| LA PROFESSORA D’ALEMANY | THE GERMAN TEACHER |
| Joan Margarit | trans. Anna Crowe (from Catalan) |
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En aquell Institut de la postguerra hauria d’haver après una mica de grec i haver sortit amb un vernís dels clàssics. Però, si aprendre alguna cosa allí ja era difícil, res amb menys futur que l’alemany, llavors entre les runes negroses de Berlín sota la neu. La meva era una llengua perseguida i la d’ella una llengua derrotada. En una aula petita de la torre on era l’Institut, en entrar a classe, sempre me la trobava de genolls fregant vora un cubell i parlant sola. No sé alemany, i en general em queda un mal record de tota aquella gent, però mai he oblidat el seu dolor. Ara que passo comptes amb qui sóc sento els genolls al fred de les rajoles per esborrar el passat, com ella feia amb la roja sanefa del mosaic. |
In that secondary school in the aftermath of war I must have picked up a smattering of Greek and left with some veneer of the classics. But, if learning anything in that place was hard enough, the subject with less than nothing going for it was German, with Berlin then in ruins, blackened under the snow. Of our two languages, mine was a persecuted, hers a defeated tongue. In a tiny room in the mansion that housed the school, as I went into class, I'd always find her on her knees, scrubbing beside the bin and talking to herself. I know no German, and in general have no good memories of any Germans, but I have never forgotten that woman's grief. Now that I'm taking stock of what I am I'm on my knees feeling the cold of icy tiles in order to wipe away the past, as she was doing scrubbing the red border of the tiled floor. |
Copyright © Joan Margarit 1986-2006: transl. copyright © Anna Crowe 2006;
orig. publ. "Estaciò de França", poesía Hiperiòn 1999; trans. publ. "Tugs in the Fog", Bloodaxe Books 2006.
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