The Door (19 page)

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."

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 role. 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.

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
crime 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 Boor 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 Boor'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 Boor 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 Boor 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 Mezö — they were burying the one person 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."