In a workshop no bigger than a closet, Abdelkarim guards a dying art. His needles are older than your grandfather, his leather softened with centuries-old techniques. The real treasure? His stash of vintage Moroccan wallpaper—floral French prints from the 1920s—that he uses to line secret compartments. Tourists commission fake antique journals; locals bring him family Qurans needing resurrection. But his masterpiece is hidden under the floorboards: a 15th-century Andalusian poetry collection, rebound with gazelle skin and stitched with threads pulled from a bride’s wedding dress. “Every book has a soul,” he says, tapping his shears in time to the muezzin’s call. “My job is just to keep it breathing.”
