The Door (30 page)

I made my way up and removed the sign forbidding entry. The nurse saw me, and nodded. Clearly she had had instructions. As I went through the door I was thinking that the Lieutenant Colonel had been right. I had thrust myself into her life, and now that I had dared strike the fatal scissors from the hand of Atropos I ought to have the courage to look around the Fates' workshop. Emerence was lying with her back to the door. She didn't turn round, but she recognised my footsteps, just as the dog did. The one striking difference from the day before was that once again her face was veiled. But I knew she was aware of my presence.

We both stayed silent. Never had there been a more mysterious, more mute or inscrutable figure than hers that afternoon, with the dark descending and the branches beating on the windows. I sat down next to her, with the
no visitors
sign in my hands.

"How many cats are left?" she finally asked, from behind her veil. Her voice was every bit as unreal as her invisible face.

At this stage it would make no difference.

"Not one, Emerence. Three of them we think we saw dead. The others are lost."

"Keep looking. The ones that are still alive will be hiding in a garden."

"Certainly. We'll do that."

Silence. Twigs rustled against the window panes.

"You told me a lie. You said you cleaned everything up."

"There was nothing left to do, Emerence. The decontamination people had done it."

"And you let them?"

"I can't go against an order. Nor can the Lieutenant Colonel. A tragedy occurred, a disaster."

"A tragedy! You could have gone to the Parliament later that day, or the next."

"Even if I'd been at home, I would have got nowhere trying to pester people. I'm telling you, there's a regulation covering such cases, a public health measure. I can't overrule something like that."

"You weren't at home? Where did you go?"

"Athens, Emerence. There was a conference. You'd forgotten about it, but we did speak about it some time ago, at home. We were delegates. We had to go."

"You went, when you didn't even know if I would live?"

I had no answer to this. I watched the raindrops slide slowly down the window. That's how it was. I had gone away.

Suddenly she pulled the scarf from her face and glared at me. She was pale as wax.

"So what sort of people are you? You and the Lieutenant Colonel? The master is the most honourable of you all. At least he never lied."

Again no answer was possible. It was true that my husband had never lied. But then again, the Lieutenant Colonel was one of the most admirable men I had ever met. As for me, I am what I am. And this is what I am: I went off to Athens. I would have gone though my own father were in a life-threatening condition — because the Foreign Ministry of Greece would have put a certain construction on things if the official Hungarian delegate stayed away; because, after the prize, my being named a delegate was a gesture from the state which I couldn't ignore; because I am a writer and have no personal life; and because things happen to me as they do to actors. I have to play a part, even if there are problems at home.

"Get out of here," she said softly. "You never bought a house, though I asked you to — and I had planned so many treasures for you to have in it. You never had children, though I promised I would bring them up. Put the sign back on the door. I don't want to see anyone who witnessed my shame. If you'd allowed me to die, as I made up my mind to when I realised I would never be capable of real work again, I would have watched over you from beyond the grave. But now I can't stand having you near me. Just go."

So she did believe in the next world, after all. She had simply been provoking the priest, and us as well.

"From now on you can do what you like. You don't know what it is to love. And yet, I believed you might, one day. You would rescue me for this, for what's left? And you'd even take me into your home and look after me? Idiot!"

"Emerence!"

"Get out. Go and make a speech on television. Write a novel, or run off back to Athens. If they send me home from here, don't any of you try to come anywhere near me, Adélka has left her scissors here and I'll use them on anyone who comes near me. Why are you so concerned about my fate? There are plenty of care homes. This is the most wonderful country in the world, and I've the legal right to be sick for two whole years. That's what your friend said. Now go. I've things to do."

"Emerence, with us…"

"With you! You as a housewife, you looking after me! And the master! Go to hell! There's only one sane person in your flat — Viola."

Her supper was beside her, untouched. In her exasperation she moved slightly and almost knocked the dish over, but I didn't dare go near. I really believed she would stab me with the scissors. She was now lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. I could see very little of her as I went out. I didn't say goodbye. I ran home in the rain, wondering all the time what else I should have said. But I could think of nothing.

An hour later I felt calmer. I believe I had been unconsciously prepared for even worse. But the illusion of peace didn't last long before my husband brought my fears flooding back. He was pacing back and forth in the flat and saying he didn't like this restraint, this calm. It wasn't like Emerence. A major explosion would have been more in character. But my analysis of her mental state was cut short. Suddenly the dog went mad, quite literally. He howled, scratched, kicked the rugs into a tangled heap, and hurled himself on the floor, foaming at the mouth. He was in such a state I thought his last hour had come. I phoned the vet and asked him to come straight away, which he did, just as he had on that first memorable Christmas Eve. Viola worshipped him; he would even show off his tricks to him after an injection. Now he lay there, not even standing up when called. The vet knelt down beside him, talking to him while his lean, sensitive fingers played piano sonatas all over his body. Then he dusted his knees and shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing physical. He must have had some sort of shock; something dreadful had upset the balance of his nervous system. He tried giving him various orders, but Viola made no effort to obey. He wouldn't sit, he wouldn't walk. If the vet stood him up he fell on his side, as if paralysed. We parted on the understanding that he'd have another look at him the next day. That night I was to give him some glucose and a child's dose of tranquilliser. He had no idea what had happened to the dog, and if I nailed him on a cross he still wouldn't know. With that, he left.

I was setting the table for supper. Viola hadn't moved. I asked him to show me that he loved me, but he didn't even glance up, he lay there like an old rag. Then suddenly he howled, in a voice so far beyond imagining it left me frozen with terror. The fully laden tray fell from my hands. I dared not go near him. I was convinced he'd gone mad and might savage me. I didn't want to believe what that sound was telling me, even with my calm, rational husband at my side in the kitchen next to the burnt remains of the dinner. He glanced at his watch and said, very quietly, "quarter past eight." "Quarter past eight," I repeated after him, as if some mad person were speaking through me, announcing the hour. "Quarter past eight; quarter past eight." When I'd declaimed it for the third time, my husband produced my raincoat and I fell silent. I suddenly felt that nothing that was happening around me was real. I'd been calling out the time like a parrot. What was wrong with me? Was I going insane? But I was lying to myself, as if my life depended on it, to avoid somehow putting into words what Viola had announced. But he knew, and my husband knew. The dog had been the first to understand and he had told us both. He was sobbing like a child.

The hospital corridor was teeming with doctors, and the matron could be heard on the phone from outside her office. "No questions, please," the doctor said when he saw us, clearly impatient to give us the news. After I'd gone, Emerence had at first lain in silence, tugging at her headscarf and refusing to answer when spoken to. This wasn't unusual behaviour. There'd been other times when she'd indicated she wanted to be left in peace. Some time after eight, when the nurse looked in to switch off the light, Emerence demanded to be sent home immediately, that very night. She had to search around the neighbouring houses, in the gardens, where her loved ones were waiting for her — no-one was looking after them or feeding them. They explained that this was impossible, for so many reasons. First of all, it was evening, so they couldn't give her a discharge note; in any case, there still wasn't anything to sleep on in the flat. Her manner became harsh and domineering, and she loudly informed them that they needn't bother to take her, she was quite strong enough now to overcome her cursed weakness. She had to go that minute, she couldn't stay, she really needed to. Then she actually tried to leave, throwing herself out of the bed. Of course she couldn't walk, or even stand. As she hit the floor, or perhaps even while she was falling, a new embolism, triggered by the Lieutenant Colonel's revelations and her subsequent meeting with me, paralysed not her brain this time, but her heart. I would never have believed it possible, but even in that surreal moment, as they were giving me the same facts that Viola had communicated without words, I found something else to take away from Emerence. I robbed her of the last thing she had of which she might have been properly proud, the well-deserved applause for a dignified finale in death. Though she continued to lie there, having been put back on the bed, from then on no-one paid her the slightest attention. The moment I saw her I had collapsed in the doorway as if struck down, and the entire medical team turned their attention on me. It was some time before they managed to bring me round. They wouldn't let me leave, but kept me in for a week. So now the visitors with the christening bowls came for me, Emerence having gallantly vacated the stage of public attention. They put me in a room with a telephone and a TV, attended to all my needs, watched over me and comforted me. I bathed in the warm glow of sympathy, rather like the newly honoured Toldi, leaning on an invisible spade, having just received the glorious message of pardon from King Lajos, with the dead body of my servant Bence at my feet, and above my head romantically shredded clouds bearing a legend of legends. My husband came every night, but only after nine, when he could be certain of not meeting strangers. Everyone else approached my bed with smiles of encouragement; his face alone never lost its expression of pity and overwhelming grief.

I often think back to how simply it all went in the end. Emerence placed no further burden, no more insoluble problems on her few blood relatives and loose circle of friends. Like a truly great commander she settled everything around her in person, with a single impressive gesture. If there was nothing to be done about herself, nothing she could do, then better to put an end to it. Humankind has come a long way since its beginnings and people of the future won't be able to imagine the barbaric early days in which we fought with one another, in groups or individually, over little more than a cup of cocoa. But not even then will it be possible to soften the fate of a woman for whom no-one has made a place in their life. If we all lacked the courage to admit this to ourselves, she at least had done so, and politely taken her leave. Now it seemed as though even government departments with no personal knowledge of her, and officials overburdened with work, were behaving as if ordered by her not to drag things out. The tenants' book had ended up in the lovers' seat along with other soiled documents, but the Lieutenant Colonel managed to arrange her burial without a scrap of paper changing hands, and the hospital found it quite natural that an excitable patient of some eighty years should be carried off by a heart attack. Dates were quickly named for the probate hearings and the cremation service. This was deemed to be only a preliminary burial, since Emerence's last resting place, according to the will, was to be the Taj Mahal, still waiting to be built. Józsi's boy showed me the relevant invoices and asked me to speak to the reverend minister about the church burial. I didn't agree to do this immediately because, in truth, I didn't want to. In this one particular at least I hoped to act in accordance with Emerence's wishes — she had never wanted a religious funeral. But the nephew thought the street would be scandalised and criticise him for not doing the right thing. We decided we wouldn't prepare a death notice but rather announce the time of burial in the paper. He informed the Csabadul relatives by letter, and they sent their condolences. Regrettably, other engagements prevented them saying their farewells in person; but they thought it proper all the same for Emerence to have left what she had to her younger brother Józsi's son, since they had never really provided for her (not that she would have asked) and in any case they had long been out of touch. And if the nephew intended to gather together the dead relatives from Nádori, they certainly would have no objection, but would in fact be grateful.

We were drawing up the list of what remained to be done, on the site of Emerence's former court, the entrance to the Forbidden City. Viola lay at our feet, supremely indifferent. I could now bring him here, to the old woman's former home, without a qualm. He behaved as if he'd never been there. For three consecutive days my husband had listened to his sobbing, then the whimpering died down and finally he fell silent. Then suddenly he gave up posing as a rag rug, stood up, shook himself, stretched his body, and looked at my husband as if he'd woken from a dream. From that day on he had no voice at all, quite literally: he never again drew our attention to anything. He never again expressed either pleasure or protest. At most, if he was ill he might snarl at the vet. But till the end of his life, he never barked again.

The Lieutenant Colonel had arranged for the probate hearing to be on the same day as the funeral. We arrived at the council building at nine in the morning: myself, the nephew and the Lieutenant Colonel. There was no on-site inspection. The Lieutenant Colonel presented the Health Department's records and explained that there was still one room containing personal effects which he had inspected some years before — beautiful old furniture — but nothing else. The deceased had owned all the usual things found in a well-equipped household, but a good part of the kitchen contents had been destroyed. If they wished they could go and verify this. But there was no wish to verify anything. Józsi's son stated that while she was alive Emerence had supplemented his income, and the personal effects were for me. It was over in ten minutes. The young woman who conducted the meeting smiled and asked me to let her know if the deceased had been hoarding any treasure, in which case there would be tax to pay, and I promised to comply. The proceedings had been swift and courteous. They even offered us coffee. We were all in black, including the Lieutenant Colonel, in the uniform he wore when detailed to receive heads of state. We went in his car to Farkasrét Cemetery. Józsi's boy advised us that Emerence's real home would be up by St Stephen's Day, 20 August. By then the exhumations at Nádori would have taken place, and he would receive us again on 25 August, at the newly built crypt, for the final deposition of Emerence's urn.