Alastair Macleod 
The Ebonist 

’At dawn my father rose, washed and said his prayers. I too.

When we had dressed we ate pitta. He drank black coffee, I pomegranate juice. My mother said it killed all the bugs that Cairo was infested with. Then we went through the bead curtain.

Here was the workshop. It smelt of cedar wood and oils and turpentine. Above us, and pale, like long dried flat stalks of papyrus grass, strips of wood hung in frames fixed to the beams. There was a bench against the wall with a wooden vice to hold the wood. On the wall hung fret saws and wood saws, ancient yet showing the signs of constant use.’