Stefan Kiesbye - Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone

One morning, after the old von Kamphoff had walked over from the Big House to pay us a visit, I used the men’s conversation to steal away. The night before, Johann Jensen had asked me to go out with him on Saturday, and I had promised him an answer by tonight. This was a difficult decision. Johann was handsome, nineteen, had a motorcycle and a job at Brümmer’s factory. But if I went with him, I’d forego possible dates with Torsten Pott, who topped my list and was currently unattached. He was a good friend of Johann’s, and once I’d settled for Johann, Torsten might be beyond my reach. Then there was Martin, the Gendarm ’s son, who’d asked me for a barrette I’d worn when we’d run into each other the previous week. Was he serious about me? He was only sixteen and owned no moped, only an old bicycle. Last winter he’d been with the other boys the day Broder Hoffmann drowned. But only Alex Frick had been found guilty and sent to a correctional facility. Since that accident, Martin acted different, seemed older, more mature than even Torsten. Anke said she liked Martin best but that none of my admirers had a future and that her mother had admonished her that we should save ourselves for better men. I was in a quandary.

My favorite part of the vast grounds around the Big House was the maze. It had been designed more than a hundred years ago, and its hedges were almost twice as tall as me. Once you entered it, even the brightest day darkened, and it gave me the feeling that as long as I wandered inside it, I did not belong to the petty world of beat-up trucks, school, and chores, nor would anybody be able to reach me with his voice.

Over the years I had gained knowledge of the maze’s layout, but since my visits to the Big House had been sporadic lately and my thoughts were occupied with boys, hairdos, and nail polish, I soon found myself lost. Once you lost your bearings in the maze, it proved next to impossible to regain them, and since the sun had yet to find her way out of the clouds, I had no point of orientation. This did not concern me, however. Although the maze was vast, covering more than a hectare of land and keeping many of my father’s helpers busy every other week in the summer, I had time enough on my hands to find my way out. The day had only just begun. In fact, I greeted my confusion, which, should my father have reason to ask, would provide me with a welcome excuse.

During my many visits to the maze, I had learned that the von Kamphoffs did not share my love for its shady paths. They had forbidden the children to enter the maze for fear they should harm themselves, and never had I encountered the master or mistress near it. Yet my dad, even though I knew he had often tried to steer the conversation toward its possible demise, had not been allowed to reduce the size or do away with the maze.

Imagine my bewilderment when I suddenly spied another figure ahead of me, turning quickly and vanishing from sight. I shrieked. I was certain that none of my father’s helpers was working on the hedges that day, nor did I believe for a second that the master or his wife had entered the maze. Who, then, was the intruder?

I waited with a galloping heart for several minutes, then decided that whoever it had been was far enough away for me to seek my way out of the maze. I walked along one wall and turned left, since I’d learned from my father to make only left turns if I should ever lose my way. No sooner had I rounded the first corner, than I bumped into the trespasser.

“You found me,” he shrieked in delight, and I shrieked back, and so we shrieked for many seconds until I had exhausted myself and was quite convinced that the stranger posed no imminent danger to me.

He was a curious man. His age was hard to guess—it had to be somewhere past thirty and not over sixty-five, but a better estimate was beyond me. He had lines and wrinkles, yet nevertheless his skin seemed very fresh and smooth. He was no taller than me and stood stooped and flailed his arms and jumped about like someone half my age.

“Shall we do it again?” he asked and was gone as soon as he’d proposed it.

“Wait,” I shouted, but received no answer. Who was this man? He wasn’t from Hemmersmoor. I’d never seen him in the village, and he wasn’t dressed like a villager. He wasn’t dressed like anyone I’d ever seen. He wore a white shirt large enough to reach his thighs and white pants that were soiled at the knees, as though he’d fallen often or crawled about. He wore a slipper on his left foot and the right was bare. His thin hair was short and cut in the style popular in our village: a pot had been put over his head and all the hair sticking out sheared off.

After he was gone from my sight, I hesitated to continue, but my curiosity won out over my apprehension, and soon I was following the turns of the maze, spying around corners. At an intersection I was debating whether to take a left or right, when my eyes went blind.

“You’re not so good, are you?” the stranger said into my ear. “I could die of an empty tummy before you found me.”

I jerked my head free and stared directly into his brown eyes. “You’re not allowed to move,” I protested. “You have to stay in one place.”

“Says who?”

“That’s the rule.”

“It is?” he asked, making a sad face. “I had no idea.”

“How else could I find you?”

“You didn’t.”

“Because you kept moving.”

“Is that so?” He seemed to really think about it. “All right,” he finally concluded. “It’s your turn.”

I did as he said, following the stupid hide-and-seek routine without further questions. Had I paused, I would have tried to scale a hedge and run away, but the stranger’s urgent voice, which sounded like dishes clattering in the sink, left me no time for such thoughts. I hid.

Within two seconds, he stood next to me.

“You followed me,” I complained.

“So?” he asked.

“That’s against the rules.”

“Says who?”

“The rules,” I said, suddenly growing annoyed. “What are you doing here anyway? Do you live in the Big House?”

“Not now,” the stranger said. “I live here.”

“Who are you?” I said. I had never much spoken to any of the von Kamphoffs, and when I’d done so, never without a curtsy. Yet this man was different, I understood, and politeness not required.

“I am a professor,” he said.

“Of what?” I asked. I knew little of professors, had never set foot in a university, and knew no one who had. Still I knew these creatures had specialties.

“Of what?” he echoed. “Of this maze, of course. Of mathematics, religion, and world history.”

“How can you be a professor of this maze?” I asked.

“I’m also a king and chop off many heads. If there’s a man or woman who insults me, I chop off their head.” He made a cutting motion with his hand, as if slicing an onion.

His reply made me afraid again. I realized that this old man might be a lunatic, and that he had probably escaped from the asylum near Groß Ostensen. “I should go,” I said.

He bowed. “Don’t say a word. Or else.” He made the chopping motion.

Yet I had been walking for only a few minutes before I was back where I had left him.

“Hello?” he said.

“I need to get out,” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. Oddly, he seemed to have forgotten that we’d just met, because he didn’t rise from the grass or look a second time at me.

“Can you help me?” I asked.

“Do you need a horse?” he asked.

I ran off again, and this time I made it out of the maze. My breath was rattling, my heart pounding in my ears. Every second longer that I had spent in the maze had aggravated me, and I felt like crying for help. Yet as soon as I stepped onto the lawn, the manor house only a few hundred yards to my left, I felt only the deepest disappointment. The danger was over; the day had lost its luster.