Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: A Novel (10 page)

His wife had once been a famous singer in Hamburg, and the apothecary’s wife swore that she’d been a harlot in some St. Pauli revue before becoming mistress of the Big House. Karin von Kamphoff wasn’t beautiful but striking. Her features were clear-cut; she had a large nose, a large mouth, large blue eyes,
and a high forehead. Her body was padded “in all the right places,” as the men of Hemmersmoor observed, and on Christmas Eve she still sang to guests while her husband accompanied her on the piano. “These days,” the apothecary’s wife said, “she doesn’t have to undress to get what she wants.”

Rumors abounded, as they did with every family who lived somewhat removed from our eyes. The basement was filled with war loot, one said; the basement was used for black masses, went another. Bastard children were popular, as was the black woman Johann von Kamphoff supposedly captured during the war and held hostage in his basement. The most enduring legend, however, was that of the real heir. The real heir, the customers in Frick’s Inn contended, was as real as the sun and stars, and many proclaimed to have seen him until about forty years ago, when he’d vanished in infancy. He’d been Johann’s younger brother, and because of a violent fight between Johann and his father had been made the heir of the manor. Yet he hadn’t been spotted since before the wars, and many a night it was speculated that Johann had everything to do with his disappearance. If he should ever return, Bruno would lose everything.

Bruno von Kamphoff’s children, Rutger and Sophie, were twenty and seventeen the summer I accompanied my father to the Big House. Their parents’ clashing physical attributes had endowed them with great beauty, and the villagers admired and despised them for it. Of course we hardly saw them in Hemmersmoor, since the von Kamphoffs had never attended our school. They were educated by private teachers from Hamburg and Bremen who lived in one wing of the Big House or another.

At my age habit and new discoveries were at war within me. I loved my father, loved following him around and listening to
instructions on how and when to cut rosebushes, but I also wanted to know who my friend Anke was making out with, what the best ways were to bewitch a boy’s heart, and how to smoke without coughing.

I often visited Ilse Westerholt, the oldest daughter of our neighbors, and borrowed barrettes or dresses from her. I didn’t have any siblings—“How should we feed them?” my mother said—and Ilse braided my hair endlessly, washed and scrubbed my face until it hurt, and showed me how to pluck my eyebrows. I hoped to earn adoring looks or a whistle from the groups of older boys who hung around outside Frick’s Inn on their mopeds.

It was six years after Friedrich and his mother had died, and the last summer I went out to the von Kamphoffs. Many days I didn’t even get up at five to have coffee with dad and take my seat next to him in the truck. When I did go, I felt awkward standing next to my father and lending him a hand. I seemed too big, too energetic, too grown, and too pretty to still walk by his side.

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.

I longed to tell my father about my strange adventure but honored the promise I had given. The man had seemed harmless enough that I did not feel it necessary to betray his whereabouts. However, at night in my room—I had told Johann, my only suitor, no that evening in front of Frick’s and was already regretting it—my thoughts wandered off to the Big House and into the maze. Was the stranger asleep among the hedges or awake like me, frightened by the night’s dampness and countless small noises? Was he hungry? Then my mind drifted and for the first time I remembered the legends of the real heir and asked myself if I’d just met him. If the legend turned out to be true,
how would the von Kamphoff family react to my discovery? What would Bruno say? Would he have to relinquish the manor? Would he beg me to keep what I knew a secret? Before my thoughts turned to dreams, this became more than just a possibility. The stranger was my key to the Big House.

In the morning I rose before my father, who smiled with satisfaction when he came into the kitchen and found the coffee ready. “Found your appetite again?” he said.

I nodded. Before leaving the house, I packed extra bread, a glass jar of jam, and several slices of ham and filled a bottle with water. I was eager to see the man again, against my better judgment.

On arrival my father was told by the steward that certain parts of the grounds were off-limits because “county inspectors were measuring the manor for tax purposes.” Dad nodded, but after the steward left, he spit and said, “Humbug.” Still, he had me do chores all morning and kept me at his side. It wasn’t until I pretended to feel light-headed—a condition my father accepted as belonging to the world of female mysteries—that I could venture off with exact instructions where not to go.

The maze was forbidden, but I entered it nevertheless—too strong was my curiosity. Since I didn’t want to draw the von Kamphoffs’ attention, I had to look for the stranger without a sound. Shouting was not an option. Instead I walked and walked, careful not to run into any of the tax inspectors. I had already given up hope of ever finding the professor when I came to an enormous hole. Loose earth was lying in heaps beyond the hole and blocked the path entirely.

At the bottom of the hole sat the professor. His shirt was no longer white, his hands looked as dirty as my father’s, and his
fingers were full of dried blood. Blood and dirt covered his cheeks and forehead and pants. He sat perfectly erect on the ground, humming to himself.

“Hello,” I said.

I received no reply.

“Hey there, Professor,” I called.

He finally looked up, without recognizing me it seemed.

“Did you dig this hole?” I asked and climbed over a small mound of dirt, ready to join him in the pit.

“Be careful,” he called. “Step gently.”

“Of course,” I replied, and, carrying the food for him in one hand and lifting my other for balance, I descended.

“Oh no,” he cried when I landed, covering his ears with his trembling hands.

“What is it?” I asked, but had to ask again after he was done playing deaf.

“Didn’t I ask you to be gentle?” he reprimanded me. “Your thoughtlessness might have caused us great harm.”

“How so?” I asked, suppressing a laugh. He looked droll in his dirty clothes, much like a kid after an especially wild afternoon in the mud.

“One false step and we might break through the crust of the earth and fall out on the other side and into the skies and be lost.”