It felt as though Marika’s love wasn’t enough for him, and the fact that he’d started to love the city - in his own way - didn’t make him any less miserable. Abbas Square was the centre and his starting point, with the Ismailia canal to his right, the railway fence to his left, Karnak Street behind him, and Sultan Hussein Street and the foreigners’ neighbourhood ahead. That was the realm of his explorations and his ‘getting lost’. This was then the territory he covered - a large square perimeter enclosing smaller built-up squares. He was happy to wander and get lost in whichever direction he headed - except on the morning journeys to school, when he would always walk straight there. But if he had finished school or was sent on an errand, he always found something to tempt him into deviatin
