He had hardly finished these sentences when they heard the drone of an approaching sports plane. It flew in low over the garden. Behind it streamed a long tail banner saying: “Happy 15th birthday!”
This led to renewed applause, even louder than before.
“There, you see?” Mrs. Amundsen cried joyfully. “This man can do more than set off fireworks!”
“Thank you. It was a mere bagatelle. During the past few weeks, Sophie and I have carried out a major philosophical investigation. We shall here and now reveal our findings. We shall reveal the innermost secrets of our existence.”
The little gathering was now so quiet that the only sounds were the twittering of the birds and a few subdued noises from the red-currant bushes.
“Go on,” said Sophie.
“After a thorough philosophical study—which has led from the first Greek philosophers to the present day—we have discovered that we are living our lives in the mind of a major who is at this moment serving as a UN observer in Lebanon. He has also written a book about us for his daughter back in Lillesand. Her name is Hilde Møller Knag, and she was fifteen years old on the same day as Sophie. The book about us lay on her bedside table when she woke up early on the morning of June 15. To be more precise, it was in the form of a ring binder. Even as we speak, she can feel the final pages of the ring binder under her index finger.”
A feeling of apprehension had begun to spread around the table.
“Our existence is therefore neither more nor less than a kind of birthday diversion for Hilde Møller Knag. We have all been invented as a framework for the major’s philosophical education of his daughter. This means, for example, that the white Mercedes at the gate is not worth a cent. It’s just a bagatelle. It’s worth no more than the white Mercedes that drives around and around inside the head of a poor UN major, who has just this minute sat down in the shade of a palm tree to avoid getting sunstroke. The days are hot in Lebanon, my friends.”
“Garbage!” exclaimed the financial adviser. “This is absolutely pure nonsense.”
“You are welcome to your opinion,” Alberto continued unabashed, “but the truth is that it is this garden party which is absolutely pure nonsense. The only dose of reason in the whole party is this speech.”
At that, the financial adviser got up and said:
“Here we are, trying our best to run a business, and to make sure we have insurance coverage against every kind of risk. Then along comes this know-it-all who tries to destroy it all with his ‘philosophical’ allegations.”
Alberto nodded in agreement.
“There is indeed no insurance to cover this kind of philosophical insight. We are talking of something worse than a natural catastrophe, sir. But as you are probably aware, insurance doesn’t cover those either.”
“This is not a natural catastrophe.”
“No, it is an existential catastrophe. For example, just take a look under the currant bushes and you will see what I mean. You cannot insure yourself against the collapse of your whole life. Neither can you insure yourself against the sun going out.”
“Do we have to put up with this?” asked Joanna’s father, looking at his wife.
She shook her head, and so did Sophie’s mother.
“What a shame,” she said, “and after we had spared no expense.”
The younger guests continued to look at Alberto. “We want to hear more,” said a curly-haired boy with glasses.
“Thank you, but there is not much more to say. When you have realized that you are a dream image in another person’s sleepy consciousness, then, in my opinion, it is wisest to be silent. But I can finish by recommending that you take a short course in the history of philosophy. It is important to be critical of the older generation’s values. If I have tried to teach Sophie anything, it is precisely that, to think critically. Hegel called it thinking negatively.”
The financial adviser was still standing, drumming his fingers on the table.
“This agitator is attempting to break down all the sound values which the school and the church and we ourselves are trying to instill in the younger generation. It is they who have the future before them and who one day will inherit everything we have built up. If this man is not immediately removed from this gathering I intend to call our lawyer. He will know how to deal with this situation.”
“It makes little difference whether you deal with this situation or not, since you are nothing but a shadow. Anyway, Sophie and I are about to leave the party, since for us the philosophy course has not been purely theoretical. It has also had its practical side. When the time is ripe we will perform our disappearing act. That is how we are going to sneak our way out of the major’s consciousness.”
Helene Amundsen took hold of her daughter’s arm.
“You are not leaving me, are you, Sophie?”
Sophie put her arms around her mother. She looked up at Alberto.
“Mom is so sad…”
“No, that’s just ridiculous. Don’t forget what you have learned. It’s this sort of nonsense we must liberate ourselves from. Your mother is a sweet and kind lady, just as the Little Red Ridinghood who came to my door that day had a basket filled with food for her grandmother. Your mother is no more sad than the plane that just flew over needed fuel for its congratulation maneuvers.”
“I think I see what you mean,” said Sophie, and turned back to her mother. “That’s why I have to do what he says, Mom. One day I had to leave you.”
“I’m going to miss you,” said her mother, “but if there is a heaven over this one, you’ll just have to fly. I promise to take good care of Govinda. Does it eat one or two lettuce leaves a day?”
Alberto put his hand on her shoulder.
“Neither you nor anyone else here will miss us for the simple reason that you do not exist. You are no more than shadows.”
“That is the worst insult I’ve ever heard,” Mrs. Ingebrigtsen burst out.
Her husband nodded.
“If nothing else, we can always get him nailed for defamation of character. I’m sure he’s a communist. He wants to strip us of everything we hold dear. The man’s a scoundrel.”
With that, both Alberto and the financial adviser sat down. The latter’s face was crimson with rage. Now Joanna and Jeremy also came and sat at the table. Their clothes were grubby and crumpled. Joanna’s golden hair was caked with mud and earth.
“Mom, I’m going to have a baby,” she announced.
“All right, but you’ll have to wait till you get home.”
She had immediate support from her husband. “She’ll simply have to contain herself,” he said. “And if there is to be a christening tonight, she’ll have to arrange it herself.”
Alberto looked down at Sophie with a somber expression.
“It’s time.”
“Can’t you at least bring us a little more coffee before you go?” asked her mother.
“Of course, Mom, I’ll do it right away.”
Sophie took the thermos from the table. She had to make more coffee. While she stood waiting for it to brew, she fed the birds and the goldfish. She also went into the bathroom and put a lettuce leaf out for Govinda. She couldn’t see the cat anywhere, but she opened a large can of cat food, emptied it into a bowl and set it out on the step. She felt her tears welling up.
When she returned with the coffee, the garden party looked more like a children’s party than a young woman’s philosophical celebration. Several soda bottles had been knocked over on the table, there was chocolate cake smeared all over the tablecloth and the dish of raisin buns lay upside down on the lawn. Just as Sophie arrived, one of the boys put a firecracker to the layer cake, which exploded all over the table and the guests. The worst casualty was Mrs. Ingebrigtsen’s red pants suit. The curious thing was that both she and everybody else took it with the utmost calm. Joanna picked up a huge piece of chocolate cake, smeared it all over Jeremy’s face, and proceeded to lick it off again.
Her mother and Alberto were sitting in the glider a little way away from the others. They waved to Sophie.
“So you finally had your confidential talk,” said Sophie.
“And you were perfectly right,” said her mother quite elated now. “Alberto is a very altruistic person. I entrust you to his strong arms.”
Sophie sat down between them.
Two of the boys had managed to climb onto the roof. One of the girls went around pricking holes in all the balloons with a hairpin. Then an uninvited guest arrived on a motorcycle with a crate of beer and bottles of aquavit strapped to the carrier. A few helpful souls welcomed him in.
At that, the financial adviser rose from the table. He clapped his hands and said:
“Do you want to play a game?”
He grabbed a bottle of beer, drank it down, and set the empty bottle in the middle of the lawn. Then he went to the table and fetched the last five rings of the birthday cake. He showed the other guests how to throw the rings so they landed over the neck of the bottle.
“The death throes,” said Alberto. “We’d better get away before the major ends it all and Hilde closes the ring binder.”
“You’ll have to clear up alone, Mom.”
“It doesn’t matter, child. This was no life for you. If Alberto can give you a better one, nobody will be happier than I. Didn’t you tell me he had a white horse?”
Sophie looked out across the garden. It was unrecognizable. Bottles, chicken bones, buns, and balloons were trampled into the grass.
“This was once my little Garden of Eden,” she said.
“And now you’re being driven out of it,” said Alberto.
One of the boys was sitting in the white Mercedes. He revved the engine and the car smashed through the garden gate, up the gravel path, and down into the garden.
Sophie felt a hard grip on her arm as she was dragged into the den. Then she heard Alberto’s voice:
“Now!”
At the same moment the white Mercedes crashed into an apple tree. Unripe fruit showered down onto the hood.
“That’s going too far!” shouted the financial adviser. “I demand substantial compensation!”
His wife gave him her full support.
“It’s that damned scoundrel’s fault! Where is he?”
“They have vanished into thin air,” said Helene Amundsen, not without a touch of pride.
She drew herself up to her full height, walked toward the long table and began to clear up after the philosophical garden party.
“More coffee, anyone?”
Counterpoint
…two or more melodies sounding together…
Hilde sat up in bed. That was the end of the story of Sophie and Alberto. But what had actually happened?
Why had her father written that last chapter? Was it just to demonstrate his power over Sophie’s world?
Deep in thought, she took a shower and got dressed. She ate a quick breakfast and then wandered down the garden and sat in the glider.
She agreed with Alberto that the only sensible thing that had happened at the garden party was his speech. Surely her father didn’t think Hilde’s world was as chaotic as Sophie’s garden party? Or that her world would also dissolve eventually?
Then there was the matter of Sophie and Alberto. What had happened to the secret plan?
Was it up to Hilde herself to continue the story? Or had they really managed to sneak out of it?
And where were they now?
A thought suddenly struck her. If Alberto and Sophie really had managed to sneak out of the story, there wouldn’t be anything about it in the ring binder. Everything that was there, unfortunately, was clear to her father.
Could there be anything written between the lines? There was more than a mere suggestion of it. Hilde realized that she would have to read the whole story again one or two more times.
As the white Mercedes drove into the garden, Alberto dragged Sophie with him into the den. Then they ran into the woods in the direction of the major’s cabin.
“Quickly!” cried Alberto. “It’s got to happen before he starts looking for us.”
“Are we beyond the major’s reach now?”
“We are in the borderland.”
They rowed across the water and ran into the cabin. Alberto opened a trapdoor in the floor. He pushed Sophie down into the cellar. Then everything went black.
In the days that followed, Hilde worked on her plan. She sent several letters to Anne Kvamsdal in Copenhagen, and a couple of times she called her. She also enlisted the aid of friends and acquaintances, and recruited almost half of her class at school.
In between, she read Sophie’s World. It was not a story one could be done with after a single reading. New thoughts about what could have happened to Sophie and Alberto when they left the garden party were constantly occurring to her.
On Saturday, June 23, she awoke with a start around nine o’clock. She knew her father had already left the camp in Lebanon. Now it was just a question of waiting. The last part of his day was planned down to the smallest detail.
Later in the morning she began the preparations for Midsummer Eve with her mother. Hilde could not help thinking of how Sophie and her mother had arranged their Midsummer Eve party. But that was something they had done. It was over, finished. Or was it? Were they going around right now, decorating everywhere?
Sophie and Alberto seated themselves on a lawn in front of two large buildings with ugly air vents and ventilation canals on the outside. A young couple came walking out of one of the buildings. He was carrying a brown briefcase and she had a red handbag slung over one shoulder. A car drove along a narrow road in the background.
“What happened?” asked Sophie.
“We made it!”
“But where are we?”
“This is Oslo.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Quite sure. One of these buildings is called Chateau Neuf, which means ‘the new palace.’ People study music there. The other is the Congregation Faculty. It’s a school of theology. Further up the hill they study science and up at the top they study literature and philosophy.”
“Are we out of Hilde’s book and beyond the major’s control?”
“Yes, both. He’ll never find us here.”
“But where were we when we ran through the woods?”
“While the major was busy crashing the financial adviser’s car into an apple tree, we seized the chance to hide in the den. We were then at the embryo stage. We were of the old as well as of the new world. But concealing ourselves there was something the major cannot possibly have envisaged.”
“Why not?”
“He would never have let us go so easily. As it was, it went like a dream. Of course, there’s always the chance that he was in on it himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was he who started the white Mercedes. He may have exerted himself to the utmost to lose sight of us. He was probably utterly exhausted after everything that had been going on…”
By now the young couple were only a few yards away. Sophie felt a bit awkward, sitting on the grass with a man so much older than herself. Besides, she wanted someone to confirm what Alberto had said.
She got up and went over to them.
“Excuse me, would you mind telling me the name of this street?”
But they ignored her completely.
Sophie was so provoked that she asked them again.
“It’s customary to answer a person, isn’t it?”
The young man was clearly engrossed in explaining something to his companion:
“Contrapuntal form operates on two dimensions, horizontally, or melodically, and vertically, or harmonically. There will always be two or more melodies sounding together…”
“Excuse me for interrupting, but…”
“The melodies combine in such a way that they develop as much as possible, independently of how they sound against each other. But they have to b
e concordant. Actually it’s note against note.”
How rude! They were neither deaf nor blind. Sophie tried a third time, standing ahead of them on the path blocking their way.
She was simply brushed aside.
“There’s a wind coming up,” said the woman.
Sophie rushed back to Alberto.
“They can’t hear me!” she said desperately—and just as she said it, she recalled her dream about Hilde and the gold crucifix.
“It’s the price we have to pay. Although we have sneaked out of a book, we can’t expect to have exactly the same status as its author. But we really are here. From now on, we will never be a day older than we were when we left the philosophical garden party.”
“Does that mean we’ll never have any real contact with the people around us?”
“A true philosopher never says ‘never.’ What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“The same as when we left Captain’s Bend, of course.”
“This is the day Hilde’s father gets back from Lebanon.”
“That’s why we must hurry.”
“Why—what do you mean?”
“Aren’t you anxious to know what happens when the major gets home to Bjerkely?”
“Naturally, but…”
“Come on, then!”
They began to walk down toward the city. Several people passed them on the way, but they all walked right on by as if Sophie and Alberto were invisible.
Cars were parked by the curbside all the way along the street. Alberto stopped by a small red convertible with the top down.
“This will do,” he said. “We must just make sure it’s ours.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I’d better explain then. We can’t just take an ordinary car that belongs to someone here in the city. What do you think would happen when people noticed the car driving along without a driver? And anyway, we probably wouldn’t be able to start it.”
“Then why the convertible?”
“I think I recognize it from an old movie.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m getting tired of all these cryptic remarks.”
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