The Last Jew of Kabul

Chapter 2

"The Most Beautiful Room in the World"

“The rectangular room ran the whole length of the courtyard outside, but was only half as wide. The whole floor was covered from wall to wall with worn, burgundy Persian carpets; rich and welcoming. Yet their different shades and patterns were completely lost in the extravagance of the whole room. Two parallel rows of pillars ran down the length of the room, each one moulding with the exquisite ceiling in a clever architectural puzzle. The lower half of each pillar was round, with simple spiral patterns carved all the way up to the half way point, where the pillars magically metamorphosed into a quadrate, at which point the tiling started. Beige, with patterns of blue and black, the tiles themselves were magnificent. But it was the low ceiling that was the true jewel. Another myriad of patterns and colours, tiled to perfection in small alcoves created by each quartet of pillars, ran the whole length of the room, far outdoing the amazing tiling that I had so admired outside, just minutes previously. The walls to my right were thankfully plain stone, while to my left, the brightness of the outside courtyard was revealed, shown through a long line of[…]”

Excerpt From: Jamie.B Ernstein. “The Last Jew of Kabul.”