The Door (27 page)

Easter fell early that year, at the beginning of April, and our last day there was Good Friday. I have an enduring memory of going to church, and of the dead Christ laid out on a bier. A gilded basket stood in the doorway, filled with rose petals, and as you entered you scattered them over the body of the Son of God, until He was completely covered. Later, they rang the bell in a little campanile, and all the old people of the village came and stood around it. When they noticed us in the entrance to the church throwing handfuls of petals over the sacred corpse, they came up to my husband and gestured to him that he should join them in mourning the Saviour. I can still see him ringing the bell, his thick blond hair, already shot with grey, tugged by the sea breeze. Next they put the bell rope into my hands. I think I must have pleased them, because I wept copiously all the time I was pulling it, but the tears had nothing to do with the ceremony, they were only for myself. The next day we went back to Athens and left for home from Helicon airport. The journey was as unreal as they always are. The Greek writers were kinder to me than seemed possible, pressing farewell baskets laden with gifts into my hands as to someone who had been knocked over by a goods train. They even accompanied us to the airport. If they never again invite another Hungarian writer, I am the cause.

On the plane we decided that my husband would take the luggage back to the apartment while I went straight to the hospital. By the time I stepped into the lift I was almost whimpering, as my mind went over every possible change that could have occurred. During my time away anything could have happened. What if everything had gone wrong, and Emerence was down in the basement preserved in ice and waiting for burial? Or still living but better off dead because incurable after all? Or perhaps someone had taken her off, without consulting me, to another part of the hospital? After all, legally, these things were in the hands of her nephew.

The only variation I hadn't considered was the one that awaited me. Peals of laughter met me some way down the corridor — her laughter, so rarely heard, which I would have recognised among everyone else's. The nurses smiled at me as I started to run, someone shouted something out to me, but I had no time to listen. I dashed towards the open door where the sound was coming from. The room was dark with visitors. It was clear that here too Emerence had cast her spell over everyone — such large numbers weren't allowed. Half a dozen people were in attendance around her bed, and Sutu was clearing away the remains of a meal, not standard hospital fare, but from the neighbours. Dishes and bowls I didn't recognise, together with jugs and plates, filled the window sills. Emerence was sitting with her back to the door, propped up on pillows, and she must have realised from the faces of the others that some new and interesting guest had arrived. Still laughing, she turned round, no doubt thinking it was the doctor. The instant she saw me the blood rushed into her face, flattening its features, and flooding out every sign of pleasure. As I came in she was already making use of both hands; a few days earlier she'd only been able to grab the hand towel with the fumbling right one. She had been sitting in front of the other guests bareheaded, but the moment she saw me she covered her face. The visitors fell silent. It was a coarse gesture, and it had the same force as if she had struck me. Suddenly everyone had urgent things to do. The women gathered up the dishes and bowls, washed her cutlery and bid each other a chastened farewell. Sutu uttered not a word to me, not even about the dog; all she did was wag her fingers at me from the doorway, and I understood I was to call on her at six o'clock, or she would come to me, and then we could talk. I would never have thought that those people could have so much tact, and would sense with such precise mental antennae that in my absence Emerence had taken my measure and found me wanting, no-one understood exactly why, but there was no point in getting their knickers in a twist about it. Whatever had happened, it was wiser to keep their distance, and more decorous not to get involved.

For the first time, the very first time since the whole avalanche of events had been set in motion, I was filled with resentment and my self-reproach began to fray at the edges. For Heaven's sake, of what crime was she accusing me? That I hadn't left her to die? Without the injection, and the medicine, she would have long since been dead. I hadn't stayed with her because I couldn't. I hadn't wanted to leave her. I didn't go off to enjoy myself but to work. She of all people knew that for me television was work. So, if she didn't want to see me, then that was her choice. Józsi's boy could come and visit, and the Lieutenant Colonel, Sutu, Adélka and the others. I certainly wasn't needed there. I made no attempt to speak to her, or to begin to explain myself. I knew Emerence better than that. She could stay under her headscarf till Judgement Day. There was no point in running back and forth to the hospital, dead tired, for another experience like this, when I could be sitting in a bathtub at home. I went out, and was on my way to the lift when the nurse stopped me.

"Please, Lady Writer…" she began, obviously choosing her words. "The old woman isn't well. They just think she is. She's only frisky like that with visitors. The rest of the time she's completely silent."

Then let her stay silent. The nurse could see from my face that she would have to say more.

"The improvement seems impressive, but it's very superficial," she went on, trying another approach. "When you were last here, we weren't in a position to make a full assessment, but now we have. She can move her limbs, but she can't walk. The Lieutenant Colonel comes every day, and we're trying to decide the way forward with him."

Well, if the Lieutenant Colonel was coming every day, I was clearly free to go home. The police choir could come as well, and why not the scouts? I was fussing to no purpose. The whole neighbourhood was plying her with things she needed, and gossip, and the Lieutenant Colonel providing the all-important security. If I wasn't needed, so be it. I'd made my last offer.

"That would be fine, if…"

The nurse stopped. I understood well enough what she was unable to express. Words were my
metier.
I shouldn't let any of it hurt me; I should swallow it all, every unjust gesture, every caprice — because not only was she going to stay paralysed, perhaps she wouldn't even live very long. Nonsense. She was going to live for ever; she wasn't my concern.

Now, as I type these words, I have the sense that that was the moment when, for the second, and last, time I decided her fate. That was when I let go of her hand.

"At all events, I'll phone you if she needs you."

"No, don't bother to phone. She won't need me. She won't accept anything from me, either practically or emotionally."

I made my way slowly home, and told my husband what I had found. He listened in silence, and for some time made no reply. I then heard something I had not expected from him, something quite new. It took me completely by surprise. He gave a deep sigh and said, "Poor Emerence."

Poor Emerence! For years I had argued with the local priest about what sort of person she was. Just then I felt closer to his view than I had ever been.

"Sometimes you can be astonishingly unjust," my husband went on. "How can you not have understood what is so clear to everyone else? Everybody else can see it — the whole street, the Lieutenant Colonel. It's so obvious from what you've told me."

What was "so obvious"? I looked at him the way Viola did when my instructions weren't clear and he was trying to decode my imprecise signals and commands. What crime had I committed over and above what had happened on that wretched day? Ever since then my life had been one of constant self-reproach. It hadn't left me for one minute. The night of the prize ceremony was filled with unconscious terror, Athens had been pure hell, and when I wasn't asleep my cares circled round me like wolves.

"Emerence is ashamed, before you and before the entire street. She pretends she's lost her memory because that way it's easier to bear the thought of lying there in full view, in all her filth, with her human dignity smashed to pieces. Do I have to teach you, of all people, what shame is? You, who effectively brought this upon her? Wasn't the 'day of action' your doing? You handed her over chained and bound, the cleanest of the clean, with all her secrets, when you should have protected her, whatever the cost. You were the only person on earth whose words would have induced her to open her door. You are her Judas. You betrayed her."

So now I was Judas? Wasn't it enough that I was half-dead and desperate for rest? I'd had quite enough of everything, and I didn't think this was the time for a lecture. All I wanted was to lie down. Sutu had promised to come at six o'clock. I asked my husband to wake me if I was still asleep and I crawled into bed, away from myself and from Emerence. I thought I would be overwhelmed by exhaustion, but even then I couldn't relax, and I was the one who opened the door when barking and scratching signalled Viola's return. He was very thin, but happy. For the first time in his life he was truly glad to see us. It was as if he wanted us to feel he was back at home again, and since he'd found us, perhaps his nightmare was finally at end and Emerence would appear as well. I thanked Sutu for taking care of him and asked her what I owed her. She named a reasonable sum, and I paid her. But she had no intention of leaving.

"Please Lady Writer," she began, "there's something you should know, if the doctor and sisters haven't told you already. Emerence is getting better, but in a very strange way. She remembers only bits of what happened; there are gaps. She has no idea what happened earlier — not the hatchet, or the ambulance or the way she struggled. She asked us how she was brought there, and I told her that you had arranged it. The thing she was most concerned about was whether her flat is properly locked up, and we told her that it was, straight away, and that the writer lady has the key. She knows the story the Lieutenant Colonel instructed us to tell her. One day she didn't answer when we knocked on her door, so we were worried and ran over to you, but she didn't answer for you either. By then we were sure something was seriously wrong. The doctor gentleman forced the door open (the whole street referred to him as the doctor gentleman — I tried to visualise him, without much success, with a crowbar in his hand), and we found her unconscious in the entrance. The handyman bundled her up and we brought her in Mr Brodarics' car to the hospital, where she'd been looked after ever since. Not a word has been said about the decontamination people, or the cats, or anything. And no-one has tipped her off that you went to Athens. So please tell her everything's all right, that you locked the flat up straight away but you go over every day and see to everything. There's plenty of time for her to find out that her room has gone, and all the horrible things that were in there. Everyone is treating her very gently. The Lieutenant Colonel lies like a leaking tap and so does the Szeredás boy. After everything she's been told, she even believes she'll recover. I just don't know how she will take it when she finds out the truth."

She was expecting praise, and had probably earned it, but I said nothing. The whole neighbourhood had passed the test of honour, and of tact, but I stuck to my silence. I knew the real Emerence. A flash of insight had finally penetrated the massive darkness, and I began to find my bearings again. Emerence's amnesia? What a joke! How could you reconcile that with the towel over her face? All her life she'd been like royalty, adjusting her memory to suit political reality. What I had finally realised didn't surprise me. It terrified me. When we said goodbye and shook hands, Sutu remarked on how cold my fingers were. She hoped I wasn't sickening for something.

My husband had reached exactly the same conclusion, so there was no need to argue about it. I threw myself down in the chair and ran my fingers through Viola's coat. I had to decide what to do. I called the Lieutenant Colonel; he didn't answer, but they promised to tell him I'd tried to contact him. I phoned the nephew and actually got through. He was living in the same optimistic fairyland as Sutu. What a Heaven-sent mercy that his aunt didn't remember anything! Later on, once the flat had been refurbished and painted, with a nice clean kitchen and a new door waiting for her, we'd be able to console her for what had happened. My medical knowledge was no greater than his, but I knew Emerence better. I had watched her destroy the celebratory meal she had prepared in vain. I had wandered with her through the labyrinth of her memories. Forget her cats? Impossible. If she had, she would never have asked about the flat. No, she remembered everything. She just didn't dare to ask openly. In the early days the medication would have caused mental blankness, washing certain images from her mind, but as the days went by the procession of figures that had been reduced to mere shadowy outlines would have become ever more brightly coloured. If she could recognise Sutu, and everyone else from the street, then everything about her home must be firmly in place in her consciousness, including the animals living in it, the half-prepared duck, the putrid fish — everything that surrounded her during that final period when she was temporarily paralysed. She was keeping it a secret because she hoped she could battle her way through this too, just as she had from the depths of so many chasms throughout her life. Poor, unhappy Emerence, to whom no-one would tell the truth, and who didn't even dare ask, but was left reaching out after shadows! So what was I being so sensitive about? This wasn't the time to consider who she might have offended or how, if indeed a sick person can give offence. Off you go, back to the hospital. In this drama there's only one protagonist, and it's not you, it's Emerence. It's a one-woman show.

She wasn't alone. The medical professor's wife had come to see her and Emerence was responding to her in a lively, cheerful manner. Apparently this lady had also spoken in support of her. The hospital must have been amazed that this old woman mattered to so many people. The beautiful young woman had been an unexpected and flattering visitor, and Emerence didn't dare carry out the face-covering ritual in front of her. But the moment she left us together, Emerence reached for the hand towel. I hadn't been mistaken, not in the least mistaken. Her brain was functioning perfectly. The professor's wife had been innocent — she obviously knew nothing — so the veil wasn't appropriate for her; but for me it was. As I approached the bed she donned it as a priest dons his surplice, and with it she distanced herself both from me, and her shame. I looked around. On the table, beside various medical accessories, was the placard proclaiming
NO VISITORS,
which had been tacked up outside while the battle to save her life continued. I hung it from the door handle out into the corridor, then plucked the towel from Emerence's head and threw it on to the other, unoccupied bed. She couldn't reach it; she would have to look me in the face. Anger and hatred blazed in her eyes.