What metaphors are used in Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz?

Kirsha's Café is a metaphor for family breakdown. A dingy, dilapidated square room with arabesque-covered walls, a few couches, and a newly installed secondhand radio, Kirsha's Café is the setting for much of Midaq Alley. Kirsha normally tends the till, mellow on hashish, while Sanker the waiter is kept busy. Every evening after work patrons file in, smoke water pipes, drink coffee or tea, joke, philosophize, argue, and debate. The owner and his wife openly fight. When the café closes around midnight, Kirsha goes off to hashish parties on the roofs or sexual encounters elsewhere. His son, Hussain, does not want to take over the operation.