entitled “The Garden of Eden.” She got into bed, sat up comfortably, resting the ring
binder against her knees, and began to read.
Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked
the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots.
Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. Sophie was
not certain she agreed. Surely a person was more than a piece of hardware?
Hilde read on, oblivious of all else, even forgetting that it was her birthday.
From time to time a brief thought crept in between the lines as she read: Had Dad
written a book? Had he finally begun on the significant novel and completed it in
Lebanon? He had often complained that time hung heavily on one’s hands in that part
of the world.
Sophie’s father was far from home, too. She was probably the girl Hilde would
be getting to know ...
Only by conjuring up an intense feeling of one day being dead could she
appreciate how terribly good life was... . Where does the world come from? ...
At some point something must have come from nothing. But was that
possible? Wasn’t that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always
existed?
Hilde read on and on. With surprise, she read about Sophie Amundsen receiving
a postcard from Lebanon: “Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover
Close...”
Dear Hilde, Happy 15th birthday. As I’m sure you’ll understand, I want to
give you a present that will help you grow. Forgive me for sending the card c/o
Sophie. It was the easiest way. Love from Dad.
The joker! Hilde knew her father had always been a sly one, but today he had
really taken her by surprise! Instead of tying the card on the package, he had written it
into the book.
But poor Sophie! She must have been totally confused!
Why would a father send a birthday card to Sophie’s address when it
was quite obviously intended to go somewhere else? What kind of father
would cheat his own daughter of a birthday card by purposely sending it
astray? How could it be “the easiest way”? And above all, how was she
supposed to trace this Hilde person?
No, how could she?
Hilde turned a couple of pages and began to read the second chapter, “The Top
Hat.” She soon came to the long letter which a mysterious person had written to So-
phie.
Being interested in why we are here is not a “casual” interest like
collecting stamps. People who ask such questions are taking part in a debate
that has gone on as long as man has lived on this planet.
“Sophie was completely exhausted.” So was Hilde. Not only had Dad written a
book for her fifteenth birthday, he had written a strange and wonderful book.
To summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it
is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals
are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to
wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work
themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay . . .
Sophie was not the only one who felt she had been on the point of finding
herself a comfortable place deep down in the rabbit’s fur. Today was Hilde’s fifteenth
birthday, and she had the feeling it was time to decide which way she would choose to