English translation

I have used this lyric many times over the years as an example of that which is always lost in even the best translation. Jara's use of the Spanish imperfect in 'donde trabajaba Manuel' offers a rather poetic and untranslatable possibility--that the narrator is remembering seeing Amanda not twice but three times: once before Manuel's departure, next when she learns that he's fled, and finally after Manuel's death. The Spanish imperfect -- say 'trabajaba' -- is generally understood to conflate the English ideas of 'was working' and 'used to work'. With this in mind, Amanda goes once to the factory where her lover WAS WORKING at the time, once when the question on the table is whether Manuel WAS WORKING at the time or USED TO WORK, making 'trabajaba' dramatically ambiguous, and last, which I admit is a bit of a stretch, a mad-with-grief Amanda running to the factory where Manuel, now dead and the factory where he USED TO WORK the only grave upon which for her to mourn.