A Man and a Woman, a City

by Joan Margarit, translated by Anna Crowe

(Tugs in the Fog, Bloodaxe)

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The train stops, wrapped

in the leaden mist that deadens

the noise of the streets, the iron hooters,

the discord of a bad music.

A taxi drops me at an impersonal centre.

It is an ugly city that waits for me

with the dullness of an aged hetaira.

But I'm beginning to retrieve a few places,

houses, pavements,

the lights of some shops, that bar.

My walk goes on restoring to me little by little

a voice in the mist and a music

with a lyric written for life.

How they change, the streets, as my memory

gradually recognises them.

There is no ugly city,

no man or woman

so wretched that they cannot be

you and me in this love story.

_________________________

When I returned to London for a visit after moving to Western Australia in the early Nineties, I prepared myself for the rubbish, the cars, the crowds, the crammed public transport, the limping pigeons, the grime and crime... but as the taxi drove me into the city from the airport, the familiarity of various streets and houses made the city more welcoming; I felt as if I were coming home. Even the piles of black refuse sacks on the pavements seemed like old friends - or perhaps that was because they were the same rubbish sacks that had been there when I left several months earlier.

Many of the major tourist attractions were under wraps to be repaired or cleaned - I remember that people were up in arms about it, since tourists arriving in London to see Big Ben, for instance, were met with scaffolding encased in what looked like coloured clingfilm. But I knew what it looked like beneath its inconvenient sheath, so felt the privilege of knowledge which is the comfort of the prodigal son (or daughter) returning to water his (or her) roots.

This poem adds atmosphere to the premise of a man's return to a city - and perhaps to a woman; he appears to have been absent for some time. It reminds me of the old black and white films; the mist, the looming shapes that become familiar upon approach, the necessary promise of a romantic meeting... the poem is pregnant with possibilities that remain non-specific.

It takes the poet a while to reacquaint himself with various aspects of the city. The “leaden” mist “deadens” so we are in no doubt as to the cushioning effect of the mist on noise, and its weight on everything; “the iron hooters” may sound metallic to the ear to earn such a description. The mention of bad music gives the impression of the noise of ungoverned riotous life inside the buildings, spilling out through windows and doors; the visiting poet is, as an incomer, excluded from all this.

The “impersonal centre” where the poet's taxi deposits him could be anything; perhaps it is a shopping centre or a mall of some kind. Initially he compares the dullness of the city to that of a prostitute, overexperienced and weary with age, all her tawdry wares on display for jaded customers.

Then, as he walks - perhaps to meet the woman of the piece - his gradual recognition of “some shops” and “that bar” changes his perception. What was discordant becomes harmonious: growing familiarity allows the “bad music” to fade and restores a “voice in the mist and a music/ with a lyric written for life”. It could be the voice of the city teeming with life, through which I like to think he walks to meet the woman he loves, preferably at night, in lamplight, with a mist that dampens the paving stones rolling in from a nearby river.

When the poet tells us “There is no ugly city”, we might think that's what he means. Until he adds “no man or woman/ so wretched that they cannot be/ you and me in this love story” to the phrase, not overlooking the ugliness, just adding two individuals in love to a city that is becoming more attractive by the minute.

frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk