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

by Stefan Kiesbye

  “Is it not what you wanted?” Olaf asked.

  “It’s nice enough,” she answered. “I just have to get used to it.”

  “Do you not love me anymore?” he asked with a smile.

  “It’s not that.” With one of her white, short fingers, she’d traced the grinning demon, drawn in black ink in Shanghai two years before, and refused to hear the story of how and why he’d gotten it. From Alex I knew that Hilde insisted Olaf sleep in his sister’s old room, because his tossing and turning kept her awake at night. She showed him bruises from where he’d hit her in his sleep.

  “Then what is it?” he asked.

  “We were kids when we got married,” she said, but before he could hold her back, Hilde rushed off. Olaf saw that I had listened to their conversation and smiled, embarrassed, and shrugged. Even though it was nearly dark, I could see that he was blushing.

  Finally the couple moved into the new house and shared the large bed Alex and his father had built together. And to please Hilde, Olaf had a large vanity shipped from Hamburg. Hilde showed it to all the women, and my sister, Birgit, couldn’t say enough about the gold-framed mirror. “You can watch yourself combing your hair, doing your makeup, and if I had a husband like Olaf to watch me, I would rub lotion into my skin all day and braid my hair.”

  “Nonsense,” my mother replied. She wasn’t impressed by the vanity. “What do you need a golden mirror for? You hair is as coarse as straw, and no matter how much makeup you rub onto your face, you can’t hide those freckles.”

  In late summer Alex applied for a job at the manor, but the only position his former brother-in-law offered him was that of substitute driver. With a special permit, he started the job in September. “If not for my dad, they wouldn’t even have hired me as a stable boy,” he cursed when I met him one day in full uniform in the village square.

  I had bought a moped and was able to drive at night to Groß Ostensen. When we were thirteen, we believed owning a moped was the way into a girl’s heart, but the girls in Groß Ostensen didn’t care about my moped. As soon as I got off, they could smell Hemmersmoor on me. It was my gait, my face, my way of talking. I carried our village like a yoke.

  “Don’t waste your time with the pretty ones,” Alex advised me. His hair was full of grease, his shined shoes were as large as the boats on the peat bog. “Only the ugly ones put out.” That made sense to me, and after two more girls complained that I didn’t have any hair on my chest and that my teeth were crooked, I got involved with Linde Janeke. I had kissed her a few times when we were younger, but not once since her accident. None of the girls could stand her, and she never came to any of the dances at Frick’s Inn, but after dark we drove out onto the moor. After dark the scars in her face vanished, and her skin glowed very white, and she wrapped herself around me and demanded that I slap her face or hit her with my belt. Only when I obeyed her did she allow me to unbutton my pants.

  When we drove through the village at night, we could often see Olaf standing outside the inn or walking the streets. He always seemed to be alone. Hilde was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn’t imagine what kept him awake. Perhaps he was missing the sea, I told Linde, but she laughed at me.

  “What else could it be?” I asked.

  “Silly boy,” she said. “If you can’t figure it out, I won’t tell you.”

  One night, when I was waiting for her outside the village, Olaf came walking toward me. He was carrying a bundle, and when he recognized me, stepped closer. It was almost midnight, my dad was making his rounds on his bicycle, but here he wouldn’t see us. Olaf asked how I was doing and looked at my moped, but my answers were all too short. I was afraid that Linde wouldn’t come if she saw him with me, and I hadn’t been with her in two days.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he finally asked and smiled.

  I nodded, relieved. “What do you have there?” I asked and pointed to his bundle. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful.

  “Oh,” he said. “Knickknacks. I have no use for them anymore.” He opened the package, and I recognized the Buddha, the blue scarab, the Statue of Liberty.

  “Why do you want to get rid of them?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Hilde can’t stand them. And to me they look unreal now, as though I invented them. Souvenirs are supposed to remind you of things, but here they just look foreign to me. There are no other countries anymore.” He was silent for a few moments; then he said, “Here,” and put the bundle into my arms. “I wanted to bury them, but maybe you can keep them for me.”

  “Sure,” I said, without knowing what I would do with Olaf’s treasures.

  Olaf grinned lopsidedly. “Well, I’m gonna leave you now,” he said and continued his walk.

  “Hey,” I shouted. “Thank you.”

  He turned to look over his shoulder and waved at me.

  What happened later at Frick’s Inn is often discussed in our village but never questioned. Some speculate that Olaf had fallen ill on one of his long journeys and could be a husband for Hilde no longer. Others suspect that Olaf met too many women in those foreign ports and could never again be happy with just one. A few claim that Olaf had always been a ne’er-do-well and that his father threw him out to prevent further disasters. Nobody tries too hard to find out the truth. The possibilities are too ugly.

  That night I waited until Linde arrived, and together we drove to an old barn near Brümmer’s factory. “I’m not made from sugar,” she soon complained. I tore open her shirt and squeezed her breasts, which were as small as macaroons, their tips as dark as chocolate. Her first blow hit my right ear, and for seconds I could hear only a loud ringing noise. I tried to grip her arms, but her forehead hit my mouth, and I tasted blood and she laughed at me. “You’re like a drizzle—I don’t get wet.” Then she hit my shin, stomped with one of her heels onto my toes. This time I punched her in the face, right on the chin. I hit her harder and she fell quiet, froze. I tore her panties, slapped her thighs and her face. She trembled without making a sound, waited for my blows, and I obeyed. Finally she turned around, propped herself up on the seat of the moped and stuck her ass out for me. But the ground was sandy, and the kickstand gave way, and Linde and the moped fell down.

  I pulled her up, pushed her aside, and inspected my moped. Was something bent, had Linde stepped on the spokes? I wiped off the handlebars with her panties, and everything still seemed intact. To be sure, I started the moped, but when the engine roared to life, I noticed that Linde was no longer inside the barn. I called her name, but she didn’t answer. In my ears I could still hear her laughter, her sneer. I didn’t go to the trouble of looking for her.

  Shortly after handing me his bundle, Olaf returned home. At least that’s what Alex has told me. The whole affair disgusted him, he said, but he seemed hell-bent on telling me his story. And when I later jumped up and said he better shut his mouth, he insisted I hear him out.

  He had arrived home from work in the evening, and was sitting at the bar, when Olaf entered the pub and joined him. The brothers didn’t say a word to each other, but shortly after his arrival, Olaf felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Shouldn’t you be at home with your wife?” It was Jan, smiling, holding a glass of beer in his right hand and touching Olaf with his new prosthetic left. Olaf disregarded the fact that Jan was not his friend. Perhaps his tongue wanted to get rid of the words that clogged his throat and mouth. “That’s just it,” he exclaimed. “Ever since I’ve come back, she treats me like a stranger.”

  Alex got up to pour the men another shot of rye. Jan sat down next to Olaf, slumping over his glass of beer, looking up at the young sailor with sympathy. “You were gone for many years, a long time even for a godforsaken village like ours. You were gone more years than you were ever together.”

  “Yet it won’t get any better,” Olaf said. “I tried, and yet she resists me.”

  “It still might,” Jan said. “It still might. My wife and I,” he raised his new hand into the air
and waved it in front of Olaf’s face, “we’ve had our ups and downs. When we’re alone, she kills all the lights so she doesn’t have to see who’s touching her.”

  “But you…,” Olaf said and immediately stopped himself.

  “I am crippled, sure.”

  “I’m sorry, Jan,” Olaf said. “I really am.”

  Jan continued without listening to Olaf’s apologies. His voice became quieter and sweeter still. “But there are far more ugly things than my hand.”

  “What are you saying?” Olaf said, and Alex could see his brother’s face flush and his shoulders tighten.

  “You were gone for a long time, a long time for a young girl. People doubted you’d be back. She is beautiful.”

  “You’re drunk,” Olaf said. “I won’t stand for your talk.”

  “Oh you want to punch me like your old man did? First you cripple me and then you hit me? But you’re right,” he said and got up from his stool, smiling once more, his voice still as quiet and pleasant as before. “I’m drunk.” He left Olaf to rejoin the small group of workers from Brümmer’s. But before he did, he turned to Olaf once more. “All the bad things I could wish on you, you’ve already done to yourself. Go home, Sailor. Tell Liese Fitschen her Veronika looks just as cute as her mother.”

  That night Olaf did not go to sleep. Alex kept him company long after the inn had closed. The two brothers were alone and drank; Olaf did not dare enter his wife’s bedroom.

  In the early morning, they were already standing outside the Fitschens’ gate, waiting for Liese and her little girl to appear. Alex has assured me that he tried to dissuade his brother from doing so, but he wouldn’t listen. When Liese and Veronika finally stepped out onto the street and greeted their neighbors, they didn’t receive an answer. Instead Olaf picked up the child and stared at her face.

  “What are you doing?” Liese asked with suspicion in her voice, but Alex motioned for her to keep quiet.

  “She looks nothing like you,” Olaf said.

  “Let go of her,” Liese demanded. “She’s mine.”

  The girl started to cry. She had Hilde’s mouth, her round cheeks. She even had the same large blue eyes.

  “It can’t be,” Olaf said and turned to his brother. But Alex nodded without a word. The likeness couldn’t be denied.

  “You can’t take her,” Liese said and started to cry herself. “She’s mine.”

  “When was she born? I’ll strangle her if you don’t answer me.” Olaf took hold of the girl’s soft braids.

  “Four years ago, in March, four years. She’s mine, she’s mine I swear. I swear to you, Olaf, she’s mine.”

  “You’re lying,” Olaf said, but finally he set down the girl, whose face was wide with fear. “She’s her daughter, Hilde’s girl. Jan knows the truth. Probably the whole village knows you’re lying to me.”

  When the two brothers returned home, Hilde stood in the living room and behind her appeared Bernd Frick. The lines in the old man’s face appeared even deeper than usual. “I heard the ruckus outside,” Hilde said. “I was worried. What did you want from Liese?”

  “The girl is your daughter,” Olaf said, his words barely slipping past his tongue. “Who is the father?”

  “Nonsense,” Bernd Frick said. “What an idea.”

  “Why do you deny it? She looks like Hilde. Why did you give her away? Who is the father? Who?”

  For a long time nobody spoke. Hilde stood with her gaze directed toward the floor and her bare feet. Finally Olaf’s father said, “She thought you were dead.”

  “And you covered it up for her. Took her to Liese.” Olaf took a few steps forward and struck his father with his fists. The older man’s head flew back and then his knees buckled; he slumped to the floor.

  With a shriek, Hilde flew toward Bernd, covering his head with her hair. She held him tight, rocking him, stroking his cheeks. “Yes,” she said to Olaf, “we both hoped you’d never come back.”

  When asked what had happened to Olaf Frick, people in Hemmersmoor shrugged. “The call of the sea,” the baker volunteered. “All these years in those godless countries, they leave a mark on you.”

  The mailman wouldn’t say; he never received another postcard from Shanghai or Macao. Soon enough, the village girls redirected their attention to Rutger von Kamphoff, who looked even more suave now that he was wearing black. He was once more available, and every young woman wanted to know how in the world she could get invited to the manor.

  Jan Hussel, when asked, stroked the black fingers of his prosthetic hand. “Stupid affair,” he said and shook his head. “He could have made good after all.” He seemed genuinely distressed and said that he regretted not having had the opportunity to talk to Olaf one last time.

  Listening to Jan’s answer, Alex shrugged. He had made me swear not to betray his secret; he had to protect the family’s reputation as well as its business. He wouldn’t always be the von Kamphoffs’ driver. Whenever the people in the village mentioned Olaf, he shook his head. “Not enough life around here.”

  Anke

  Through my scholarship, which I started in the fall, I stayed in contact with the Big House, and sometimes I received an invitation to one of the dinner parties there. My mother was beside herself with joy, and when the black Mercedes stopped in front of our house, she would have liked to gather the whole neighborhood to watch me get into the car. “Rutger has an eye on you,” she reassured me each and every day. “Keep in close touch with him.” She didn’t know just how well I followed her advice. I kept quiet about the meetings Rutger arranged for us from time to time, and which he kept secret from his family. He still wore black.

  One day in the spring, just before Easter, I came home to find the house empty. My mother had pushed my lunch into the oven, and in her note, which I found on the kitchen table, she wrote that she would spend the afternoon in Groß Ostensen. My dad was working on the fields with my brothers and wouldn’t be home before dinner.

  I sighed in relief. The more time I spent at the Big House, the smaller my own home seemed to become. I hated the smells that wafted from our kitchen through the whole house, and I couldn’t watch my father eat anymore. It was horrible how noisily he slurped his soup; after every bite of meat he scratched between his teeth with his fingernails. My brothers chewed with their mouths open while continuing their conversations. I was only too happy not to find any of them at home. I’d be able to prepare for my rendezvous with Rutger undisturbed. The chauffeur would pick me up at four o’clock.

  Rutger’s marriage with Anna Frick had scandalized his family, and only Frick’s money had finally convinced Bruno von Kamphoff and his wife to relent. Anna had been one of us, a village beauty with rosy cheeks and without manners. I knew what happened when girls like us got mixed up with people like the von Kamphoffs. And even though I sensed that Rutger meant well, I had not entirely given in to his greed. My dad wasn’t as rich as Frick. I had only my young skin and my brown hair. Nobody had touched me yet.

  This is what I thought while washing myself and putting on a new dress, one that Rutger hadn’t yet seen dozens of times. I brushed my hair and pushed away pictures of my friend Linde. How much better was I prepared to take advantage of the opportunity I was given. She would only have squandered it. And, anyway, her face was disfigured—she had even less to offer the future heir of the Big House.

  Around three o’clock I heard a car in front of the house, and with surprise I saw that it was really the von Kamphoffs’ black Mercedes. The driver got out, walked slowly toward our door. Had he been given the wrong time?

  With hair loose and without any makeup, I ran down the stairs and opened the door. How big was my surprise when I found not the elegant young man I was used to but Alex Frick taking off his black cap and grinning at me. “Anke?” he said. “The car is ready.”

  “You?” I said. I couldn’t explain Alex’s appearance. “What is this?” I knew that Frick’s younger son had returned to Hemmersmoor, but I hadn’t see
n much of him in the village. My parents had not frequented Frick’s Inn since Broder’s death; Alex’s light punishment, they said, had been bought from the authorities. Three years for a son. What kind of justice was that?

  “Indeed,” Alex said. “I’m the new chauffeur. Can I come in?”

  “The chauffeur?” I asked.

  “Oh, are you already one of them?”

  “You are too early,” I said and heard how stupid this sounded. “That’s not what I meant. You shouldn’t be here. If my mother comes home…”

  “Not before dinnertime.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And your father is working in the fields. You’re all dolled up.” Alex inspected me from top to bottom. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, but he had grown a lot and was as heavy and slow moving as a much older man. He looked funny in his uniform, funny and somehow adorable, like a circus bear. He had the lazy movements of a man who knows he can punch holes into a wall.

  Alex crossed the doorstep without my invitation. I had to move to avoid him. “Go, get yourself ready,” he said. “I’ll wait down here.”

  “If my parents find out…,” I said.

  “I know what I did. But I’ve lost a sister.” Alex looked around our entrance hall. “I know how it feels.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I said angrily.

  “I didn’t say you did.” He smiled. “But it looks as if you might take her place. Rutger was very particular when he gave me instructions.”

  I felt myself blushing. Had Rutger talked about me with Alex? I was flattered to hear that Rutger did indeed have plans for me, but how could he talk about them with his driver? What was he thinking, sending Alex to our house? Didn’t he know what had happened?

  “Perhaps he’ll fire me if you ask him real nicely.” Alex’s smile grew wider, until I couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore. “I’ve paid the price, Anke,” he added. “I don’t expect your parents to like me, but what happened was nothing but a stupid prank. I was a boy. I didn’t mean to kill your brother.”