“Don’t touch them! Do you hear—don’t you dare touch them!”
Joanna jumped. She threw the box down as if she had burnt herself. The
postcards were strewn all over the floor. The next second she began to laugh.
“They’re only postcards!”
Joanna sat down on the floor and started to pick them up. After a while Sophie
sat down beside her.
“Lebanon ... Lebanon ... Lebanon ... They are all postmarked in Lebanon,”
Joanna discovered.
“I know,” said Sophie.
Joanna sat bolt upright and looked Sophie in the eye.
“So you have been here before!”
“Yes, I guess I have.”
It suddenly struck her that it would have been a whole lot easier if she had just
admitted she had been here before. It couldn’t do any harm if she let her friend in on
the mysterious things she had experienced during the last few days.
“I didn’t want to tell you before we were here.”
Joanna began to read the cards.
“They are all addressed to someone called Hilde Moller Knag.”
Sophie had not touched the cards yet.
“What address?”
Joanna read: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Alberto Knox, Lillesand, Norway.”
Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. She was afraid they would say c/o Sophie
Amundsen.
She began to inspect them more closely.
“April 28 ... May 4 ... May 6 ... May 9 ... They were stamped a few days ago.”
“But there’s something else. All the postmarks are Norwegian! Look at that...
UN Battalion ... the stamps are Norwegian too!”
“I think that’s the way they do it. They have to be sort of neutral, so they have
their own Norwegian post office down there.”
“But how do they get the mail home?”
“The air force, probably.”
Sophie put the candlestick on the floor, and the two friends began to read the
cards. Joanna arranged them in chronological order and read the first card:
Dear Hilde, I can’t wait to come home to Lillesand. I expect to land at Kjevik
airport early evening on Midsummer Eve. I would much rather have arrived in time
for your 15th birthday but I’m under military command of course. To make up for it, I
promise to devote all my loving care to the huge present you are getting for your
birthday.
With love from someone who is always thinking about his daughter’s future.
P.S. I’m sending a copy of this card to our mutual friend. I know you
understand, Hilde. At the moment I’m being very secretive, but you will understand.
Sophie picked up the next card:
Dear Hilde, Down here we take one day at a time. If there is one thing I’m
going to remember from these months in Lebanon, it’s all this waiting. But I’m doing
what I can so you have as great a 15th birthday as possible. I can’t say any more at the
moment. I’m imposing a severe censorship on myself. Love, Dad.
The two friends sat breathless with excitement. Neither of them spoke, they just
read what was written on the cards:
My dear child, What I would like best would be to send you my secret thoughts
with a white dove. But they are all out of white doves in Lebanon. If there is anything