In summertime Cairo, air conditioned shops are as often frequented for refreshment as purchases. So it was I stopped at my neighbourhood stationery shop on the last leg of a walk home and enjoyed a strange encounter. The store belongs to Ramez, a tri-lingual, Christian male of around 35. Moustachioed, pear-shaped, with lustrous dark eyes and hair parted neatly on the side, he still wears the kind of button-down shirts and belted high-waist pants his mother probably dressed him in for school.
When he opened a few years ago, I was excited to see his stock (including real post-it notes, not the Chinese kind that never stick), all the finicky things desk-bound people love. He was anxious to show off his English, which prompted me to show off my French. Once, we locked horns over a faulty printer cartridge that I, as a faithful early client, felt he should have replaced. So I boycotted him for a while until his selection of mechanical pencils and neon highlighters lured me back. Eventually, we made friends.
