Alberto read it and shook his head.
“He gets more and more audacious. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t using us
as a kind of birthday diversion for his daughter.”
With that he tore the postcard into small pieces and threw them into the
wastepaper basket.
“It said that Hilde has lost her crucifix,” said Sophie.
“So I read.”
“And I found it, the same one, under my pillow at home. Can you understand
how it got there?”
Alberto looked gravely into her eyes.
“It may seem alluring. But it’s just a cheap trick that costs him no effort
whatsoever. Let us rather concentrate on the big white rabbit that is pulled out of the
universe’s top hat.”
They went into the living room. It was one of the most extraordinary rooms
Sophie had ever seen.
Alberto lived in a spacious attic apartment with sloping walls. A sharp light
directly from the sky flooded the room from a skylight set into one of the walls. There
was also another window facing the town. Through this window Sophie could look
over all the roofs in the Old Town.
But what amazed Sophie most was all the stuff the room was filled with—
furniture and objects from various historical periods. There was a sofa from the
thirties, an old desk from the beginning of the century, and a chair that had to be
hundreds of years old. But it wasn’t just the furniture. Old objects, either useful or
decorative, were jumbled together on shelves and cupboards. There were old clocks
and vases, mortars and retorts, knives and dolls, quill pens and bookends, octants and
sextants, compasses and barometers. One entire wall was covered with books, but not
the sort of books found in most bookstores. The book collection itself was a cross
section of the production of many hundreds of years. On the other walls hung
drawings and paintings, some from recent decades, but most of them also very old.
There were a lot of old charts and maps on the walls too, and as far as Norway was
concerned, they were not very accurate.
Sophie stood for several minutes without speaking and took everything in.
“What a lot of old junk you’ve collected,” she said.
“Now then! Just think of how many centuries of history I have preserved in this
room. I wouldn’t exactly call it junk.”
“Do you manage an antique shop or something?”
Alberto looked almost pained.
“We can’t all let ourselves be washed away by the tide of history, Sophie. Some
of us must tarry in order to gather up what has been left along the river banks.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
“Yes, but none the less true, child. We do not live in our own time alone; we
carry our history within us. Don’t forget that everything you see in this room was
once brand new. That old sixteenth-century wooden doll might have been made for a
five-year-old girl’s birthday. By her old grandfather, maybe... then she became a
teenager, then an adult, and then she married. Maybe she had a daughter of her own
and gave the doll to her. She grew old, and one day she died. Although she had lived
for a very long time, one day she was dead and gone. And she will never return.
Actually she was only here for a short visit. But her doll—well, there it is on the
shelf.”
“Everything sounds so sad and solemn when you talk like that.”