The Door

“I still don’t know how she fitted so much living into one life.”

Even many years after her death, Emerence remains a mystery to Magda. Emerence is bound to the modern history of Hungary; she seems closely associated with many of the country’s historical travails. This is why she doesn’t necessarily consider the notion of living a positive one. In a style fitting of Emerence herself, Magda notes that she has lived a rich life, but also that much of that living led to pain and suffering.

“The old woman opposed the church with an almost sixteenth-century fanaticism.”

Magda’s religion is quiet, observant, and polite. She attends church and follows her priest’s instructions, taking comfort in the role of religion in her life. In contrast, Emerence fanatically opposes the church and any form of organized religion. She objects to Magda’s unthinking religious conformity. However, Magda realizes that Emerence is more benevolent and altruistic than anyone in her congregation. It’s the structures and organizations of religion that Emerence loathes, not necessarily the moral message.

“A charming legacy too, I thought with disgust.”

In the time when Magda is still confounded by Emerence, she’s eager to believe that Emerence took the christening bowl from a fleeing Jewish family. This momentary assumption allows her to look down on Emerence as emblematic of the collective guilt of the past, developing the theme of Guilt as Collective Inheritance; Magda doesn’t approve of the antisemitic laws, but relishes the chance to finally feel morally superior to Emerence. When this assumption is proved false, Magda is forced to confront many of her other presumptions about Emerence’s moral character. This is a turning point in her respect for Emerence.

“She was like Jehovah: she punished for generations.”

At times, Magda speaks about Emerence in biblical terms. Though Emerence opposes organized religion, her actions reveal the conviction and character of an Old Testament figure. By framing Emerence like this in her mind (and in her narrative), Magda can better understand the old woman not as an individual but as a benevolent force of nature.

“Quite possibly she was the only person in the country who had completely shut the authorities out of her life, the moment she could.”

Given that Emerence has experienced successive authoritarian governments in Hungary, her ability to reject government intrusion in her life is remarkable. This makes her particularly fascinating to Magda, for whom government censorship programs have altered her career trajectory, and thus informs the theme of Secrecy as a Survival Mechanism Under Authoritarianism. In an age of seemingly perpetual authoritarian intrusion, Emerence’s uncanny ability to exist outside the parameters of control is enviable and impressive.

“But nothing came to mind. I only know what I have to do on paper. In real life, I have difficulty finding the right words.”

Writing is a release for Magda. She, like Emerence, struggles to convey her emotions in real life. Magda deals with this need for emotional expression through writing, while Emerence develops an idiosyncratic system of etiquette that allows her to communicate with the world without using words. In effect, the novel itself is framed as Magda’s final attempt to settle the matter of being unable to find the right words to convey to Emerence how she felt. The woman may be dead, but the novel can provide the message in perpetuity, like the crypt that Emerence wanted to build for those who came after her.

“This was her peculiar way of demonstrating her feelings. Her choices were an expression of her individual point of view.”

Magda recognizes Emerence’s “peculiar way of demonstrating her feelings” (90) because the pair are fundamentally so similar. Like Emerence, Magda is often searching for other expressions of love so that she can avoid explicitly stating her feelings. This individual approach to expression and emotional connection isolates the women from those around them, but draws them closer together as a pair, underscoring the theme of Antagonism and Affection in Intimate Relationships.

“I know those executions. I’ve seen enough of them.”

The barbarity of the recent past is glimpsed only occasionally in polite conversation. When defending her actions regarding Polett’s death by suicide, Emerence lets it slip that she has seen many executions in her life. This is a way of deflecting blame from Magda and reminding Magda of the trauma that Emerence has endured.

“Emerence was the sole inhabitant of her empire-of-one, more absolute than the Pope in Rome.”

Magda repeatedly frames Emerence’s isolated existence in imperial terms. She’s the ruler of her “empire-of-one” (127), likening Emerence in iron will and determination to the authoritarian rulers who have dominated Hungary’s recent history. Emerence could be like them, Magda believes, but she’s too suspicious of anyone with any kind of power, including herself, so she’s content to rule her own private empire, which she permits no one else to enter.

“Her face was essentially unchanged, but there was an attractive cheerfulness, rather than malice, in her eyes.”

Looking at a photograph of the younger Emerence, Magda has a moment to reflect on how her friend has changed. In the intervening years, the cheerfulness in her eyes has been replaced by malice. This comparison reminds Magda of how little of Emerence’s life she knows, as she can only speculate on the gaps in Emerence’s biography that might have caused such a change.

“We were liars, cheats, she began—none of it was real.”

The visit to the film set actively enrages Emerence, who decries the deceptive nature of filmmaking as an industry. The audience is being deceived, she believes, and the people who make the film are liars. There is an irony in her comments, as Emerence herself often struggles with conveying emotional honesty. While she may struggle with this, however, she loathes the idea that such emotional conveyance should be built on false premises.

“He rejected what I wanted to be to him, and I’ve been as good as dead to him for long enough now.”

Emerence’s descriptions of her past relationships betray that they’ve ended in tragedy and violence. She has suffered at the hands of men, and she has had men killed before she can build a life with them. However, her failed relationship with the unnamed lawyer’s son is especially significant, as it was the one time that Emerence was rejected. Rather than history or politics, she was denied happiness because someone simply didn’t love her as she loved him. The tragedy, for Emerence, was so pointed that she never loved again.

“One day Emerence would be able to show me, without uttering a word, that what I consider religion is a sort of Buddhism, a mere respect for tradition, and that even my morality is just discipline, the result of training at home, in school and in my family, or self-imposed.”

Magda is religious in that she goes to church and observes church holidays. Emerence, while openly critical of organized religion, is more devout than anyone else, Magda comes to realize. Rather than following a single religion or a doctrine, Emerence has developed a form of spiritualism through living. She may deliberately hide her benevolence and morality from the world, but this only makes them seem more sincere compared to the performative nature of religions. Though Emerence isn’t religious, Magda comes to respect her for how she lives her life in a more moral way than any Christian that Magda knows.

“To me she entrusted her instructions on the approaching, and critical, final moments of her life.”

Though they’ve endured many difficult moments in their relationship, demonstrating the theme of Antagonism and Affection in Intimate Relationships, Magda realizes her importance to Emerence when she’s entrusted with Emerence’s legacy. She trusts Magda alone with the “critical” requests that she makes regarding her death. That Magda understands the significance of being trusted with these requests only makes the final chapters of the book all the more tragic.

“So Emerence vanished. Without her, the street seemed unreal, a wasteland, a desert.”

After Emerence’s death, the community changes. Her absence in the neighborhood is immediately felt, especially from the position of the narrator, Magda. For Magda and many others, the shock and grief that follow Emerence’s death have turned the streets into a desert. Without Emerence, the vivacity of the neighborhood is simply gone.

“He knew that smell from the siege of Buda.”

The characters in The Door have lived through times of great violence. In their day-to-day lives, references to this violence are often deliberately suppressed, thematically underscoring Secrecy as a Survival Mechanism Under Authoritarianism. Instead, something as brutal as a siege becomes an idiom to convey the intensity of a stench. The Siege of Budapest, in the minds of those who lived through it, is the only viable point of comparison for the dramatic entrance into Emerence’s home.

“I sat there, massaging my fingers—it felt as if my left arm was dead.”

Emerence had a stroke, which left part of her body paralyzed. As Magda struggles to come to terms with what has happened, her body goes through a form of physical mirroring. Her fear, her guilt, and her anxiety manifest in a physical way that is sympathetic to what happened to Emerence. Magda is so concerned about her friend that her body begins to mimic Emerence’s injuries in a display of desperate sympathy.

“She shouldered everyone’s burden without ever speaking of her own, and when she did finally need my help, I went off to play my part in a TV show and left her, in the squalor of advanced illness, for others to witness the single moment of degradation in her life.”

At the beginning of the book, Magda states her desire to tell the truth about Emerence. This isn’t only the truth about her life, but the truth of how Magda betrayed her. Thematically highlighting Guilt as Collective Inheritance, Magda has carried this guilt for a long time, so it feels cathartic for her to finally confess to how she betrayed her friend. This confession, this striving for atonement, is the purpose of the book.

“The only thing I registered was that different fragrances were wafting around me, and that the waves were carrying the corpse of a dog out to sea.”

The trip to Athens is, in many ways, the high point of Magda’s professional career. She has achieved international acclaim after years of government censorship. However, she can’t take pride in this achievement; her mind is dominated by worry for Emerence, so much so that it turns the beautiful surroundings into a vile sensory intrusion. She likens the trip to a dead dog, mirroring Magda’s state of mind: She doesn’t feel as if she deserves acclaim, only punishment.

“Emerence doesn’t want any kind of life. She needs her own life, and she doesn’t have that any more.”

Sutu may not be well-liked in the neighborhood, but she shows an awareness that is beyond other characters. Magda insists that Emerence will come to live with her, but Sutu’s comments expose Magda’s hopes as delusional. Magda knows that Sutu is right; she doesn’t like Sutu any better, but Magda is forced to concede that she’s lying to herself.

“If you’d allowed me to die, as I made up my mind to when I realized 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.”

Emerence finally vocalizes the feeling of betrayal. Throughout the novel, she has avoided direct expressions of emotion, instead choosing to create her own system of gestures and rituals to convey what she feels. The immensity of Magda’s betrayal, however, drags this response out of Emerence. In their final conversation, she feels the need to be honest with the one person who (she once believed) knew her best.

“There was nothing, only the pulverized furniture.”

The furniture that the Grossmans gave Emerence to thank her for helping them flee Hungary crumbles into dust. It’s destroyed, seemingly rendered worthless, and leaves Emerence’s house devoid of anything resembling a legacy. This gestures toward the importance of Magda sharing the story; however, just as the furniture retains the emotional significance to show that Emerence was a good person. The furniture may be gone, but through Magda, Emerence’s story lives on.

“The dead always win. Only the living lose.”

Magda’s husband spends most of the novel on the narrative periphery. This isn’t his story, so he doesn’t involve himself. However, Emerence’s death has devastated his wife, so he feels compelled to intervene. His words encourage Magda to go on living. She has lost and she’ll continue to lose, he implies. By writing her book, however, Magda can, in some small way, help the dead win by honoring their memory.