The Door by Magda Szabó Read Free Book Online Page B

motherhood, an absurd Madonna.
    God knows how long this would have gone on, if someone from the house next door hadn't rung the bell to call her back immediately. A pipe had burst and had to be dealt with. Mr Brodarics had already phoned the workmen, but she had to get back quickly and turn off the mains. With a face of thunder she pushed the dog into my arms and set off to wrestle with the tap and mop up water. But every fifteen minutes she came back to check how the animal was doing. Meanwhile, our friend the vet had been wheedled away from the sparklers and had taken charge of the dog. Emerence listened to his diagnosis with visible scepticism. She considered every kind of doctor foolish and ignorant. She couldn't stand them. She didn't believe in their medicines or their inoculations. Injections, she maintained, were given only to make money, and stories of rabid foxes and cats were spread so that doctors could earn more.
    The struggle to save the dog's life went on for weeks. The old woman cleaned up the traces of diarrhoea without comment. When I was out, contrary to all her most passionate convictions, she pushed medicines into the dog and held it while they gave it antibiotic injections. Meanwhile, we offered it to all and sundry, but no-one wanted it. We gave it a fine French name, which Emerence uttered not once, and which the dog ignored. But day by day it grew, and as it gained health it began to reveal, like all mongrels, every charming and agreeable quality. And at last it was completely well. It proved to be far more intelligent than any of the pedigree dogs owned by our friends. It wasn't very pretty — too many breeds had gone into its making — but everyone who saw it, and noted the extraordinary light in its dark eyes, sensed immediately that its level of intelligence was almost human. By the time we had at last accepted that nobody would take it, we had come to love it. We bought all the usual paraphernalia, including a sleeping basket which it chewed to pieces within a fortnight, scattering shreds of wickerwork all over the apartment. When it did feel like sleeping, it ignored the blankets and pillows, and lay down in the doorway on its ever thickening coat of gently curling hair. It rapidly acquired a vocabulary for everything it needed, and became a member of the family who could be left out of nothing, an individual in its own right. My husband tolerated it, even fondled it if it did anything unusually clever or funny; I loved it; Emerence adored it.
    But the memory of the christening bowl and the mulled wine goblet was still fresh, with all their associations. Of course one had to respect those animal-lovers who had watched without regret or protest as the sealed cattle-wagons rolled into the distance — the malicious rumours that there were people locked inside were so obviously lies. But I noted with a certain irony the enthusiasm with which she told stories of how geese, ducks and hens were drawn to her. It couldn't have been easy to take your intimate friends, whom you had tamed so swiftly they would take the grain from your own mouth and leap up trustingly beside you on the lovers' seat, and slit their throats when the time came to cook them.
    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. The dog had quite different standards for each of us, behaving in three distinct ways. Towards me, he was familiar and friendly; with my husband he was quiet and almost correct; but the moment the old woman appeared he hurled himself at the door and greeted her with tears of joy. Emerence was forever explaining things to him, in a specially raised voice, with precise articulation, as if teaching an infant who was just beginning to speak. She made no secret of what she was teaching him; she repeated the same message over and over again, like a poem, and she