Once I bumped into God there. I was four-ish, and my brother Till and I were bragging about how on Saint Nicholas Day, on the dark landing, we would rig up a trip wire for Krampus, who in Austria and Southern Germany was a kind of rustic demon in fur and horns rattling about to terrorize naughty children with a heavy chain. We were thrilled by the idea; we weren’t scared a bit; we outdid each other in our fearlessness. We also had the notion that Saint Nick in person would stumble into our kitchen and land flat on his belly, and all the presents would come tumbling out of his sack, and we
...more
