The window that did not change

Field note, the first Friday of November.

On a mall's ground floor in Jeddah or Riyadh after the prayer, when the families arrive, every window says the same thing. A percentage. Usually the same percentage, in the same red, with the licence number printed small at the bottom because the Ministry asks for it.

Once the whole floor is at forty per cent, forty per cent means nothing. The number was meant to separate one shop from the next and it has become wallpaper. A family walking past reads the corridor as one long sale and stops, if it stops, for some other reason: the display, the children's rail, the cousin who mentioned the name.

So the window I look for is the one that did not change.

There are one or two on every floor. No sticker, no licence poster, the same mannequins as October, the price still on the tag. Sometimes a jeweller, sometimes an abaya house, sometimes a shop with one product and a small queue for it. It looks as though the shop forgot.

It did not forget. That window is the only one on the floor making a claim. It is saying what the shop thinks it is worth, and who it thinks it is for: someone who was not waiting for a percentage, and who would be slightly put off by one.

Every other window is talking to everyone. This one has chosen a person, and it is prepared to let the rest of the corridor walk past.

On a Friday, with the corridor at its fullest, that is the loudest thing on the floor.