The Hedge Maze

At ten to five, when the last coach had gone and the café was stacking its chairs, the woman at the ticket desk came out to the potting shed. A visitor, she said, had not come back from the maze. Severin put down his shears. In nineteen years as a gardener on the estate he had retrieved eleven lost visitors, two lost shoes and, one memorable August, an entire lost wedding party. He knew the routine as well as he knew the pruning calendar.

Pukul lima kurang sepuluh, ketika bus wisata terakhir sudah pergi dan kafe sedang menumpuk kursi-kursinya, perempuan di loket tiket datang ke gudang tanaman. Seorang pengunjung, katanya, belum keluar dari labirin. Severin meletakkan guntingnya. Selama sembilan belas tahun menjadi tukang kebun di perkebunan itu, ia sudah menemukan sebelas pengunjung yang tersesat, dua sepatu yang hilang, dan, pada suatu Agustus yang tak terlupakan, satu rombongan pesta pernikahan utuh. Ia hafal rutinitasnya sebaik kalender pemangkasan.

The visitor's daughter was waiting at the entrance with her husband, already pale. "She went in at three," the daughter said. "She told us twenty minutes. She's seventy-nine, and her name is Rosalie." Severin lit the lantern, though it was not yet dark, because the hedges stood three metres high and the paths between them went dim an hour before the sky did.

Putri si pengunjung menunggu di pintu masuk bersama suaminya, sudah pucat. "Ibu masuk pukul tiga," kata si putri. "Katanya dua puluh menit. Umurnya tujuh puluh sembilan, dan namanya Rosalie." Severin menyalakan lenteranya, meski hari belum gelap, karena pagar tanaman itu setinggi tiga meter dan lorong-lorong di antaranya sudah redup sejam sebelum langit.

The maze covered most of an acre, and had been planted, according to the guidebook, by an owner who disliked guests who left too soon. Severin knew every turn of it. He searched the way he had been taught, working outward in a spiral from the entrance, calling her name at each junction and then standing still to listen. Nothing answered except pigeons. By half past five he had covered every dead end, and the thought of an old woman, a stone step and a cold evening had begun to settle in his stomach.

Labirin itu meliputi hampir satu are lebih, dan ditanam, menurut buku panduan, oleh seorang pemilik yang tak suka tamu yang pulang terlalu cepat. Severin mengenal setiap belokannya. Ia mencari seperti yang diajarkan kepadanya, bekerja ke arah luar dalam pola spiral dari pintu masuk, memanggil namanya di setiap persimpangan lalu berdiri diam mendengarkan. Tak ada yang menjawab selain burung-burung dara. Pada pukul setengah enam ia sudah menyisir setiap jalan buntu, dan bayangan seorang perempuan tua, sebuah anak tangga batu, dan malam yang dingin mulai mengendap di perutnya.

It was the sound of a page turning that gave her away. He was in the last passage before the centre, a place he rarely bothered with, since nobody had ever been lost there. Through the leaves came a small, dry, unhurried sound, entirely out of place. Not once in nineteen years had anything so ordinary come from the middle of the maze.

Bunyi halaman yang dibalik itulah yang membongkar keberadaannya. Ia berada di lorong terakhir sebelum pusat, tempat yang jarang ia datangi, karena tak pernah ada yang tersesat di sana. Dari sela daun terdengar suara kecil, kering, tidak terburu-buru, sama sekali tak pada tempatnya. Tak sekali pun dalam sembilan belas tahun ada hal sebiasa itu datang dari tengah labirin.

She was sitting on the stone bench beside the sundial with a paperback open on her knee, a flask at her elbow and a cardigan folded under her against the cold of the seat. She looked up at the lantern with mild interest, the way one regards a waiter who has taken a little longer than expected.

Ia duduk di bangku batu di samping jam matahari dengan sebuah buku saku terbuka di lututnya, sebuah termos di sikunya, dan sebuah kardigan terlipat di bawahnya untuk menahan dinginnya tempat duduk. Ia menengadah ke arah lentera dengan minat ringan, seperti orang memandang pelayan yang datang sedikit lebih lama dari yang diharapkan.

"Oh, hello," she said. "Is it closing time?"

"Oh, halo," katanya. "Sudah waktunya tutup?"

"It's well past it," Severin said. "Your family have been looking for you for two hours. We thought you were lost."

"Sudah lewat jauh," kata Severin. "Keluarga Ibu sudah mencari Ibu selama dua jam. Kami kira Ibu tersesat."

"Lost?" Rosalie considered the word honestly. "I don't think so. I knew exactly where I was the whole time. I was in the middle of a maze, which is where one is supposed to end up." She marked her page with a bus ticket. "Getting out seemed a separate problem, and I thought it could wait for somebody with a lantern."

"Tersesat?" Rosalie memikirkan kata itu dengan jujur. "Kurasa tidak. Aku tahu persis di mana aku berada sepanjang waktu. Aku di tengah labirin, tempat yang memang seharusnya dituju orang." Ia menandai halamannya dengan sebuah tiket bus. "Keluar rasanya masalah yang terpisah, dan kupikir itu bisa menunggu seseorang yang membawa lentera."

Severin opened his mouth to deliver the speech about signs and closing times, and found that he had no use for it. Had she called out, he would have found her an hour sooner; but she had not called out, because it had never occurred to her that she needed finding. It might well be, he thought, that she was the only visitor who had ever reached the centre in peace.

Severin membuka mulut untuk menyampaikan pidato tentang rambu dan jam tutup, dan mendapati bahwa ia tak punya gunanya lagi. Seandainya Rosalie berteriak, ia akan menemukannya sejam lebih awal; tetapi ia tidak berteriak, karena tak pernah terpikir olehnya bahwa ia perlu ditemukan. Bisa jadi, pikirnya, ia satu-satunya pengunjung yang pernah mencapai pusat dengan tenang.

She poured tea into the cup of the flask and held it out. He hesitated, a man on duty, and then sat down at the far end of the bench with the lantern between his boots. In nineteen years he had only ever passed through the middle, never stopped in it. From here the hedges closed overhead in a dark green ring, and the evening sky showed in the opening as a single pale coin.

Ia menuangkan teh ke dalam cangkir termos itu dan mengulurkannya. Severin ragu, seorang pria yang sedang bertugas, lalu duduk di ujung bangku yang jauh dengan lentera di antara sepatu botnya. Selama sembilan belas tahun ia hanya melewati bagian tengah, tak pernah berhenti di dalamnya. Dari sini, pagar-pagar menutup di atas kepala dalam lingkaran hijau gelap, dan langit senja tampak di celahnya sebagai sebutir koin pucat.

They stayed for the length of the cup. Then he led her out by the shortest route, left, left, right. At the gate the daughter ran forward, half scolding and half in tears, while Rosalie said again and again that she had not been lost.

Mereka tinggal selama satu cangkir teh. Lalu ia menuntunnya keluar lewat jalan terpendek, kiri, kiri, kanan. Di gerbang, sang putri berlari maju, setengah memarahi dan setengah menangis, sementara Rosalie berkali-kali mengatakan bahwa ia tidak tersesat.

"She wasn't," Severin said, and put out the lantern.

"Memang tidak," kata Severin, dan memadamkan lenteranya.