Sophie had just managed to finish reading the card when the last bell rang. Once again her thoughts were in turmoil.
Joanna was waiting in the playground. On the way home Sophie opened her schoolbag and showed Joanna the latest card.
“When is it postmarked?” asked Joanna.
“Probably June 15 ...”
“No, look ... 5/30/90, it says.”
“That was yesterday ... the day after the death of the major in Lebanon.”
“I doubt if a postcard from Lebanon can get to Norway in one day,” said Joanna.
“Especially not considering the rather unusual address: Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen, Fu-rulia Junior High School...”
“Do you think it could have come by mail? And the teacher just popped it in your exercise book?”
“No idea. I don’t know whether I dare ask either.”
No more was said about the postcard.
“I’m going to have a garden party on Midsummer Eve,” said Sophie.
“With boys?”
Sophie shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t have to invite the worst idiots.”
“But you are going to invite Jeremy?”
“If you want. By the way, I might invite Alberto Knox.”
“You must be crazy!”
“I know.”
That was as far as the conversation got before their ways parted at the supermarket.
The first thing Sophie did when she got home was to see if Hermes was in the garden. Sure enough, there he was, sniffing around the apple trees.
“Hermes!”
The dog stood motionless for a second. Sophie knew exactly what was going on in that second: the dog heard her call, recognized her voice, and decided to see if she was there. Then, discovering her, he began to run toward her. Finally all four legs came pattering like drumsticks.
That was actually quite a lot in the space of one second.
He dashed up to her, wagged his tail wildly, and jumped up to lick her face.
“Hermes, clever boy! Down, down. No, stop slobbering all over me. Heel, boy! That’s it!”
Sophie let herself into the house. Sherekan came jumping out from the bushes. He was rather wary of the stranger. Sophie put his cat food out, poured birdseed in the budgerigars’ cup, got out a salad leaf for the tortoise, and wrote a note to her mother.
She wrote that she was going to take Hermes home and would be back by seven.
They set off through the town. Sophie had remembered to take some money with her this time. She wondered whether she ought to take the bus with Hermes, but decided she had better wait and ask Alberto about it.
While she walked on and on behind Hermes she thought about what an animal really is.
What was the difference between a dog and a person? She recalled Aristotle’s words. He said that people and animals are both natural living creatures with a lot of characteristics in common. But there was one distinct difference between people and animals, and that was human reasoning.
How could he have been so sure?
Democritus, on the other hand, thought people and animals were really rather alike because both were made up of atoms. And he didn’t think that either people or animals had immortal souls. According to him, souls were built up of atoms that are spread to the winds when people die. He was the one who thought a person’s soul was inseparably bound to the brain.
But how could the soul be made of atoms? The soul wasn’t anything you could touch like the rest of the body. It was something “spiritual.”
They were already beyond Main Square and were approaching the Old Town. When they got to the sidewalk where Sophie had found the ten crowns, she looked automatically down at the asphalt. And there, on exactly the same spot where she had bent down and picked up the money, lay a postcard with the picture side up. The picture showed a garden with palms and orange trees.
Sophie bent down and picked up the card. Hermes started growling as if he didn’t like Sophie touching it.
The card read:
Dear Hilde, Life consists of a long chain of coincidences. It is not altogether unlikely that the ten crowns you lost turned up right here. Maybe it was found on the square in Lillesand by an old lady who was waiting for the bus to Kristiansand. From Kris-tiansand she took the train to visit her grandchildren, and many, many hours later she lost the coin here on New Square. It is then perfectly possible that the very same coin was picked up later on that day by a girl who really needed it to get home by bus. You never can tell, Hilde, but if it is truly so, then one must certainly ask whether or not God’s providence is behind everything. Love, Dad, who in spirit is sitting on the dock at home in Lillesand. P.S. I said I would help you find the ten crowns.
On the address side it said: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o a casual passer-by...” The postmark was stamped 6/15/90.
Sophie ran up the stairs after Hermes. As soon as Alberto opened the door, she said:
“Out of my way. Here comes the mailman.”
She felt she had every reason to be annoyed. Alberto stood aside as she barged in. Hermes laid himself down under the coat pegs as before.
“Has the major presented another visiting card, my child?”
Sophie looked up at him and discovered that he was wearing a different costume. He had put on a long curled wig and a wide, baggy suit with a mass of lace. He wore a loud silk scarf at his throat, and on top of the suit he had thrown a red cape. He also wore white stockings and thin patent leather shoes with bows. The whole costume reminded Sophie of pictures she had seen of the court of Louis XIV.
“You clown!” she said and handed him the card.
“Hm ... and you really found ten crowns on the same spot where he planted the card?”
“Exactly.”
“He gets ruder all the time. But maybe it’s just as well.”
“Why?”
“It’ll make it easier to unmask him. But this trick was both pompous and tasteless. It almost stinks of cheap perfume.”
“Perfume?”
“It tries to be elegant but is really a sham. Can’t you see how he has the effrontery to compare his own shabby surveillance of us with God’s providence?”
He held up the card. Then he tore it to pieces. So as not to make his mood worse she refrained from mentioning the card that fell out of her exercise book at school.
“Let’s go in and sit down. What time is it?”
“Four o’clock.”
“And today we are going to talk about the seventeenth century.”
They went into the living room with the sloping walls and the skylight. Sophie noticed that Alberto had put different objects out in place of some of those she had seen last time.
On the coffee table was a small antique casket containing an assorted collection of lenses for eyeglasses. Beside it lay an open book. It looked really old.
“What is that?” Sophie asked.
“It is a first edition of the book of Descartes’s philosophical essays published in 1637 in which his famous Discourse on Method originally appeared, and one of my most treasured possessions.”
“And the casket?”
“It holds an exclusive collection of lenses—or optical glass. They were polished by the Dutch philosopher Spinoza sometime during the mid-1600s. They were extremely costly and are also among my most valued
