Читать книгу Puzzled - Seraphima Bogomolova - Страница 10

London, UK, 24 December

Savouring another piece of pudding, I think how lucky I am. If it were not for Nicolas, I’d sit here all alone, stuffing myself with the Mum’s cook culinary work of art.

I hear the deep resonating sounds of the church clock striking midnight.

‘It’s late. Fancy staying over?’ I say to Nicolas, stretched out on the sofa before the fireplace.

He nods.

I make his bed in a guest room, hand him a towel and, wishing him goodnight, go back to the living room. Blowing candles off, I come to the window and look out. The Edwardian house is now enveloped in darkness. The inhabitants must have gone to bed already. In the dimness of the room, broken by the glinting of the Christmas lights, I peer out into the night and think of him again.

Months have passed since our ‘date’, but I’m still perplexed in regard to why he stood me up. After all, it was he who had arranged the rendezvous.

The answer must be dead simple, staring me in the eye. But with so much time spent trying to figure it out, I still don’t see it.

After the ‘date’, he wrote a rather strange email to me, mentioning ‘The Number of The Beast’, and then disappeared into nowhere as quickly as he appeared from somewhere. What does this number have to do with our date anyway? Suppose, it refers to some biblical apocalyptical beast, suppose, it even identifies the Antichrist, and what?

Anyway, why does it still bother me so much?

The church clock strikes the hour. The midnight mess over, devoted parishioners are flocking out of the church onto the street.

I watch snowflakes dance in the dim light of street-lamps for a little while then come to my Christmas tree. Taking the present Nicolas has brought me, I look at it, tempting myself. ‘I could open it right now’, I think. The Christmas Day has already arrived. But then I change my mind. What am I? A kid? Surely, I can wait till breakfast. I put the present back under the tree and walk out of the room.