“A little package wrapped in gold paper? With a small bow?”

“Yes, yes!”

“No, you didn’t leave it here,” said the girl firmly. “I’d have found it and, as we always do in such cases, I’d have returned it to the customer who left it . . . Now let me ask you something. What are you doing for Christmas Eve when you are so obviously feeling lonely. Is there a way of disappearing unnoticed from this world?”

The young man looked at her in astonishment. Her eyelashes were beating against her eyebrows causing havoc up there. From her eyes you could see that eternity is asymmetrical. He asked her, “Did you have a daughter once? A long time ago? Years and years ago?”

“Ah, you mean four thousand years ago? Perhaps I did. But I don’t have one now. And that’s why I spend my Christmasses alone. Would you like to come to my place for Christmas Eve and look after her for me?”

“Look after who?”

“Why, the daughter I don’t have. Here’s my address.”

“I’d like that,” the young man said. He kissed the salesgirl on the ear and turned to go. He stopped at the door and added, “ I know her name.”

“Whose name?”

“The name of the daughter you don’t have, of course! She was called Neferure.”