ruins of Emerence's life, and discovered, there in her garden, standing on the lawn, the faceless dressmaker's dummy designed for my mother's exquisite figure. Just before they sprinkled it with petrol and set fire to it, I caught sight of Emerence's ikonostasis. We were all there, pinned to the fabric over the doll's ribcage: the Grossman family, my husband, Viola, the Lieutenant Colonel, the nephew, the baker, the lawyer's son, and herself, the young Emerence, with radiant golden hair, in her maid's uniform and little crested cap, holding a baby in her arms.
Emerence's passion for strange objects wasn't anything new. What surprised me that morning was that she had been collecting not for herself but for me. I didn't dare offend her, nor did I wish to, but with the dog with the chipped ear, there was nowhere to begin. It was a desperate sight, an error of judgement perpetrated by a dilettante with a disturbed view of the world. I stowed it away behind the pestle and mortar. I knew that if my husband found it he would throw it in the bin. That little dog was a step too far.
By the time Emerence arrived, I was already sitting at work by my typewriter, alone.
"Did you see what those idiots threw away?" she asked. "I took the lot. There wasn't a thing left for anyone else. Weren't you thrilled?"
How could I not have been thrilled? I'd rarely known such a harmonious morning! I made no reply, but carried on banging at the typewriter, stunted embryos of meaningless sentences emerging under my exasperated fingers. She went through all the rooms, one by one, to see where I had placed everything. She objected to the gnome and the painting being assigned to the kitchen. Why hide such rare things away? She hit Viola on the head for destroying the falcon — the poor thing couldn't tell her that I had put its tempting corpse right under his nose. So far I had got off lightly, but what most interested her was where I had put her beautiful little dog. I told her I had hidden it because it wasn't fit to be seen. She stood on the other side of my desk and shouted at me:
"So, have you become so much of a slave you're too scared to do anything for yourself? Just because the master doesn't like animals, you can't even have statues of them, they're banned? Do you think this horrible shell is any prettier? But you keep it on your desk and you're not ashamed to store your invitations and calling cards in it. Dogs no, shells yes? Get it out of my sight, or one of these days I'll smash it to pieces. I loathe the touch of it."
She snatched up the shell. It was a nautilus, on a base of coral. It once sat on Maria Rickl's console, and was left to my mother when the Kismester apartment was divided up. Emanating disgust, Emerence carried it off to the kitchen, with all the invitations and calling cards, parked it between the semolina and the icing sugar, and in its place set down the dog with the tattered ear. This was going too far. I had accepted Emerence's presence both in the places and the events of my life, but she wasn't going to take over the way I arranged my surroundings.
"Emerence," I said, with more than usual seriousness, "kindly take the little statue back to the street where you found it, or, if you don't want to throw it away, put it where I had it, out of sight. It's a piece of commercial junk. It's damaged; it's in appalling taste, and it cannot remain here. It's not only the master who can't stand it. I can't either. It's not a work of art. It's kitsch."
Her blue eyes blazed at me. For the first time I saw in them, not interest, affection or concern, but undisguised contempt.
"What is this kitsch?" she asked. "What does it mean? Explain it to me."
I wracked my brain for a way to explain to her the vices of the innocent, ill-proportioned, cheaply-made little dog.
"Kitsch is when a thing is in some way false, created to provide trivial, superficial pleasure. Kitsch is something imitative, fake, a substitute for the real
Emerence's passion for strange objects wasn't anything new. What surprised me that morning was that she had been collecting not for herself but for me. I didn't dare offend her, nor did I wish to, but with the dog with the chipped ear, there was nowhere to begin. It was a desperate sight, an error of judgement perpetrated by a dilettante with a disturbed view of the world. I stowed it away behind the pestle and mortar. I knew that if my husband found it he would throw it in the bin. That little dog was a step too far.
By the time Emerence arrived, I was already sitting at work by my typewriter, alone.
"Did you see what those idiots threw away?" she asked. "I took the lot. There wasn't a thing left for anyone else. Weren't you thrilled?"
How could I not have been thrilled? I'd rarely known such a harmonious morning! I made no reply, but carried on banging at the typewriter, stunted embryos of meaningless sentences emerging under my exasperated fingers. She went through all the rooms, one by one, to see where I had placed everything. She objected to the gnome and the painting being assigned to the kitchen. Why hide such rare things away? She hit Viola on the head for destroying the falcon — the poor thing couldn't tell her that I had put its tempting corpse right under his nose. So far I had got off lightly, but what most interested her was where I had put her beautiful little dog. I told her I had hidden it because it wasn't fit to be seen. She stood on the other side of my desk and shouted at me:
"So, have you become so much of a slave you're too scared to do anything for yourself? Just because the master doesn't like animals, you can't even have statues of them, they're banned? Do you think this horrible shell is any prettier? But you keep it on your desk and you're not ashamed to store your invitations and calling cards in it. Dogs no, shells yes? Get it out of my sight, or one of these days I'll smash it to pieces. I loathe the touch of it."
She snatched up the shell. It was a nautilus, on a base of coral. It once sat on Maria Rickl's console, and was left to my mother when the Kismester apartment was divided up. Emanating disgust, Emerence carried it off to the kitchen, with all the invitations and calling cards, parked it between the semolina and the icing sugar, and in its place set down the dog with the tattered ear. This was going too far. I had accepted Emerence's presence both in the places and the events of my life, but she wasn't going to take over the way I arranged my surroundings.
"Emerence," I said, with more than usual seriousness, "kindly take the little statue back to the street where you found it, or, if you don't want to throw it away, put it where I had it, out of sight. It's a piece of commercial junk. It's damaged; it's in appalling taste, and it cannot remain here. It's not only the master who can't stand it. I can't either. It's not a work of art. It's kitsch."
Her blue eyes blazed at me. For the first time I saw in them, not interest, affection or concern, but undisguised contempt.
"What is this kitsch?" she asked. "What does it mean? Explain it to me."
I wracked my brain for a way to explain to her the vices of the innocent, ill-proportioned, cheaply-made little dog.
"Kitsch is when a thing is in some way false, created to provide trivial, superficial pleasure. Kitsch is something imitative, fake, a substitute for the real
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