summer dress. She was not unlike Joanna.
Sophie tried to talk to her even though she knew it was useless.
“Hilde—it’s Sophie!”
Hilde gave no sign that she had heard.
Sophie got onto her knees and tried to shout in her ear:
“Can you hear me, Hilde? Or are you both deaf and blind?”
Did she, or didn’t she, open her eyes a little wider? Wasn’t there a very slight sign that she had heard something—however faintly?
She looked around. Then she turned her head sharply and stared right into Sophie’s eyes. She did not focus on her properly; it was as if she was looking right through her.
“Not so loud, Sophie,” said Alberto from up in the car. “I don’t want the garden filled with mermaids.”
Sophie sat still now. It felt good just to be close to Hilde.
Then she heard the deep voice of a man: “Hilde!”
It was the major—in uniform, with a blue beret. He stood at the top of the garden.
Hilde jumped up and ran toward him. They met between the glider and the red convertible. He lifted her up in the air and swung her around and around.
Hilde had been sitting on the dock waiting for her father. Since he had landed at Kastrup, she had thought of him every fifteen minutes, trying to imagine where he was now, and how he was taking it. She had noted all the times down on a slip of paper and kept it with her all day.
What if it made him angry? But surely he couldn’t expect that he would write a mysterious book for her— and then everything would remain as before?
She looked at her watch again. Now it was a quarter past ten. He could be arriving any minute.
But what was that? She thought she heard a faint breath of something, exactly as in her dream about Sophie.
She turned around quickly. There was something, she was sure of it. But what?
Maybe it was only the summer night.
For a few seconds she was afraid she was hearing things.
“Hilde!”
Now she turned the other way. It was Dad! He was standing at the top of the garden.
Hilde jumped up and ran toward him. They met by the glider. He lifted her up in the air and swung her around and around.
Hilde was crying, and her father had to hold back his tears as well.
“You’ve become a grown woman, Hilde!”
“And you’ve become a real writer.”
Hilde wiped away her tears.
“Shall we say we’re quits?” she asked.
“We’re quits.”
They sat down at the table. First of all Hilde had to have an exact description of everything that had happened at Kastrup and on the way home. They kept bursting out laughing.
“Didn’t you see the envelope in the cafeteria?”
“I didn’t get a chance to sit down and eat anything, you villain. Now I’m ravenous.”
“Poor Dad.”
“The stuff about the turkey was all bluff, then?”
“It certainly was not! I have prepared everything. Mom’s doing the serving.”
Then they had to go over the ring binder and the story of Sophie and Alberto from one end to the other and backwards and forwards.
Mom brought out the turkey and the Waldorf salad, the rose wine and Hilde’s homemade bread.
Her father was just saying something about Plato when Hilde suddenly interrupted him: “Shh!”
“What is it?”
“Didn’t you hear it? Something squeaking?”
“No.”
“I’m sure I heard something. I guess it was just a field mouse.”
While her mother went to get another bottle of wine, her father said: “But the philosophy course isn’t quite over.”
“It isn’t?”
“Tonight I’m going to tell you about the universe.”
Before they began to eat, he said to his wife, “Hilde is too big to sit on my knee any more. But you’re not!” With that he caught Marit round the waist and drew her onto his lap. It was quite a while before she got anything to eat.
“To think you’ll soon be forty ...”
When Hilde jumped up and ran toward her father, Sophie felt her tears welling up. She would never be able to reach her . . .
Sophie was deeply envious of Hilde because she had been created a real person of flesh and blood.
When Hilde and the major had sat down at the table, Alberto honked the car horn.
Sophie looked up. Didn’t Hilde do exactly the same?
She ran up to Alberto and jumped into the seat next to him.
“We’ll sit for a while and watch what happens,” he said.
Sophie nodded.
“Have you been crying?”
She nodded again.
“What is it?”
“She’s so lucky to be a real person. Now she’ll grow up and be a real woman. I’m sure she’ll have real children too . . .”
“And grandchildren, Sophie. But there are two sides to everything. That was what I tried to teach you at the beginning of our course.”
“How do you mean?”
“She is lucky, I agree. But she who wins the lot of life must also draw the lot of death, since the lot of life is death.”
“But still, isn’t it better to have had a life than never to have really lived?”
“We cannot live a life like Hilde—or like the major for that matter. On the other hand, we’ll never die. Don’t you remember what the old woman said back there in the woods? We are the invisible people. She was two hundred years old, she said. And at their Midsummer party I saw some creatures who were more than three thousand years old . . .”
“Perhaps what I envy most about Hilde is all this ... her family life.”
“But you have a family yourself. And you have a cat, two birds, and a tortoise.”
“But we left all that behind, didn’t we?”
“By no means. It’s only the major who left it behind. He has written the final word of his book, my dear, and he will never find us again.”
“Does that mean we can go back?”
“Anytime we want. But we’re also going to make new friends in the woods behind Cinderella’s cafeteria.”
The Knag family began their meal. For a moment Sophie was afraid it would turn out like the philosophical garden party in Clover Close. At one point it looked as though the major intended to lay Marit across the table. But then he drew her on to his knee instead.
The car was parked a good way away from where the family sat eating. Their conversation was only audible now and then. Sophie and Alberto sat gazing down over the garden. They had plenty of time to mull over all the details and the sorry ending of the garden party.
The family did not get up from the table until almost midnight. Hilde and the major strolled toward the glider. They waved to Marit as she walked up to the white-painted house.
