FROZEN.

A still from a movie.

He stands in front of our house, his tall figure stooped. One arm holds the gate for support, the other gestures farewell.

He is thinking: I will never see my daughter again.

He did not. One year later, aged 85, he died of a heart attack.

We did not talk much in the days before my departure. He did not believe in our African venture, but he did not argue. He was resigned to staying behind. Yet still I felt he had some trust in me, his Engelskind.

The image never leaves me. I want to run back to him and tell him:

‘I have not betrayed you. All my waywardness, which seemed to set us apart, only led me to the path you had carved out.’

‘The Raspberry House’ they called it, with a shake of their heads. Scarletred, square, flat-roofed, it was designed by my father and a post-Bauhaus architect. Its aesthetics radically different from the drabness of the era.

Inside, it was just as radical.

Upstairs was my father's realm. My father, the professor. Downstairs – with much smaller bedrooms and a tiny shared bathroom – resided my mother, my brother and me.

There was no living room, no cozy corner, no sofa or armchairs. The centre of family life was the dinner table, a massive Biedermeier piece of cherry wood. Above it, a lampshade inscribed with an aphorism by Goethe: ‘Glückselig der dessen Welt innerhalb des Hauses ist’ (Blissful those whose world is inside the house). My father, who knew Goethe inside out, chose the quote. My mother did the calligraphy.

Did he always want to keep me there?