Pet hate number 43: The look of utter puzzlement on the face of a shop assistant on being asked if an article is available. This person should know, for goodness' sake. He works in this flaming shop, doesn't he? Whether this person is ‘new' or not is a matter of sheer indifference to me. Such a facial expression makes one want to grab that person by the shoulders and shake him to confirm that he is a human being and not a stuffed dummy, wasting time behind a counter and treating prospective customers as if they were nuisances. Well, none of that in Khan el-Khalili, where salespeople are almost falling over themselves to attract your attention and make a sale or four. The men in the silver jewellery shop were extremely helpful when I asked to look at a pair of ‘khulkhaal', heavy anklets that were worn by women three or four generations ago and pictured in Nayra Atiya's 1982 book ‘Khul-Khaal'. The gents in the shop who showed me several styles of these ornaments obviously knew their business. One pair of anklets felt particularly heavy. They were not costume jewellery; this was serious stuff, as serious as the plight of most traders in this tourist-oriented market. Thirty years ago, the bazaar was an unofficial international currency exchange facility. If you had no intention of eyeing a bargain for the people back home, offers of ‘good rates' were plentiful. ‘You want change? You want dollar?' was on the lips of most traders who could make a killing on bucks and sterling long before your feet are killing you after traipsing through narrow alleyways and allowing your senses to be bombarded by garish colours and haunting fragrances. Nowadays, the picture is less optimistic. Tradespeople invite you with a subdued ‘itfaDDal' and a slight sweep of the hand by way of invitation. In the current economic climate, and particularly due to the absence of Western tourists, these guys are desperate for your custom, and one feels a tinge of regret for not casting more than a glance at their wares. One earnest-looking middle-aged couple was being shepherded around by a tour guide, whose speech consisted of conditional sentences of the pattern ‘If you want...you can'. Of course, he is working hard for a generous tip. Less generous with their time was another couple who, on being approached by this writer, said in an accent perfected by Dutch and Flemish newsreaders, that they had ‘lost their guide' and were ‘in a hurry'. That is one guide whose remuneration would unlikely be hefty. Meanwhile, the usual paraphernalia were there: T-shirts proclaiming the rebus statement, i.e. with the heart between ‘I' and ‘Egypt', postcards and papyri bearing pictures of the Sphinx and Pyramids, alabaster models of the same monuments, and a bizarre infiltrator: a cloth bag with the ‘Oom' symbol. The leathern camels of various sizes (tiny, small, medium, living-room) with accoutrements of different colours stand on shelves awaited buyers. The wafts of cumin and the sweet, almost sickly fragrance of frankincense made their presence felt on my sense of smell, recently impaired by a streaming cold. Turkish slippers, silver and pewter chandeliers, chess sets of which the black pieces are dark brown as they are stained with lashings of black tea (minus the sugar, otherwise the kids will be licking them on the quiet). Glittering spangled belly dancer costumes in garish fuchsia and lemon yellow swayed seductively in the midday breeze and the mock metal coins tinkled. Yet no rustle of real paper money to buy them. The sheer cleanliness of the bazaar is striking, after wading through string, cardboard and ploythene strewn on the pavements between Ataba and the precinct of the Hussein Mosque. The entrances are barricaded such that one person at a time can enter under police scrutiny. One wonders how the scooters and motorbikes eerking and beeping their way along narrow alleys gained access. One narrow passage way sported a speed bump. Maybe, it was a hump of cement covering up a badly laid conduit across the road. An Opel Vectra nosed its way through pedestrians past one T-junction. If you are not being ‘eerked' or beeped at, someone hisses at you from behind, because they are wheeling a hand truck or trolley. Better than repeating ‘Mind yer backs!' every few feet. I followed one ‘hisser' along a street that grew narrower every ten yards, due to the fact that traders competed for attention by taking up more square feet of walkway with wares from China – it says so [Zhong guo zao zhi] in utilitarian characters on the packaging of most household appliances and utensils, including egg whisks, carving knives and mug trees, which are hardly the kind of items one would gift bemused friends and relatives back home. “I must show you our Valery got for us all the way from Cairo last summer?" the hostess says, her hands almost clapping with gleeful anticipation of her friend's rapture. ‘Fridge magnets in the shape of fruit and vegetables?' remarks puzzled friend on whose face there is not a single wrinkle of rapture. “Ooh, yes, but the man in the shop told our Valery that the pharaohs used to put them on their fridges all them thousands of years ago," hostess explains. “Did they have magnets in their days, then?" incredulous friend asks. “Ooh yes, the man in the shop said the ancient Egyptians knew a lot more than they let on, y'know." “Hm. The man in the shops sounds like a regular Egyptologist, doesn't he?" Also hailing from China is ‘Sticky Boy', a five-centimetre tall plastic figure with suckers on the ends of its hands and legs, of which the purpose is completely unknown. As for the ‘Family Card Game!' [sic] called ‘CNUNO', brought from the Far East, no one knows anything, except that it can be played by between two and 10 players, aged between 7 and adult. However, deducing how this game is played should not be as hard as devising means of luring back the tourists and enabling all Egyptians to benefit from the revenue.
