Liturgy
Previously: In Zurich, the writer has just asked Tarmo to infiltrate the old powers for her. He has answered with a joke that cuts.前情提要: 在苏黎世，作家刚刚请塔尔莫替她潜入旧势力内部。他用一句带刺的玩笑作答。
“Before we do anything else, we celebrate Christmas. Properly.”
Not Logistics. Liturgy.
She speaks, and the war room becomes something else. Send the jet to Tangier. Pick up the London lot on the way back. I want everyone under this roof. Tarmo’s brows lift just enough to register what this is. Empires have been moved for less.
The Housekeeper from Heidi
The house has a housekeeper who could be Fräulein Rottenmeier’s double: tight sleeves, no smile, spine like a ruler. Rottenmeier is the governess who torments Heidi in Johanna Spyri’s Swiss classic. This one is ordered to make the house look as if it has heard of warmth at least once in its history.
冬至大如年
Christmas falls in solstice week, the darkest days, when the sun hits bottom and turns. In China, 冬至大如年: the winter solstice is as big as New Year. Families gather, and the north eats dumplings while the south eats tangyuan. Every culture lights something against the longest night. Zurich does it with surgical devotion.
A Pen Upstairs
Alone in a bedroom that smells of strangers’ sleep, the writer opens her notebook and uncaps the Montblanc. Below her the city glitters, a clockwork nativity of money and frost.
“If you’ve made it out of my pages, then tonight I write the version of you that can be ruled by Christmas dinner. Not Uruk nor Ragnarök.”
Lost in my brain labyrinth? Start with the compass →
在我的脑内迷宫里迷路了？从指南针开始 →
© 2026 I.Ph. de Lange. All rights reserved. Published by CYcrds OÜ.
