Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: A Novel Read online

  “You go,” my father said. “I’ll be okay on my own.” But I shook my head. I had given my word.

  That evening my mother took me aside and questioned me about Inge Madelung. How was she dressed? What did she talk about with my dad? Was she really constantly at his side? What had she said and done?

  I loved my father, but I feared my mother. I had to give her something if I wanted to stay in her good graces.

  “The owner of the manor seems to like her well,” I said, and told her about the old man’s peculiar behavior.

  “It’s a shame,” she said. “What a cunning person. Well, she doesn’t own a thing, so she has to go after our men.” But no matter how much she cursed and complained, the news seemed to please her. She praised my effort, tousled my hair, and stroked my cheeks. “Be nice to Friedrich,” she said. “See if he tells you something.”

  Later that evening my dad called me and asked if I had made friends with Friedrich. I confessed what had happened, and what Anke had said, and he nodded. Finally he said, “It’s not as easy for Friedrich as it is for you girls.”

  “But he’s dumb and stupid,” I said.

  “He’s only afraid.”

  “Afraid of us?”

  “He’s not from here, and you let him feel that.” He paused a moment. “Do you really want to come with me again tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Do the von Kamphoffs really have a black woman in the basement?”

  My father looked at me in surprise; he’d never been interested in rumors. “Maybe you and Friedrich can find out tomorrow,” he laughed. Then his face was all serious again. “Don’t tell your mother anything about Mrs. Madelung. It will only upset her.”

  I nodded.

  “She doesn’t understand the work I’m doing, how good it feels to have someone who is meticulous, hardworking, and who you can count on. Your mother sometimes suspects the worst things imaginable, but we know better, don’t we?” he asked.

  I nodded again.

  “And be nice to Friedrich. Maybe you can still become friends,” he said slowly. “Are you still playing with your model train?”

  The next morning, while my mom was boiling water for his coffee, my dad came to my room, and with my help, he snuck out of the house for a few short minutes without my mother noticing. When we reached the manor house in our three-wheeled truck and Inge Madelung came to greet us, he took a large wooden box from its bed. “It’s nothing,” he explained. “Only old toys Linde has no use for anymore.” And as an answer to Inge’s surprised look, he quickly added, “She never owned any dolls.” His face turned red and he grinned sheepishly. “I guess I always wanted…” He stopped himself. “I can help you carry all that junk home.”

  “I can handle it,” Inge protested, but my dad would have none of it.

  “It’s pretty heavy,” he said. “Really is.”

  I followed the adults, and when we came to Inge’s doorstep, they suddenly grew eerily quiet. I remember how embarrassed my father seemed. With that big box of his, he stood in front of Inge’s door and large drops were visible on his forehead, but it is clear to me now that he wasn’t sweating because of the unusually warm weather. I still see Inge’s hand around the doorknob, hesitating, unable to make a move. But Friedrich had heard us come and finally opened the door from the inside and let us in. His face looked grim. We must have been the first visitors in the two years since they had come to Hemmersmoor.

  “Just put it down somewhere,” Inge said to my father. “I’ll take care of it later. Thank you so much.”

  My dad didn’t leave immediately though. He set down the box and slowly looked around Inge’s chamber. “A bit tight,” he said. “They couldn’t find anything smaller for you, right? But it’s clean, everything’s shipshape.” He nodded. “It’s a lot of toys.”

  “What do you say?” Inge asked her son.

  “Thank you,” Friedrich said.

  “Thank you so much,” Inge said and started toward the door.

  “Yes, we should get to work,” Dad said. But he took another moment to inspect the room. “No photo of your husband?” he suddenly asked.

  Inge blushed. “I lost everything,” she quickly answered.

  “That’s right,” Dad said. “Well, we should really go. Maybe Linde can help Friedrich put everything together?”

  “Well, yes, but…,” Inge said slowly, turning around to look at her son.

  “But shouldn’t I help you outside?” I pleaded.

  “We’ll be okay without you,” my dad answered.

  “But if she’d rather help?” Inge said.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said brusquely, and a few minutes later I found myself alone with Friedrich in that small room. He stood in front of the large box, obviously curious about what was inside but too proud to make a move.

  “Anke isn’t here,” I said into the silence. I remembered my mother’s instructions: I had to befriend the boy.

  “She’s stupid,” he said.

  “Not at all,” I shot back. “Maybe a little.”

  “You are nicer,” he said matter-of-factly, and then we unpacked the toys together, assembled the tracks, and cleaned the railroad cars. “And you really don’t want them anymore?” he asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “My mother says I’m too old for such things.”

  “I’m just as old as you are.”

  “But you’re a boy,” I said.

  He looked at me in puzzlement, then stared at the steam engine in his hand and said, “I think your dad likes my mom.”

  I paused a moment in horror. Until now this whole affair had been a complicated game between my parents, but to hear those words from Friedrich’s mouth made it all real. He was right, there could be no doubt. “Don’t be silly,” I said.

  “See for yourself.” He stood up and ran over to a dresser, pulled open a drawer, and showed me its contents. “He always brings her things, even when she doesn’t want them.” Inside the drawer was a small clay vase, which I had made for my father at school, and next to it a necklace with a blue pendant. A crocheted handkerchief, a bar of soap that smelled of roses, a pin cushion. “Almost every day he gives her something.” Friedrich’s tone of voice balanced between accusatory and confidential. “She thinks she’s keeping it secret, but lately she’s behaved so differently.”

  “Different how?”

  “Yesterday she hit me because I came home with my clothes dirty. And then she immediately started to cry. I tried to console her, but she wept all night. And this morning she slapped me because I wasn’t ready on time.”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “That’s a lie. Your mother is an evil woman.”

  “Take that back,” he said.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I replied. “Mom is right—your mother is bad.” I slapped his face.

  Yet this time Friedrich did not run away. He hit my face and tears came to my eyes; I pulled his hair. He screamed, grabbed my dress. Then he bit my arm, and I stepped on his toes and pushed him. Friedrich stumbled and fell, landing on the postal car. Maybe we would have bloodied each other, but at that moment we heard steps outside the front door, and Friedrich jumped to his feet. “If you tell on me, you’re dead,” he whispered.

  A moment later Inge Madelung opened the door, and behind her appeared the old owner of the manor with his immaculately shined shoes. “Wouldn’t it be great? There’s nothing like a brisk ride across the moor.” He laughed and raised his left hand in a fist.

  “Friedrich?” Inge said. “I hope you don’t mind the mess. Mr. Janeke—”

  “Nonsense,” said Johann von Kamphoff, stepping carefully over the tracks and engines. “I really don’t want to bother you and keep you away from the garden, but I’d like to know if you have everything you need.”

  Inge, Friedrich, and I stayed silent and watched the owner unabashedly inspect the small room. And didn’t it all belong to him? It was his property, his own house. He walked about, put a finger to his m
outh, then swished it along the high edge of a small wardrobe. “Ah,” he exclaimed. “What a woman. Perhaps I should have you work in the Big House. All that hard work in the gardens must wear you out. And Janeke is a crank. He’s no companion for someone like you, Mrs. Madelung.”

  Mortified, I cast down my eyes. The old owner turned to Friedrich. “Hello, young man,” he said with a smile. “Does your mom take good care of you? She’s telling me that you resemble your dad very much. Is that right?” He turned to Inge and winked at her before addressing the boy once more. “We will find some better rooms for you and your mom. A man like you needs a bit of space, right? A good desk to study at too. You shouldn’t grow up in such a tiny box.”

  Friedrich nodded quietly. Inge went to stand behind him, as though she needed to protect her son. She seemed very small, and her voice was barely audible. “Thank you very much, Mr. von Kamphoff,” she said. “But you have done enough.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, and slowly walked toward the front door. “You are a formidable mother. Those weren’t empty words. Next week we will furnish you with a better room.” He was silent for a moment, then looked at her with a serious expression. Slowly he nodded his head. “This weather, this weather…” Before leaving, he touched her cheek and caressed it. “Nature is sometimes odd.”

  On Christmas it rained all day and night, yet it was so warm that the people in Hemmersmoor opened their windows anyway and took long walks in shirtsleeves and rubber boots. The star singers carried umbrellas, and the water in the canals rose and flooded the bogs. The Christmas trees seemed out of place; the gingerbread cookies softened and wouldn’t taste right.

  Mom remained suspicious of my dad, and my report about Johann von Kamphoff’s visit to the widow’s chamber only confirmed her opinion about Inge Madelung. I kept quiet, however, about what Friedrich had showed me; I was too afraid of the consequences. The warm weather couldn’t soothe her, and on Christmas Eve my mother argued with my dad. She felt he didn’t tell her everything, and what she suspected must have been even worse than the truth. “I can’t believe you’re not at the manor tonight,” she said after dinner. “You and the Crow are so close these days. I don’t understand why you come home at all.”

  My father lowered his head and didn’t answer. We could hear how he slowly exhaled. His head and neck turned red.

  “She hasn’t changed, that bitch. First she lets some soldier get her pregnant, and now she’s trying to steal my man.”

  My father jolted upright. His face was glum and he shook his fists, but no words came from his half-open mouth. He blew out the candles on the Christmas tree, took his hat and coat, and returned only after midnight. I had to unwrap my presents alone in my room.

  The holidays were even worse, and the atmosphere so poisonous that on the morning of December 26, I went to Anke’s to play with her new dolls. She was the Hoffmanns’ only daughter, and her mother showered her with gifts, all of which she showed me the second I stepped into the house. Instead of playing in the living room as usual, we sat on a bench in the garden, placing the dolls on chairs around us. It was so warm that the boys ran through the village in shorts and without shoes. After the previous day’s rain, the streets were soft and muddy, and there were large puddles all over the village square. Mr. Frick had carried chairs outside, and the men were drinking their beer under the oak trees, their collars open.

  “My mother is going to Groß Ostensen the day after tomorrow,” Anke told me. “She wants to buy fabrics. You want to come with us?”

  “Yes,” I said immediately, but then thought better of it. “Another time. I have to help my dad.”

  Anke rolled her eyes. “Do you have to play with Friedrich again?”

  I shrugged. “He doesn’t have anybody else to play with during recess.”

  “Serves him right. My mother says he needs a father. But of course that’s not going to happen.” She tapped her forehead. “Where would he get one?”

  Only in the late afternoon, after the sun went down, did I return home. My dad was nowhere to be seen, but my mom had visitors. When I stepped into the lighted kitchen, Mrs. Meier, the baker’s wife; Mrs. Schürholz, the Gendarm’s wife; and the mailman’s wife were sitting around the table. This was no coffee klatch, however. A marble cake stood between them, but my mom hadn’t used the good china; the women drank their coffee from the plain blue-and-white cups.

  They fell silent while my mother piled the rest of our Christmas dinner onto my plate and sent me to my room. Once there I closed my door from the outside, but loud enough for the women to notice, then put down my plate and listened to their voices from an armchair in our living room. They sounded very serious and secretive, so I couldn’t overhear much, but I heard the word “crow” several times, and when the women finally said good night, Mrs. Schürholz reassured my mom, “Klaus can get you the forms. We’ll deal with that in the New Year. You’ll see.” And the mailman’s wife said, “My husband can arrange that. He’ll deliver it personally.”

  “You should have come to us earlier,” Mrs. Meier said. “No need to be ashamed.”

  My dad seemed relieved when the holidays were over. His face smoothed out for the first time in three days, and the closer we got to the manor, the brighter his eyes shone from behind his thick glasses.

  But Inge did not join us in the garden; instead Friedrich came running. “She has a fever and is sleeping.” He himself looked all gray.

  My dad listened to him and nodded. “That’s fine. Tell her to rest.” Then he paused before asking, “Does she need any medication? Shall I get the doctor for her?” He took a few steps toward the manor house, but then stopped. “Linde,” he instructed me. “You go and see if Mrs. Madelung needs anything.”

  “You don’t need to come,” Friedrich said once we were out of earshot. “It’s not a real fever.”

  “Not a real fever?”

  “Well, she’s sick, but in a different way.” When I looked at him without comprehending, he added, “She hasn’t slept all night. I think she saw my dad.”

  “But he’s dead,” I said out loud, and then put my hand quickly over my mouth.

  He shrugged. “She really saw him though, I think.” And then Friedrich told me what had happened. His mom had given him a new pair of pants for Christmas, and against her wishes he had worn them to play outside. But after hanging around the stables, he had slipped on a muddy path and torn a big hole in the left knee. He hadn’t dared go home for a long time, and when he finally returned, after dark, Inge struck him repeatedly. But still her rage wouldn’t subside, and she scolded him, called him an ungrateful brat who only caused her pain. She paced her room, up and down, and up and down, and cursed her fate, cursed the death of her husband, cursed Hemmersmoor and old Mr. von Kamphoff. “And your dad as well,” Friedrich added. “She was beside herself, and then she started to cry and got only more furious, until she finally ran outside.”

  The night air was damp but hadn’t cooled off. On her way into the gardens, Inge had not once looked over her shoulder, and Friedrich had hurried from bush to bush and followed her at a safe distance. Near the parkway that led to the road to Hemmersmoor, where you could no longer see the lights from the manor house, Inge had stopped. “She was yelling at my father,” Friedrich said. “‘Hermann,’ she was yelling, again and again. And then she said that he was to blame for all her misery. That he had been only a stupid waiter, and that he had left us voluntarily to go to war. He had been nothing more than canon fodder and left us without money or help, and she had had to escape without him.”

  His mother had cried loudly and finally she had shouted, “Hermann! Where are you? What have you done to me, Hermann? What were you doing on the battlefield? You couldn’t even shoot properly. How could you be so dumb and die in a foreign country? What is going to happen to me? To your son? Come back, Hermann, come and help me. It’s all your fault. Come and help me!”

  Friedrich was too afraid to leave his hiding place. He was afrai
d for his mother, but he feared her wrath even more. Yet he kept watching her and suddenly became aware of a white figure among the trees along the parkway. It seemed to scurry from tree to tree without ever touching the ground. “Hermann?” Inge asked, and when the white figure approached her, she screamed, “Hermann!” and began to cry. “Forgive me. I didn’t want to wake you. Go back, Hermann, go back to sleep. I will manage on my own. Forgive me, Hermann, I will let you sleep. I won’t cry anymore, Hermann.”

  What had happened afterward, Friedrich couldn’t say. “I ran away,” he said quietly and without looking at me. With the tips of his shoes, he was drawing lines into the sand.

  “Was it really your dad?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t imagine all this.”

  “Maybe it was one of the von Kamphoffs,” I suggested. “Or maybe Johann’s brother, the true heir. Maybe he escaped from the basement.”

  “Those are old wives’ tales,” said Friedrich.

  “They’re not,” I insisted.

  “In any case don’t tell my mother I told you,” he admonished me. “Don’t let on.”

  Together we stepped into their room. Mrs. Madelung slept and didn’t awaken when we tiptoed to her bed and made sure that her eyes were closed and that she was breathing regularly. Her cheeks looked all red, and her wrinkles had smoothed out. From time to time she snored a little.

  Friedrich pulled me back and cautiously opened a drawer and took out a photograph, which he showed me once we got outside. “It’s the only one we have,” he said, and let me hold it. It showed a man with thinning hair, wearing a dark suit. He had a fine smile and large, dark eyes. The edges and corners of the picture were bent and worn.

  “Was he an officer?” I asked.

  Friedrich shook his head. He blushed and said, “I lied.”

  “How did he die, then?”

  “We don’t know,” he said. “And my mother never visited Lithuania. We don’t even know where exactly he died. I can’t remember his face. Only this picture. When I was little, my mother told me a story about him trying to conquer a large city and dying during the attack. But I think she made that up. This morning she said that last night was a sign.”