The stationer’s in Oaxaca where I bought my Ideal notebooks today is called El Águila. The Eagle. It’s on Calle Morelos and there’s a lovely little old lady behind the counter who’s had the shop for sixty years. Her daughter was there, too. An attentive woman in her early forties, with a crucifix hanging from a thin gold chain. I started talking to her. She patiently showed me various notebooks, and although I didn’t find one identical to mine – the cuicuitzcatl – I bought four with black covers, in different sizes. Since they didn’t have the kind I was looking for, we ended up having a discussion about notebooks. The old lady got involved: ‘These notebooks are all very good quality, you see. They’re hand-sewn, the way people used to make them in my day. That’s why I buy them. But there was a time, miss, when I couldn’t get hold of them: the owners died and the kids didn’t keep the business going. Up in Mexico State, that’s where the family are with their bookbinding workshop. Now the grandchildren have taken it up again and I put in an order every six months. But they’re not like other brands, ones with big factories that can handle all the orders from offices and schools and what have you. No, miss, not at all. For instance, a fellow who works in the council came in here wanting some leather folders, the kind I get from a man who lives in the Isthmus, up in the hills. He was after a hundred folders to give to his whole office at Christmas. And, well, that’s not how it works, is it? I’ve got five folders because they’re the five folders the man can make: he makes them by hand. You see what I mean, people think you can get hold of anything just like that, that everything’s done on modern machines, that people make lots of the same thing, but there are still little family-run bookbinding workshops or people who make five folders in half a year. But the Ideal notebooks aren’t like the big notebook factories. That’s why I don’t have the red notebooks you’re after, miss, now I only have the black ones. Like I say, I couldn’t get hold of any for a while, and it took me years to get back in touch through the grandchildren; the children wanted nothing to do with it. Who knows what the children are up to and why they aren’t keen on their father’s bookbinding business – and him such a kind, hard-working man. But the grandchildren took it up again. Honestly, that makes me think maybe my grandchildren love me more than my children do. But then, you never know. Still, that’s the thing: grandchildren are like that, they’re easier to mould, they stay closer to you, they love you more, isn’t that right? And they’re the ones who keep making the notebooks like they made them in my day: top-quality. Look, they’re sewn, the edges are tinted with red, the pages are nice and thick. You could write in fountain pen without it going through to the other side. But people nowadays don’t think about that stuff. They don’t look at what they buy. Isn’t it true, miss, that the Ideal notebooks are very good? Now, listen, every year I get Christmas presents made for my lifelong clients. Do you smoke? Not any more? I’ve never smoked, but so you can put some sweets in your living room I’m going to give you this black pottery ashtray I had made with the name of my shop on it. Just a moment. Here you go, isn’t it lovely? Made here in Oaxaca. It’s for you.’