spectacle of their death agonies from the eyes of the court. But