"George Alec Effinger - Schrodingers Kitten" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

The clean crescent moon that began the new month hung in the
western sky across from the alley. Jehan was barely twelve years old, too
young to wear the veil, but she did so anyway. She had never before
been out so late alone. She heard the sounds of celebration far away, the
three-day festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Two
voices sang drunkenly as they passed the alley; two others loudly and
angrily disputed the price of some honey cakes. The laughter and the
shouting came to Jehan as if from another world. In the past, she'd
always loved the festival of Îd-el-Fitr; she took no part in the festivities
now, though, and it seemed somehow odd to her that anyone else still
could. Soon she gave it all no more of her attention. This year she must
keep a meeting more important than any holiday. She sighed, shrugging:
The festival would come around again next year. Tonight, with only the
silver moon for company, she shivered in her blue-black robe.


3
 Schrödinger's Kitten
by George Alec Effinger



Jehan Fatima Ashûfi stepped back a few feet deeper into the alley,
farther out of the light. All along the street, people who would otherwise
never be seen in this quarter were determinedly amusing themselves.
Jehan shivered again and waited. The moment she longed for would come
at dawn. Even now the sky was just dark enough to reveal the moon and
the first impetuous stars. In the Islamic world, night began when one
could no longer distinguish a white thread from a black one; it was not
yet night. Jehan clutched her robe closely to her with her left hand. In her
right hand, hidden by her long sleeve, was the keen-edged, gleaming,
curved blade she had taken from her father's room.
She was hungry and wished she had money to buy something to eat,
but she had none. In the Budayeen there were many girls her age who
already had ways of getting money of their own; Jehan was not one of
them. She glanced about and saw only the filth-strewn, damp, and
muddy paving stones. The reek of the alley disgusted her. She was bored
and lonely and afraid. Then, as if her whole sordid world suddenly
dissolved into something else, something wholly foreign, she saw more.

****
4
 Schrödinger's Kitten
by George Alec Effinger



Jehan Ashûfi was twenty-six years old. She was dressed in a