The Gramophone
Yusuf grasped the zinc ingot and fed it into the jaws of the vice, which he tightened. Then he took a long file and set it on top of the ingot. Before he started to burnish it, he turned to me. ‘Do you hear that, Yacoub?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. I stepped over a pile of zinc pieces to glance in the crucible, shimmering from the metal slowly melting in the middle of the blazing furnace.
‘Do you hear it, Yacoub?’ Yusuf repeated. ‘Relax a bit. You’re still young, so don’t overexert yourself. Foreman Hanna’s busy.’ He winked to indicate how busy the foreman was, then extended his thumb and forefinger as if he were holding a glass between them, and raised them to his lips with an expressive gesture. ‘The foreman’s busy,’ he said, ‘and oh how I wish I were with him now! Ah, if
