Magda Szabo was an award-winning Hungarian author. Among her best known works is the stunning The Door. I have just finished reading an earlier work, Iza’s Ballad, and found the turning-point chapter so compelling I re-read it four times to understand how she achieved the effect.

In this chapter, Iza learns that her mother has died while on a visit to their home village. Iza rushes to find her partner, Domokos, who drives her to the village. There, they encounter Iza’s, ex-husband Antal, who now lives in her childhood home. Iza is confronted by a grief she did not expect, and all the characters change in this chapter. How, I wondered, did Szabo craft the wild grief and the dissociation the chapter so powerfully conveys. Much of the rendering of grief and loss is achieved by changes in the writing style, rapid shifts of point of view, and dreamlike interleaving of things.

Close analysis showed the chapter is divided into fourteen movements.

1. Iza is enjoying the prospect of a day alone, with her mother and lover gone. The writing is indulgent and languorous.
2. A long-distance phone call. Iza is  angry that she can’t be left alone. Antal speaks two sentences (which we are not given at that time) and puts the phone down.
3. Iza struggles to comprehend and experiences animal pain. The writing here is staccato hammer beats. There is a list-like effect, with many sentences starting with “She”.
4. Because she is alone, every past wound opens. Having neither mother nor father “felt new and raw, like drawing her fingers along both edges of a knife”. There is an explosion of emotion, followed by chemical calm as Iza takes a tranquillizer and plans what to do.
5. She goes in search of Domokos. The effect is dissociative. She can’t remember where he went, because she wasn’t sufficiently interested to listen properly, but knows she will be able to recall it if she tries.
6.  She arrives at the hall where Domokos is speaking. Iza’s presence is like a rot or contamination, destroying things. She observes Domokos behaving in a way he doesn’t with her. Her arrival destroys his calm. People are annoyed, as if they witness something shameful.
7. It feels good to be with Domokos who takes charge. She compares being with Domokos and with Antal. Iza wonders how Domokos knows she can’t go back to flat alone: because he is a writer? Or because he loves her? This is the first moment of reappraisal of relationships.
8. They drive to the village. This movement is in Domokos’ point of view. It is distanced and interrogative. He notes the rarity of the autumn landscape; wonders who Iza is; wonders how the old woman died;  wonders if marrying Iza would be good idea. What could have happened? He listens to Iza speak of her old life in a way she hasn’t before. He does not like that Iza is afraid to meet Antal. What will Antal be like? He realises how much he doesn’t know about her.
9. They arrive at the village. There is a rapid alternation of point of view that creates an effect like anxious darting eyes.. In Iza’s POV: Where has my mother gone? Where has my father gone? In Domokos’ POV: This doesn’t look like Iza’s description. In Iza’s POV: How much has changed in the village and how much remained the same. In Domokos’ POV: Watches Iza pulling at the bellpull like a child.
10. They go to Antal’s house, because the neighbour is not there. In Domokos’ POV: wonders if he will hate Antal, but likes him. Antal explains about accommodation options but Iza is not taking it in. Domokos, for the first time, takes in the scene not as a writer storing memories, but as a person. In Iza’s POV: she wonders who the “we” is in Antal’s account who searched for the old woman. The effect of this movement is that of a distanced observer.
11. They discuss sleeping arrangements. There is one place with Antal, one at the clinic. The gap continues to widen between Domokos and Iza, Domokos realises Iza does not want him to stay with Antal, and that he doesn’t care if Iza sleeps in same house as her ex-husband.
12. Antal walks Domokos to the clinic. As they leave, Iza notes Domokos speaking with Antal in a way he doesn’t with her. Again, she feels his alienness.
13. Iza is alone in the house. This is an extended passage filled with nostalgia. She reprimands herself for her cowardice in not wanting to leave the two men together. Thinks that old woman would not have died if she hadn’t stayed with Antal. Objects come alive around her—”she could almost hear them breathing”. Unable to bear to sit down, she wanders from room to room. Finds the old woman’s belongings but cannot touch them. She feels everything is as it was in her childhood and the old woman has only popped out for a minute and will return.
14. Antal returns and she takes his room. Iza says she can’t sleep where her mother’s things are. Antal agrees she can have his room. She needs to be consoled and feels if he embraces her the sadness will go. But he takes her pulse. It angers her that he is touching her as a doctor not a man. He offers a sleeping pill which she rejects. Door no longer creaks as it did in her father’s time. Past and present coexist. Antal leaves. Iza is quite alone.