Free The Door by Magda Szabó

and her permanent companion. He was the cause of her starting to lock everything up, this unfriendly friend. She wouldn't let anyone in, she watched over him jealously — as if anyone would want him! — and of course he wasn't well. He had papers exempting him from service. He hardly ever went out. He wasn't fit for the army or for work and, according to Emerence, he was riddled with arthritis. She always got involved with this type, both animals and people. Wrecks interested her. It was the same with Mr Szloka, right up to his death. He too wasn't the full measure of a man, and to crown everything he had no family.
    Sutu's tale contained so many disturbing elements that I made her repeat it, twice, until it sank in. It implied that Emerence had lived with someone, both during the siege and before it, so from the start she didn't just have a cat but a lodger (or whatever) as well. Furthermore, her circle of admirers included this Mr Szloka, who could neither escape nor fend for himself in his total abandonment because he had such a severe heart condition. He couldn't even do aircraft alert duty, and then he died suddenly at the most inconvenient moment. It was a confused and difficult time. The siege had begun, and Emerence ran in vain from Pontius to Pilate, looking for someone to dispose of the body. She tried everyone, but it was the start of a national holiday. No-one would take responsibility, and the result was that they had to get rid of the poor fellow themselves. Emerence agreed to bury Mr Szloka in the garden in return for his bicycle. Later the bicycle went missing, probably taken by her "friend", because he too vanished, Sutu had no idea where. Emerence buried Mr Szloka under the dahlias, and he mouldered quietly away until the council finally exhumed him in the summer of '46.
    Up until then the occupants of the house had changed constantly, and included every sort of nationality. Emerence washed for the Germans and then for the Russians. Then the world returned to normal and people once again lived in peace. Malicious reports began to be made about her, not about the alleged pigeon poisoning or political slanders, but accusations of interfering with corpses, because she had buried the hanged cat in Mr Szloka's grave. However when she explained to the Lieutenant Colonel that this cat had been her entire family, he told her he'd teach these good neighbours who made extra work for the police a bit of respect. He'd have them sent on community service to help clean up Vérmezö Park. There were at least as many rotting horses there as there were people, and they would be required to separate what was left of them, and then bury the humans in sacred ground and the animals where they could. Didn't they have anything better to worry about when the country was struggling to get on its feet again after total collapse? How he envied them! If they kept dragging up these cat stories, he'd investigate the piece of human trash who couldn't stand Emerence Szeredás' cat so he'd strung it up, in his murdering Fascist way, rather than come to an understanding with its owner. There were laws against cruelty to animals.
     
     
    One day, Emerence did not arrive to walk the dog. There was no reason for her absence, but I saw nothing of her all day. It was autumn, still a long way off the first snowfall, yet she failed to appear. I walked the dog myself, through a soft, gentle rain. Viola looked for her at home in the morning, but his sensitive nostrils told him she wasn't behind the closed door, so we went to each of her houses in turn. He even led me down to the market, but his dejected behaviour continued to signal that she was nowhere around, perhaps not even in the district. She wasn't anywhere Viola knew about.
    Back home, he cowered miserably while I set about the cleaning. Whenever she failed to turn up people asked for her at our flat, and the doorbell rang constantly. Everyone who knew her was concerned. What had happened?