Читать книгу My Father's Notebook - Kader Abdolah - Страница 4
ОглавлениеAnd so it went until the men of Kahaf finally sought refuge in the cave. “Grant us Thy mercy,” they said.
In that cave We covered their ears and their eyes for years.
And when the sun came up, the men saw it rise to the right of the cave. And when the sun went down, the men saw it set to the left, while they were in the space in between.
They thought they were awake, but they were asleep.
And We turned them to the right and to the left.
Some said, “There were three of them, and a fourth watched over them.”
Others, hazarding a guess, said, “There were five of them, and a sixth watched over them.”
And there were those who said, “There were seven of them.” No one knew.
We woke them, so that they might question one another.
One of them spoke: “We have been here for a day or part of a day.” Another said: “Allah alone knows how long we have been here. It would be best to send one of us to the city with this silver coin. We must be careful. If they find out who we are, they will stone us.”
Jemiliga then left the cave with the silver coin in the palm of his hand.
When he reached the city, he saw that everything had changed and that he did not understand the language.
They had slept in the cave for three hundred years and did not even know it. And some say there were nine more.
This was God’s word, God’s story. And “The Cave” was one of the stories in the Holy Book in Aga Akbar’s house.
We have started with His word before trying to decipher Aga Akbar’s secret notebook.
There are two of us, Ishmael and I. I’m the omniscient narrator. Ishmael is the son of Aga Akbar, who was a deaf-mute.
Even though I’m omniscient, I can’t read Aga Akbar’s notes, so I’m going to tell the story up to Ishmael’s birth, then leave the rest to him. But I’ll come back again at the end, because Ishmael can’t decipher the last part of his father’s notebook.
