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Nightingales. Visiting Shiraz in 1932, Rabinderath Tagore wanted to hear the legendary Bulbul of Shiraz, but his trip fell at the wrong time of year. Anxious to please the famous poet, Mirza Ibrahim commissioned a mechanical bird to be made, containing a recording of the nightingale in full song. When you turned a handle, it would sing. Nightingale – symbol for poetry, lyric voice. That ancient voice was heard at once by emperor and clown. A voice to console the homesick. To soothe the heart of Ruth, standing in the alien corn. That Shiraz nightingale spoke to the Bengali poet in a language that was universal, at a time when the internationalist movement was in full swing. Tagore’s great admirer Yeats described a mechanical nightingale in ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, Of hammered gold and gold enamelling / To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; / Or set upon a golden bough to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come. Underneath an apple tree in Highgate, John Keats, inspired by a nightingale’s song. In a wood on the edge of Helpston, a village on the brink of the Lincolnshire fens, John Clare, who shared a publisher with Keats, transcribed the nightingale’s song in words. 1889, just over a decade after Clare’s death, the first birdsong was recorded mechanically. Ludwig Koch, a precocious 8-year-old, made a recording on his father’s phonograph. He was to arrive in England an exile from Nazi Germany in 1936. His recordings were acquired by the BBC and established the first natural history sound archive. Birdsong and exile. When you turn the handle, a nightingale still sings. A summer song, from long ago. A song of all that’s passing. 64
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Tehran, back again. Stranger to the place. Plane trees still lined the boulevards, water still ran down from the mountains in joob along the roadsides. In the park, a man was still selling balloons. You could still smell corn on the cob roasting on charcoal. The Japanese garden was still there, with its ornamental trees and rocks and raked gravel. But the park was renamed, Laleh. And the dress code had changed: you had to look as drab as possible, to avoid notice. No bright clothes. No make-up. I didn’t mind wearing the roosaree (head-scarf ). It was an adventure. I was in disguise. Sitting in our old flat on Boulevard Keshavarz (formerly Boulevard Elizabeth) refusing to accept tea or sweets (Quality Street) from the tenants who had claimed it as their own. A modern, stylish flat. Earthquake proof. We had run away, they said. We were never coming back. Don’t eat the sweets, my mother warned us. Don’t accept their hospitality. They are trying to take our flat. Persephone. Behind the metal gates of my great-aunt’s house, you could wear what you wanted. We swam in the little pond and watched my grandmother shell broad beans, hollowing out watermelon skins for us to sail like boats on the little pond. The watermelons arrived in an open-top truck and were rolled down into the cellar. Every day she would take one and cut it for us and make juice from what was left. The garden had two tall dusty persimmon trees, the round orange fruit high out of reach. There was a pomegranate. The gardener said he’d cut off my nose if I picked one. Inside was dark; a cool terrazzo floor. Sometimes, at night, we’d hear the scuttle of cockroaches – soosk – their sickly sweet smell. Upstairs, a room was always closed off. Rolled up carpets. Mothballs. Boxes full of books, left behind. I sat 65

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Tehran, back again. Stranger to the place. Plane trees still lined the boulevards, water still ran down from the mountains in joob along the roadsides. In the park, a man was still selling balloons. You could still smell corn on the cob roasting on charcoal. The Japanese garden was still there, with its ornamental trees and rocks and raked gravel. But the park was renamed, Laleh. And the dress code had changed: you had to look as drab as possible, to avoid notice. No bright clothes. No make-up. I didn’t mind wearing the roosaree (head-scarf ). It was an adventure. I was in disguise. Sitting in our old flat on Boulevard Keshavarz (formerly Boulevard Elizabeth) refusing to accept tea or sweets (Quality Street) from the tenants who had claimed it as their own. A modern, stylish flat. Earthquake proof. We had run away, they said. We were never coming back. Don’t eat the sweets, my mother warned us. Don’t accept their hospitality. They are trying to take our flat. Persephone. Behind the metal gates of my great-aunt’s house, you could wear what you wanted. We swam in the little pond and watched my grandmother shell broad beans, hollowing out watermelon skins for us to sail like boats on the little pond. The watermelons arrived in an open-top truck and were rolled down into the cellar. Every day she would take one and cut it for us and make juice from what was left. The garden had two tall dusty persimmon trees, the round orange fruit high out of reach. There was a pomegranate. The gardener said he’d cut off my nose if I picked one. Inside was dark; a cool terrazzo floor. Sometimes, at night, we’d hear the scuttle of cockroaches – soosk – their sickly sweet smell. Upstairs, a room was always closed off. Rolled up carpets. Mothballs. Boxes full of books, left behind. I sat

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