fond of her, she could put a stop to it. You could alienate animals as well as people.
I felt that she was evading responsibility and got very angry with her. If she didn't want to have him, why entice him to her? Only later — very much later — when I began to consider the warning signs, did it occur to me that no-one had ever taken on board the fact that one day she would die. I too had always felt that, somehow, she would be with us as long as we lived; that, with Nature itself, she would be renewed with the spring; and that her refusal to conform was not limited to banning entry to her locked-up house but applied to everything, even to death itself. But just then, I thought she was lying. I made Viola pay for my own weakness and banned him from the television room. The dog loved the TV screen. He would flick his head from left to right as the ball flew, and prick up his ears at birdsong and the sounds in wildlife documentaries. He even recognised things he'd never experienced himself: no-one had ever taken him up János Hill. By the end of the week I felt utterly ashamed. I couldn't blame him for something he wasn't responsible for; and even if he was, I didn't have the right. So I accepted it. I acknowledged that the old woman and the dog belonged together. I was too sleepy in the morning, too busy at midday, and too tired in the evening to give him attention or take him for walks with any regularity. My husband was often unwell, and we made frequent trips abroad. Viola needed Emerence: that's how it was. In every practical sense, he was her dog.
I then began to wonder why she had brought up the question of her age at this point, for the first time. It had never entered our conversation before. Emerence lifted unbelievable weights, she ran upstairs with the heaviest parcels and suitcases; she had the strength of a mythological hero. And never once had she mentioned how old she was. We'd only worked it out from what she had revealed about her life, that she was three when her father died, and nine when her stepfather was called up, and then almost immediately killed, in 1914. If she was nine in 1914, then she must have been born in 1905. She was shockingly, appallingly old. So it was only logical that she would give thought to the time when she finally collapsed. Others, those to whom she hadn't entrusted these facts, could only guess at her age. When that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten day did arrive it was only possible to bury her with the help, yet again, of the Lieutenant Colonel. In all the drawers hauled out for decontamination there was not a single document confirming her identity. Quite possibly she was the only person in the country who had completely shut the authorities out of her life, the moment she could. But back in the early days the Lieutenant Colonel had seen some papers of hers, and had actually leafed through her old employment book, which was used at the time as proof of identity. Later, for some reason we would now never understand, she must have destroyed everything. She hated passports, certificates, even tram tickets. We also had to set aside the nonsense she had scrawled about herself, in great crabbed letters, among several eccentric entries in the tenants' book we found when sorting through her things — that she had been born at Segesvár on 15 March 1848. It was the sort of frivolous, flippant remark that was typical of the way she retaliated against intrusive questions. Emerence's little acts of revenge were savage but nicely varied.
Sutu had been a teenager when Emerence arrived in the street, and she told us later that, neither before or immediately after the war, would Emerence have been able to get occupancy of the place, or even move home, without papers. Even so, she had taken over the caretaker's flat in the villa, bringing the legendary furniture with her. The owner himself had installed her, before leaving for the West. So there must have been documents relating both to her
I felt that she was evading responsibility and got very angry with her. If she didn't want to have him, why entice him to her? Only later — very much later — when I began to consider the warning signs, did it occur to me that no-one had ever taken on board the fact that one day she would die. I too had always felt that, somehow, she would be with us as long as we lived; that, with Nature itself, she would be renewed with the spring; and that her refusal to conform was not limited to banning entry to her locked-up house but applied to everything, even to death itself. But just then, I thought she was lying. I made Viola pay for my own weakness and banned him from the television room. The dog loved the TV screen. He would flick his head from left to right as the ball flew, and prick up his ears at birdsong and the sounds in wildlife documentaries. He even recognised things he'd never experienced himself: no-one had ever taken him up János Hill. By the end of the week I felt utterly ashamed. I couldn't blame him for something he wasn't responsible for; and even if he was, I didn't have the right. So I accepted it. I acknowledged that the old woman and the dog belonged together. I was too sleepy in the morning, too busy at midday, and too tired in the evening to give him attention or take him for walks with any regularity. My husband was often unwell, and we made frequent trips abroad. Viola needed Emerence: that's how it was. In every practical sense, he was her dog.
I then began to wonder why she had brought up the question of her age at this point, for the first time. It had never entered our conversation before. Emerence lifted unbelievable weights, she ran upstairs with the heaviest parcels and suitcases; she had the strength of a mythological hero. And never once had she mentioned how old she was. We'd only worked it out from what she had revealed about her life, that she was three when her father died, and nine when her stepfather was called up, and then almost immediately killed, in 1914. If she was nine in 1914, then she must have been born in 1905. She was shockingly, appallingly old. So it was only logical that she would give thought to the time when she finally collapsed. Others, those to whom she hadn't entrusted these facts, could only guess at her age. When that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten day did arrive it was only possible to bury her with the help, yet again, of the Lieutenant Colonel. In all the drawers hauled out for decontamination there was not a single document confirming her identity. Quite possibly she was the only person in the country who had completely shut the authorities out of her life, the moment she could. But back in the early days the Lieutenant Colonel had seen some papers of hers, and had actually leafed through her old employment book, which was used at the time as proof of identity. Later, for some reason we would now never understand, she must have destroyed everything. She hated passports, certificates, even tram tickets. We also had to set aside the nonsense she had scrawled about herself, in great crabbed letters, among several eccentric entries in the tenants' book we found when sorting through her things — that she had been born at Segesvár on 15 March 1848. It was the sort of frivolous, flippant remark that was typical of the way she retaliated against intrusive questions. Emerence's little acts of revenge were savage but nicely varied.
Sutu had been a teenager when Emerence arrived in the street, and she told us later that, neither before or immediately after the war, would Emerence have been able to get occupancy of the place, or even move home, without papers. Even so, she had taken over the caretaker's flat in the villa, bringing the legendary furniture with her. The owner himself had installed her, before leaving for the West. So there must have been documents relating both to her
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