The Door by Magda Szabó is one of Hungary’s most famous novels. The novel is a tale of Magda, a writer based on Szabó herself, and her relationship with her maid Emerence. This relationship is at the centre of the novel, a complex friendship between an older, experienced woman and a younger, naïve woman.
This trope of older and wiser women encouraging and inspiring younger women is present in other works like Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. In Alcott’s novel, the family matriarch, Mrs. March, is a prime example of a mother who loves and guides her daughters through adversity and into womanhood. All her actions are for the benefit of her children. The wisdom she bestows is entirely unselfish and meant to help others: “Don’t you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear and forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all?” Alcott’s Mrs. March is a strong woman mentoring younger women, but Szabó’s Emerence is not a kind and gentle mentor.
While The Door portrays a story of two women who love each other and have a true friendship, it raises hard questions about relationships. Is every love and bond between two people necessarily healthy? Do relationships that mirror that of Magda and Emerence need to be reconsidered? Emerence is the character who raises these questions. Despite her valiant attributes, she is also vindictive, controlling, and manipulative. She demands absolute loyalty from whomever she loves. Emerence’s relationship with Magda is parasitical and serves as a warning to who we allow in our lives and who we choose to grow close to.
Magda Szabó was born in Debrecen, now Hungary’s second largest city, in 1917. She was educated by an academic father, and she weathered the Second World War while working as a schoolteacher. As Szabó’s reputation as a writer grew, she found her creativity restricted by the Hungarian government’s standards on literature. Despite writing for the Ministry of Religion and Public Education, Szabó’s creativity was limited by the communist restrictions against literature that critiqued authoritarianism. So, too, her sympathetic depiction of the middle class and religion caused a stir with the authorities. Despite unpopularity with the communist regime, Szabó’s works were well-received by not only the Hungarian public, but the German public and, later, the West at large. Several of her works were published in English starting from the ‘60s. Szabó survived the communist era and continued to write prolifically until her death in 2007.
In The Door, the character of Emerence was born in a small village at the beginning of the 20th century. Emerence’s childhood was filled with tragedy, including the suicide of her mother and the loss of a sibling. She never marries, but becomes a de-facto mother minding her surviving siblings. As a young woman, Emerence is employed as a governess for the children of a wealthy Jewish family, the Grossmans. She is still in their employment when the Second World War begins. She is a carer and supporter of others from an early age, and her recollection of childhood lacks memories of nurturing love and stability. The reader is left to suppose her controlling nature developed from this period of repression, trauma, and premature responsibility.
Despite this, she is not devoid of sympathy and humanity. In an antisemitic context, Emerence adopts the daughter of her Jewish employers before they are deported. The baby’s origins remain a mystery to those in Emerence’s community, and, as a result, she and her immediate family are shunned for seemingly having a child out of wedlock. The baby, named Eva, survives the war and is eventually taken to the United States by her surviving family. After these hardships, Emerence’s main concern for the future is her death, as if years of trauma, toil, and disappointment have made her long for the one thing she believes she has the most control over. “Do you know what I’m saving up for? For a crypt. It’ll be as big as the whole world, and there won’t be another as beautiful anywhere.” She is most concerned for her legacy and is quickly affronted and distraught when someone or something obstructs her planning for her end. Employers are no exception.
When the novel begins, Magda is already a writer. The more relaxed policies of the Kádár regime allow her to spread her wings and find some success with the Hungarian public. As Magda’s fame increases, so does her workload. Her husband also suffers from a grave, unnamed illness throughout the novel, increasing the pressure on Magda’s time and energy. These two factors prompt Magda to employ a maid, and she learns of Emerence, who has an excellent reputation for her work ethic and reliability. But Emerence is not lacking work and can afford to be selective. This dumbfounds Magda, whose response to Emerence’s indifference to her offer is illustrative: “Emerence’s face resembled nothing much as a calm, unruffled, early-morning mirror of water. I had no idea how interested she might be in my offer. Her demeanor made it quite clear she needed neither the job nor the money.” While Magda is eager to hire Emerence, the latter takes her time before deciding to work for Magda and in effect performs a background check on her potential employer.
Szabó deploys an interesting technique to embed this power dynamic between the characters. Magda’s surname is never revealed, while even Emerence has a surname (Szeredás). Magda’s lack of an official identity gives the reader an impression of weakness and uncertainty compared to Emerence. This is paralleled in Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), where Mrs. Danvers, the older devious housekeeper, is a menacing presence who seeks to undermine her lady at every opportunity. To humiliate the unnamed narrator, Mrs. Danvers refuses to call her by her surname, reserving this name for her beloved, deceased former employer. “But I never dared ask Mrs. Danvers what she did about it. She would have looked at me in scorn, smiling that freezing, superior smile of hers, and I can imagine her saying: ‘There were never any complaints when Mrs. de Winter was alive.’”
Like Mrs. Danvers, Szabó’s Emerence is aloof, passive-aggressive, and delights in humiliating her employer. However, if Emerence is an antagonist to Magda, her motives and intentions are misguided. Emerence truly cares for her employers and everyone she allows in her circle; her sometimes hostile and disrespectful actions are meant to benefit everyone. That which seems harsh to others is simply truth and wisdom to Emerence.
From the beginning of her employment with Magda, Emerence performs with astounding efficiency. Despite her age, she is tireless and never shows weakness. Magda is intimidated by Emerence. Nevertheless, the two women gradually grow closer. Magda starts to regard Emerence in a maternal light. Perhaps because Magda makes no mention of her own mother, she is willing to tolerate Emerence’s defiance and disrespect. A mother’s tough love is more dignified than an employee’s insubordination. Emerence even invites Magda into her home, an honor bestowed to no one else. “You’re going to see something no-one has ever seen, and no-one ever will, until they bury me,” Emerence says, before she promises Magda that she will inherit her home and everything in it after her death. But the closeness comes to an end over a misunderstanding.
One day, Emerence falls in her home, and then she both refuses to leave or accept help. Magda in turn orchestrates a ruse to have her placed in a hospital. Magda cannot be present at Emerence’s rescue, as she must attend a book tour in Greece. The result is chaotic. Emerence’s neighbors remove her from her home, nine of her cats run away, and her enfeebled state, filthy home, and overall vulnerability are displayed to the world for the first time. Despite having her life saved after having a stroke, Emerence doesn’t forgive Magda for this humiliation. With nothing left to live for, Emerence dies. Magda, now broken by this tragedy, inherits Emerence’s remaining property and discovers a hidden door in the old woman’s home. Behind this door is a sumptuously decorated room with furniture given by the Grossmans out of gratitude for saving baby Eva. None of this consoles Magda, who continues to mourn the loss of her friend.
For Emerence, living in shame and weakness is a greater tragedy than losing a loved one. The old lady’s pride and stubborn strength never waver. She does all it takes to maintain an image of invincibility, even if the image overtakes reality. She prefers to lose her life rather than reveal her vulnerability. Emerence can’t bear for her neighbors to know of her living conditions—the steadfast maid, living disabled in a dilapidated flat. At the end of her life, she believes every past accomplishment has been negated by her final humiliation. Despite the circumstances leading up to her illness and breakdown, despite it being obvious that she is an older woman who had a stroke, Emerence feels that she has failed her friends, and worst of all herself, by being weak. Her charitable acts toward others also contain a large amount of selfishness, and because of this she is more harmed by her failure to measure up to her own standards than how others view her. The intensity of her values and code of conduct could not exist in harmony without a rupture. In the end, the rupture was her own life.
Magda and Emerence’s relationship fell apart because the two women had different standards. They treated one another exactly as they wanted to be treated by the other, but their personality differences were great enough to cause an eventual, permanent rift. From Magda’s standpoint, she had to save Emerence’s life, whatever the cost. She loved Emerence so much that she prioritized Emerence’s existence on earth over Emerence’s pets, possessions, and dignity. Emerence also loved Magda, but she would have let her die in similar circumstances. Living a disabled life in filthy conditions was not an option for Emerence.
The core values of both of Szabó’s characters were incompatible. They loved one another, but their definitions of love did not cohere. With Magda’s passivity and tendency to (from Emerence’s perspective) do the wrong thing at the wrong time, she was a pestilence to Emerence. With Emerence’s controlling nature, lack of communication, and unwillingness or inability to forgive, she turned Magda into an emotional slave. There are many types of friendships. What each person looks for and seeks to receive in a friendship is subjective. Long-lasting friendships don’t require enough compromise to demand that the other friend completely change their values or personality. Emerence and Magda simply asked too much of one another. It was not a practical or durable relationship.
Does Szabó’s depiction of Magda and Emerence call the value of difficult and troubled relationships into question? Despite Emerence’s good heart and intentions, she manifested qualities of what we would call a toxic friend. The people in her life suffered greatly because of this. Are toxic friendships like that of Magda and Emerence true friendships? Can these relationships last without carving away pieces of one another? In the end, Magda had many years of good service from a faithful maid. Emerence had her crypt and reputation in the community. But, what else was there? Even when there is willingness to truly love, love can still be poisonous.
