The Armenian-English dictionary screamed ‘Buy me! Buy me!' No sooner had I picked it up off the top of a little pile, I found its companion, an English-Armenian dictionary, also clamouring to become one of my purchases. And the Spanish dictionary, too, was another candidate. A third reading of ‘Cien Anos de Soledad' (One Hundred Years of Solitude) will not feel like savouring cordon bleu cookery with a streaming head cold. As for the copy of ‘How To Be A Fantastic Teacher', it had no price, as did none of the books in this section, but one was persuaded that this little tome would be a welcome addition to one's ever-growing library. So off, I sauntered triumphantly to the table on which there was a computer and behind which there were three men, of whom one was manipulating the machine for a customer. The second fellow was running the laser scanner over the bar code on the customer's book. The machine ‘peeped' plaintive refusal to process the input. The third man chatted idly to an acquaintance about nothing much. Meanwhile, the customer waited...and waited...and waited, until, finally, fingers trotted over the keyboard, whereafter money changed hands and the customer left, squeezing himself between me and the ‘check-out' table. A large-beamed man thrust his way between your narrator and the ‘check-out' without apology for his bulk or gruff manner. He pulled a volume as bulky as himself on ophthalmology off a nearby shelf and demanded to know how much it was. The man with the laser reader grabbed the book. The machine had no comment to make except ‘peep!' a few times. ‘How much is this?' the laser reader man asked on his colleague, who was still chewing the fat with a mate on the other side of the table. The first man repeated his question. The chatter looked to the questioner and asked for a second repetition. ‘Doesn't it go through the machine?' the chatter asked. After a minute or so, the Three Wise Men reached a consensus on the price of the ophthalmology handbook: LE215. The prospective buyer let the book fall on the tin ‘check-out' desk with an aggressive thud and stormed off, again forcing himself between myself and the ‘check-out' and stepping on my foot. No apologies. Not even did the Magi behind the ‘check-out' rustle up some kind of ‘sorry' for the failed transaction. Well, it is only two-hundred quid's worth of business, isn't it? Five of them would pay someone's salary, wouldn't it? There'll be someone else asking for a book on ophthalmology, won't there? One born every minute, isn't there? Indeed, prices in numbers might have been useful, raising the question: Which do you buy, the book or the price? It depends on how desperate one is to possess such an article as an Armenian-English dictionary, of which the price I was ignorant, and, to my astonishment, bore no bar code. ‘How much is this?' the laser reader man asked. ‘No good asking me, Sunshine,' I replied. ‘'S got no bar code,' he whined to no one in particular. A colleague came to the rescue. ‘Twenty-one pounds fifty.' ‘Yeah, twenty-one pounds fifty,' he said, echoing Magus 2. Sounds plausible, I thought. Now for the big stuff. ‘That one there,' Magus 1 said, indicating the ‘How To Be A Fantastic Armenian Language Teacher' book – I have altered the title because in the time that this trio had worked out the price with the help of electronic wizardry and stock taking, I could have whipped up such a title. ‘That's LE215.' Inwardly, I spluttered at the amount, which so happened to be 100 times the price of the Armenian-English dictionary and its opposite. I told the Magi I had changed my mind about being a fantastic teacher of bar code technology in Armenian. Now it was the turn of the Spanish dictionary, which was about to undergo electronic scrutiny. The system refused it. The chatting Magus interrupted his dialogue. ‘Yeah, twenty-one pounds fifty,' he said perfunctorily. Aha! Genius! The Magi priced books according to the formula 2.15 times 10 to the power of n, where n is an element of the set of positive integers greater than zero. I love the Book Fair. Despite the disappointingly low number of visitors during the weekend following the opening, the 44th Cairo Book Fair was well patronised on its first Sunday. The big three publishing houses were all there in their splendour with huge selections of publications in Arabic and English. The Al-Ahram pavilion was bewildering, not only because of its displays of books on every conceivable subject, but also because of it labyrinthine layout. Perhaps this was another ruse of sales psychology: as you try to find your way out and you have passed the pediatrics section for the fourth time, something may take your fancy and you will buy, buy, buy. Out of sheer optimism, I felt impelled to visit the pavilion where they seem to trot out the same unsold publications and alter the prices, which are hastily pencilled inside the back cover, hence no one is to be technologically hamstrung with barcodes. Besides, if the article does not sell one year, bump the price up the next. There, I found a dusty, slightly dog-eared history of the English language with a suitably altered price. By the time someone buys it, no one will understand it because modern English language will have evolved into an intelligible form. Amid the unrest, expressions of anger, frustration and impatience, it seems evident that the organisers are telling Egyptians that the show must go on, just as the daily ‘show must go on' as people go about their business, earning a living and educating their children. Keep up the good work. Meanwhile, never mind the Spanish dictionary; one is sure to find a copy of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude' in Arabic – at the Book Fair, of course.
