Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: A Novel by Stefan Kiesbye Read Free Book Online

his brother, just like the black woman. Yet nobody could remember what the true heir had looked like. All this had happened before the first of the wars, and birth certificates weren’t archived in Hemmersmoor.
    Today, though, it wasn’t old von Kamphoff who greeted us when we arrived at the manor house. It was Inge Madelung, and as soon as my dad had climbed out of his truck, he introduced us to her. “Winter recess,” he mumbled. “They’re in the way at home.”
    Inge shook hands with us as though we were already grown up. “You must be going to school with my Friedrich,” she said.
    “Yes,” Anke said. “He’s in our class.”
    “How nice,” said the widow. “Maybe you’d like to play together.”
    “Maybe,” I said without enthusiasm, but my dad looked sternly in my direction, then sent me and Anke to get rakes, garden shears, and buckets from the toolshed. “You can give us a hand,” he said, and soon we were pulling weeds and raking the lawn.
    “This is stupid,” Anke said. Her hands were already covered in blisters. “My mom is baking cookies today.”
    I stuck my tongue out and said, “Why don’t you run home?”
    “And later we have to play with that bastard,” she complained.
    “Yeah, that’s really stupid,” I agreed. I couldn’t tell her the true reason why we had come to the manor. My mom hadforbidden me to make a single peep, but her admonishment hadn’t been necessary. “When the old man joins us, we can go and play.” I tried to appease her.
    Last summer Mr. von Kamphoff had come into the garden two, maybe three, times a week, but now my dad was complaining about his constant presence. “Here he comes again,” he said under his breath when, around nine o’clock, the old owner made his way toward us. He seemed to abhor the many visits his employer made, and I noticed that Johann von Kamphoff’s appearance had changed. His hair was neatly cut and glistened with grease. He had stopped wearing his worn and shapeless pants, and his shoes had been shined. He greeted me and Anke, and we both curtsied; then he turned to the widow and asked, “Mrs. Madelung, busy again?”
    “Let’s go,” I whispered into Anke’s ear, but my friend shook her head silently.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked, but I still didn’t receive an answer. Instead Anke stared at the old man, and whenever he looked in her direction, she smiled diligently. Finally she stooped and pretended to pull weeds while listening intently to the adults’ conversation.
    While Johann von Kamphoff was talking about his war adventures, my father’s face grew increasingly somber. “Didn’t have to kill them,” the owner sighed. “Could have simply disowned them.” He still wore his shirtsleeve rolled up and pinned to the shoulder, but the shirt was made from silk, and he wore an expensive tie.
    “Absolutely,” my father agreed. “Would have been better for the war effort.”
    “Damn mess,” cursed Mr. von Kamphoff, and then lookedat Inge, who quickly turned away and pretended not to have overheard the men’s conversation.
    “Erich,” the owner said, and pointed to my father. “Erich thinks he’s the only one who knows anything about garden work.” He laughed jovially. “But I wasn’t always a silly old man. I traveled the world. Saw Africa, the desert, the Muslims, the black devils. A fascinating continent.”
    Even I was listening to the old man now, just like Anke. Maybe the black woman in the basement wasn’t just a rumor after all. Maybe the people in the village had been right all along.
    Inge smiled. “How are your grandchildren doing?” she asked. “My Fritz worships your Rutger.”
    Anke’s face lit up as soon as the widow mentioned Rutger von Kamphoff. The owner’s grandson had to be thirteen or fourteen, and all my friends wanted to marry him. He didn’t go to school in Hemmersmoor, but from time to time a black Mercedes appeared in our village, and when the von Kamphoff family