Hilde’s father would be home from Lebanon ...
“I want to have a birthday party,” she said suddenly.
“That sounds great. Who will you invite?”
“Lots of people ... Can I?”
“Of course. We have a big garden. Hopefully the good weather will continue.”
“Most of all I’d like to have it on Midsummer Eve.”
“All right, that’s what we’ll do.”
“It’s a very important day,” Sophie said, thinking not only of her birthday.
“It is, indeed.”
“I feel I’ve grown up a lot lately.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
Sophie had been talking with her head almost buried in her pillow. Now her mother said, “Sophie—you must tell me why you seem so out of balance at the moment.”
“Weren’t you like this when you were fifteen?”
“Probably. But you know what I am talking about.”
Sophie suddenly turned to face her mother. “The dog’s name is Hermes,” she said.
“It is?”
“It belongs to a man called Alberto.”
“I see.”
“He lives down in the Old Town.”
“You went all that way with the dog?”
“There’s nothing dangerous about that.”
“You said that the dog had often been here.”
“Did I say that?”
She had to think now. She wanted to tell as much as possible, but she couldn’t tell everything.
“You’re hardly ever at home,” she ventured.
“No, I’m much too busy.”
“Alberto and Hermes have been here lots of times.”
“What for? Were they in the house as well?”
“Can’t you at least ask one question at a time? They haven’t been in the house. But they often go for walks in the woods. Is that so mysterious?”
“No, not in the least.”
“They walk past our gate like everyone else when they go for a walk. One day when I got home from school I talked to the dog. That’s how I got to know Alberto.”
“What about the white rabbit and all that stuff?”
“That was something Alberto said. He is a real philosopher, you see. He has told me about all the philosophers.”
“Just like that, over the hedge?”
“He has also written letters to me, lots of times, actually. Sometimes he has sent them by mail and other times he has just dropped them in the mailbox on his way out for a walk.”
“So that was the ‘love letter’ we talked about.”
“Except that it wasn’t a love letter.”
“And he only wrote about philosophy?”
“Yes, can you imagine! And I’ve learned more from him than I have learned in eight years of school. For instance, have you ever heard of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600? Or of Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation?”
“No, there’s a lot I don’t know.”
“I bet you don’t even know why the earth orbits the sun—and it’s your own planet!”
“About how old is this man?”
“I have no idea—about fifty, probably.”
“But what is his connection with Lebanon?”
This was a tough one. Sophie thought hard. She chose the most likely story.
“Alberto has a brother who’s a major in the UN Battalion. And he’s from Lillesand. Maybe he’s the major who once lived in the major’s cabin.”
“Alberto’s a funny kind of name, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.”
“It sounds Italian.”
“Well, nearly everything that’s important comes either from Greece or from Italy.”
“But he speaks Norwegian?”
“Oh yes, fluently.”
“You know what, Sophie—I think you should invite
Alberto home one day. I have never met a real philosopher.”
“We’ll see.”
“Maybe we could invite him to your birthday party? It could be such fun to mix the generations. Then maybe I could come too. At least, I could help with the serving. Wouldn’t that be a good idea?”
“If he will. At any rate, he’s more interesting to talk to than the boys in my class. It’s just that...”
“What?”
“They’d probably flip and think Alberto was my new boyfriend.”
“Then you just tell them he isn’t.”
“Well, we’ll have to see.”
“Yes, we shall. And Sophie—it is true that things haven’t always been easy between Dad and me. But there was never anyone else ...”
“I have to sleep now. I’ve got such awful cramps.”
“Do you want an aspirin?” /’Yes, please.”
When her mother returned with the pill and a glass of water Sophie had fallen asleep.
May 31 was a Thursday. Sophie agonized through the afternoon classes at school. She was doing better in some subjects since she started on the philosophy course. Usually her grades were good in most subjects, but lately they were even better, except in math.
In the last class they got an essay handed back. Sophie had written on “Man and Technology.” She had written reams on the Renaissance and the scientific breakthrough, the new view of nature and Francis Bacon, who had said that knowledge was power. She had been very careful to point out that the empirical method came before the technological discoveries. Then she had written about some of the things she could think of about technology that were not so good for society. She ended with a paragraph on the fact that everything people do can be used for good or evil. Good and evil are like a white and a black thread that make up a single strand.
Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them.
As the teacher gave out the exercise books he looked down at Sophie and winked.
She got an A and the comment: “Where do you get all this from?” As he stood there, she took out a pen and wrote with block letters in the margin of her exercise book: I’M STUDYING PHILOSOPHY.
As she was closing the exercise book again, something fell out of it. It was a postcard from Lebanon:
Dear Hilde, When you read this we shall already have spoken together by phone about the tragic death down here. Sometimes I ask myself if war could have been avoided if people had been a bit better at thinking. Perhaps the best remedy against violence would be a short course in philosophy. What about “the UN’s little philosophy book”— which all new citizens of the world could be given a copy of in their own language. I’ll propose the idea to the UN General Secretary.
You said on the phone that you were getting better at looking after your things. I’m glad, because you’re the untidiest creature I’ve ever met. Then you said the only thing you’d lost since we last spoke was ten crowns. I’ll do what I can to help you find it. Although I am far away, I have a helping hand back home. (If I find the money I’ll put it in with your birthday present.) Love, Dad, who feels as if he’s already started the long trip home.
