Iris Lady, Forget-me-not Blue, Blitzkrieg eyes

Girl with the Glitzy Eyelashes, she notices and pulls in her leg. The Young Man who has dreamed away the Colour from his Eyes, he is nice, I can tell. I like him. The Man with Sad Tobacco in the Whites of his Eyes is sharp, focused on the rattling of the carriage, the hiss of doors opening, the final shudder. He yields his place to some people getting on. Greasy-Hair, Sun-smear Grey, Concrete Forehead, Concentrated-on-the-rattle man, he moves along the seat without looking up from his paper. The woman who has bones too big for her face, she just sits and watches, and I feel at ease because she is there, and it is good to travel with these people, and the weather is warm, and I can relax for a while and get to know them better before we rumble and jolt to another stop. It is Sunday, a Sunday as long as a tram ride to the outskirts of town, yet the next stop always approaches too soon, and I feel anxious that one of them will leave.

I make their names, I know, but these are only the short versions - a one thoughtful serving, to be grasped all at once in a gulp. Their real names take whole minutes to think through, and couldn't be spoken at all. Something like: Girl with all parts of her face rounded, Curve of Cheek already describing Curve of Hip Girl who believes in the power of a smile which is not fully hers, Mercy for the Man whose shoulders are slack girl, creature of nape and fringe, tucked-in, goodnight smile, poised-on-tippytoes . . . and so on.

People are amazing. They will always do something to surprise you. You never know when some character in rags will shuffle up to you and start a conversation. You think he is going to beg for a coin, and the next thing he invites you for a beer or offers you a job as a grave-digger in Norway. You may think that you can simply observe the people on a tram, but don't forget that they are not stuffed and behind glass. The possibility of a closer contact is always there.

Another day it's the number 5 and there are three more stops. I hope She will stay. I've hardly begun to read Her name, and who knows if there will be another chance. It's always like that. Just as you are really getting to know someone, the tram shudders and jerks to a stop, the doors fly open, the crowds cram out, and then all that is left is a final glimpse, and they never look back. The last glimpse can be the most important, if only because it's the last. I turn my head to follow them, thinking, "This is the last time I'll see them," and "Now, this moment: this is the last"; and then they disappear and the tram pulls away and a kiosk blocks my view, a timetable board and a goods lorry, a confusion of traffic signs all fleeting behind. Then I might catch sight of them again, one final time, striding through the crowd of unknowns, with their faces and hands, and the way they walk, and me just beginning to fit it all together.

The man with the creases in his face lined with cigarette smoke and the big muscles in his jaw - he will be friendly to me. I have seen him before in other places and I know I will be safe with him. The people of this city have been good to me, they are marvellous people. Yet still I feel anxious among too many strangers. There are always so many more walking around, and I come close to despair when I realise that I can never get to know them all, even if I live to be a thousand years. Some will be forever strangers, and for me, it will be the same as if they had never been born. Their lives will never touch mine, their faces and names will be unknown.

I passed another one on Wroclaw street just a few moments ago. For a full fifteen seconds I was remembering her name and adding to it. Lady of the Brimmed Hat, Lady whose Eyes change from Wide to Almond, Lady of the Small Mouth who thinks she is beautiful - Lady who pretends not to notice. All her names and additions came to me, (not in words of course) and I knew her more fully than I've known anyone for months. Then suddenly, unbelievably! she nodded and said hello. Eyes to my eyes; there was no second person on the street.

What could she want off me? What was I to tell her? She looked at me and passed on, saying nothing but changing everything. I need that street to get to the foyer of the Europa centre. On rainy nights I can't afford to take a detour. I've seen her there at all hours, before and after sunset. No time is safe, unless perhaps I wait for the small night hours. She looked at me as though she knew me.

The city is full of strangers and savages, crude haircuts and angled noses, brass earrings and pockmarked cheeks. I have control though - they are not images on a screen; they do not form a shadow theatre that scares me. To me they are known, when I choose. I pass through and I name them and their names come to me. Iris-girl, forget-me-not-blue, white-of-eyes, straight-gaze. She will speak to me. Our eyes will meet. She will trust me.

I was walking on Berlin street, going along there. Perhaps he'd said something and I hadn't heard, because a sudden shout followed me down the street, a shout that stopped me and turned me around: "Rat's moustache." I turned and there was only him.

"I'm talking to you, moustache face. What have you got for me?"

"How did you know my name?" I asked.

"Are you trying to be smart?" He sized me up and walked up close.

"Crinkle Eyes, I've seen you before. 'Crinkle Eyes' is what you're called," I said.

He laughed scornfully, as though his stooges were looking on.

"What the hell are you talking about? Are you looking for a few kicks in the head? Who the fuck calls me that?"

"It's your name. I know it."

"Why? How did I get it? Where did you hear that name before?"

I walked on and he looked after me astonished. Then he got a grip on himself. He caught me and pushed me against a wall. My back hit a drainpipe. Loose rust fell down on us both.

"Why do you call me that? Who the fuck are you?" he roared.

"Everyone gets a name," I said. "I am . . ." I sought an appropriate word. "I am a only a lonesome hobo."

"Fucking weirdo!" he laughed, though there was nothing funny. I have no illusions. I know well that under different circumstances he would have knocked me to the ground and kicked until the blood frightened him away.

Children look at me and know me. Their parents stop them from coming over, hold them by their struggling shoulders. I try to ignore these little ones. They stand before me, round-eyed, and wait for me to speak.

Drunks of course want to talk to me. I detest their fake familiarity, their too-ready approaches. Who am I to you? Don't wink at me. Don't talk to me as one of your own.

If they're sober it's different. They clap me on the shoulders and make me listen to their problems and adventures. I nod and move to someplace else.

Irreducibles I call these my people. They are more different from each other than any snowflake is from any other. I know so little about them, almost nothing. A patch of sunny weather, a few dogs chasing each other across a city park, one of them sits down with a crushed newspaper and I'm hooked, fixated on the way he holds the paper and crosses his legs, and the way he looks about himself as though everything was just as it should be and no different.

"Pleasant weather for April." He looked over his paper.

"Undoubtedly," I replied. This was a typical way of starting a conversation. Never a straight sentence. It will never happen that someone begins: "Try as I might, I cannot take a break from myself." And so I reply in kind, using phrases patched together from what I have overheard on the trams. It makes both of us comfortable.

He told me the secret is to make quick decisions and stick to them. Find trustworthy people and make friends with them. He said I shouldn't feel envy for people like him. He has his problems in life, friends turning against him with envy, hidden shames, fourteen hour days. It wasn't just for the money. There were more important things in life than money. He said he liked the peacefulness of city parks.

People want to speak to me, but when they do it's not for long. They tell me things - I don't ask them to - then they feel at my mercy. They expect in return some words of understanding, some words of approval for their choice of life. They want my validation and I cannot give it.

Yet with the passing days I grow more and more open and honest in my approach. I get to know people better and trust them more and more. Some I have met four or five times. They recognize my face and nod to me. I cannot quite meet their gaze, but some day I will. Summer is getting closer, they gather of an evening around the fountain and terrace, and as I travel through the streets people will be nice to me, we will greet each other and shake hands. I look forward to the day when I will get to know them so well that we will sit under an awning over cups of coffee, and have conversations about the seasons, and about the trams and the different people, the way they look and walk, and the days spent walking around.

Shiny cheek, sperm in her eye, she will hail me from a distance. Old tremble-leaf, smoky moustache, we will shake hands and light a cigarette together. Some day I will give my assent to this.

The city can seem a strange and menacing place unless you get to know people.