The Door Read Online Free PDF

sorry for was his mother. She couldn't have had a single happy day. The strangest thing was, the first time she got a proper night's sleep must have been on Good Friday. Up till then she'd had nothing but worry over her son.
    As she delivered this tirade about Christ as victim of political machinations and a trumped-up criminal charge, who finally stepped out of the life of his poor Virgin Mother after all her sleepless nights of heartbreak and worry, I fairly expected a bolt from above to strike her dead. She knew she had upset me, and she was glad. I held my head high and set off in the direction of the church. She followed me with a wicked stare. For the first time, I saw what a remarkable creature she was. She claimed no interest in politics and yet, by some mysterious everyday process, she had managed to absorb something of what we had all been through during those years after the war. And I thought too, someone should seek out the sort of priest who could reawaken in her what clearly was once there. Then I realised, she would only hurl insults at him. Emerence was a Christian, but the minister who might convince her of the fact didn't exist. Not one spangle remained of that evening dress, but the glitter of sequins was burned into her consciousness.
     
     
    That night, of course, she only wanted to provoke me. But strangely, it calmed me down. If she sensed real trouble she wouldn't be teasing me, I thought, but, thank God, she was. She was having a bit of fun at my expense. I tried to get up, but she forbade it. If I was good, she would tell me a story, but I would have to stop wriggling and close my eyes. I nestled down. Emerence remained standing, leaning against the heater. I knew so little about her, only the rather shadowy picture I'd managed to piece together over the years from isolated scraps of information. It was practically nothing. On this most surreal of nights, with life and death waiting hand in hand in the wintry dawn, Emerence sought to quell my terrified thoughts by finally introducing herself.
    '"You are Christ's sisters and brothers,' my mother used to say, because my father was a carpenter — a carpenter and cabinetmaker. His younger brother, my godfather, was a foreman-builder, but he died soon after my christening. He too was good with his hands, like all the Szeredás family. Our father was very knowledgeable, and a fine figure of a man. As for my mother, she was a fairy princess. Her golden hair trailed behind her on the floor; she could actually step on it. My grandfather was very proud of her. He wouldn't let her marry a peasant, and resented even a craftsman. He'd sent her to school and made my father promise he would never put her out to work. And he didn't. While my father was alive she just read books. But that didn't last very long, because, you see, when I was barely three the poor man died. It's strange, but my grandfather took violently against him for having the nerve to die, as if he'd deliberately wished it on himself to spite him.
    "The coming of the war made everything a lot more difficult. I don't think Mother was in love with the foreman in the workshop at the start, but she couldn't run the place on her own, so she married him. My stepfather didn't care very much for books, but that wasn't the main problem. They were calling everyone up into the army, and the poor man was terrified that his turn would come. But he got on well with my mother, and he put up with us as well. He wasn't a bad man, although he made me leave school, and the headmaster was very upset about it, but I was needed to cook for the harvesters because Mother wasn't up to it, and I also looked after the twins. Our stepfather wasn't unkind to them, but this wasn't surprising. If you've ever seen two fairy-tale children, that's what they were. They were the living image of Mother. My little brother Józsi — you know his son, the one who comes to visit me — doesn't look like any of us. I never saw much of