The Door Page #2

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Ask her to sign it for me,

please!

Are you upset because they wrote

bad things about you in the paper?

How do you know that?

Well, it's your fault for choosing

such a rotten profession

where any idiot can pour

dirty water over you.

You should take care of

the master instead!

He's ill.

His lungs are sick.

How do you know?

I just know.

We're hoping to remove

the lung tumor in one piece.

Drink!

Drink!

- No! No!

- Drink! Drink!

Now, don't spend the night worrying,

because there's nothing to worry about.

I can always feel the death coming.

Besides, the dogs haven't given a signal,

and no glass cracked either.

'Course you don't have to believe me

you can turn to the heavens, if you like,

I'll go and get your Bible.

- You don't have to talk to me.

- I'm going back to the hospital!

No, you're not.

You're not.

- Let me leave

- You are not!

You are not going back to the hospital!

I'm scared

My father was consumptive.

He was a cabinetmaker

and a carpenter too.

But he died before I was three.

My mother couldn't cope alone,

so she married the first assistant.

Only he was one of the first men

to be called up, and he was killed almost immediately.

So I had to leave school and I cooked

for everyone by the time I was 9

and I looked after the twins.

After my stepfather died my mother

decided that she loved him as well,

so now she had two men

to mourn.

One day after she hit me

I decided to run away.

And I wanted to take

the twins with me

but we didn't get very far

because the twins

decided they wanted some water.

So I ran to the well with a tin cup

which I wore round my neck on a string.

I just got there when the storm broke.

Never in my life

have I seen a storm break so fast.

The sky didn't turn black like it did

at other times, but it was purple

as if someone had made a fire

up in the clouds.

The thunder split my ears.

I started running back,

because I couldn't see the twins

but instead I saw that the lightning

had struck the tree above them.

Everything was smoking.

I was just standing there bewildered,

wondering where the twins had gone

because those two black stumps

couldn't be my sisters.

So I yelled so loud

that it could be heard at our house.

My mother ran out barefoot in her shirt,

she fell upon me, she beat me all over.

She didn't know what she was doing.

And then she saw the children. Then she

tore away from me in the rain

her hair was dragging along

the ground behind her as it came loose.

She ran like an arrow,

and she screamed.

Birds screech like that sometimes.

I saw her jump into the well

but I couldn't move.

If I'd run for help right then,

they could have saved her.

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