longer. Everything is synthetic nowadays.”
They spent the afternoon and evening preparing. They continued the
next morning, setting and decorating the table. Joanna came over to give
them a hand.
“Good grief!” she said, “Mom and Dad are coming too. It’s your fault,
Sophie!”
Everything was ready half an hour before the guests were due. The
trees were festooned with streamers and Japanese lanterns. The garden
gate, the trees lining the path, and the front of the house were hung with
balloons. Sophie and Joanna had spent most of the afternoon blowing them
up.
The table was set with chicken, salad, and different kinds of homemade
bread. In the kitchen there were raisin buns and layer cake, Danish pastry and
chocolate cake. But from the start the place of honor in the center of the table
was reserved for the birthday cake—a pyramid of almond-paste rings. On the
top of the cake was the tiny figure of a girl in a confirmation dress. Sophie’s
mother had assured her that it could just as well represent an unconfirmed
fifteen-year-old, but Sophie was certain her mother had only put it there
because Sophie had told her she was not sure she wanted to be confirmed.
Her mother seemed to think the cake embodied the confirmation itself.
“We haven’t spared any expense,” she repeated several times in the half
hour before the party was due to start.
The guests began to arrive. First came three of the girls from Sophie’s
class, dressed in summer shirts and light cardigans, long skirts, and the
barest suggestion of eye makeup. A bit later, Jeremy and David came strolling
in through the gate, with a blend of shyness and boyish arrogance.
“Happy birthday!”
“You’re an adult now, too!”
Sophie noticed that Joanna and Jeremy had already begun eyeing each
other discreetly. There was something in the air. It was Midsummer Eve.
Everybody had brought birthday presents, and as it was a philosophical
garden party, several of the guests had tried to find out what philosophy was.
Although not all of them had managed to find philosophical presents, most of
them had written something philosophical on their cards. Sophie received a
philosophical dictionary as well as a diary with a lock; on the cover was written
MY PERSONAL PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS. As the guests arrived they
were served apple juice in long-stemmed wine glasses. Sophie’s mother did
the serving.
“Welcome ... And what is this young man’s name? I don’t believe we’ve
met before ... So glad you could come, Cecilie . . .”
When all the younger guests had arrived and were strolling under the
trees with their wine glasses, Joanna’s parents drew up at the garden gate in
a white Mercedes. The financial adviser was impeccably dressed in an ex-
pensively cut gray suit. His wife was wearing a red pants suit with dark red
sequins. Sophie was sure she had bought a Barbie doll in a toy store dressed
in that suit, and had a tailor make it up in her size. There was another
possibility; the financial adviser could have bought the doll and given it to a
magician to make into a live woman. But this possibility was unlikely, so
Sophie rejected it.
They stepped out of the Mercedes and walked into the garden where