The walk begins in February sunshine at the foot of the elegant Leaderfoot viaduct, with its pink and slender legs straddling the river Tweed. On such a rare day of blue skies I deserted my desk, made a flask of coffee and drank it on the bridge overlooking the river and viaduct. Walking on a day like this is a pleasure in itself, but it also good for letting the thoughts flow and I am thinking, as I often do, of my forthcoming book on the life of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, as I’m also translating some of her work.
In the piece I am currently working on, she pays a visit, her second one, to the ruins of Persepolis. One of the many things in her work that I can relate to, is her profound feelings and associations that arise from landscape. In Persepolis – A Memory she tells her friend the photographer Barbara Wright, that in this country (Persia, present day Iran) such is the profound sense of unreality of much of the landscape, you have to visit the places you love twice, to be completely sure that they are real. Persepolis was one of the places she loved, for itself certainly, but also for her memories of her first visit, as a junior archaeologist working mainly at a dig near Tehran.
Acutely aware of the changes and ravages that can be produced by time (the ancient city was set on fire and mostly destroyed by the army of Alexander) she writes that ‘only the name of Persepolis was eternal and inviolable’ but just to see its ruins once was an ‘unforgettable’ experience. After driving for hours across plains and deserts they ‘finally reached the plain where, right at the end, in the far distance, lies Persepolis. We made out its columns in the moonlight, left the road, and I recognized everything.’
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| Barbara Wright in front of the doorways of Persepolis (which Robert Byron liked so much). Photo by Annemarie Schwarzenbach, courtesy of Swiss archives |
I move away from the river, and from the near hypnotic elegance of the lofty bridge. Trains used to run over this bridge but the train line was abandoned and dismantled. You can walk along the old railway line but the viaduct itself is closed, the way is barred with high metal gates looped with barbed wire.
The path enters a wood, with thick-boled old trees on a rise overlooking the river. It continues up and down through woods and alongside the river, the sound of rippling water, and birdsong. Parts of the path are very muddy and at one point on a slope I slip and fall in the mud, and think, as I always do, that I must, absolutely must, get my boots resoled, as I’ve had them so long that the tread is almost completely worn away.
Annemarie’s relationship with Persia was complex. While she loved its otherness, strangeness, wildness, its seeming endless deserts and its bare brown mountains, its relics of astonishing civilizations, its blistering light, she knew that for her, as well as for other Europeans she describes in several of her short stories, its climate, its solitude, its empty desert landscapes had an unnerving and ultimately debilitating effect on physical and emotional health. Her friend, whom she calls Richard, a young architect who has worked at Persepolis for several years now, loves his work, loves the place, yet has his own reservations, which are as much to do with the times they are living in (1935) as the place itself.
She is so happy to see Richard again ‘everything is the way it used to be’ she said to him (it was over a year since her first visit). ‘Nothing has changed. Do you remember?’ Richard echoes her words. But it turns out that though the landscape itself and its magical effects, they have not changed, there have been changes in the workforce at the dig, which turn out to be highly significant. ‘But in the past’ writes Annemarie ‘one felt more protected because of the man there who, through his powerful intelligence and love, had wrested Persepolis from the past and turned it into a place of research and activity.’
This man was Professor Ernst Herzfeld who, according to Richard ‘didn't always make life easy for us. He was so withdrawn you hardly dared address a word to him.’ But however wrapped up in his own work the Professor was, Richard was in no doubt about his knowledge, ability, leadership and dedication. ‘But now,’ Richard went on, ‘I would like him to come back...’
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| Persepolis carving; photo by Annemarie Schwarzenbach courtesy of Swiss archives |
Further on, the path descends to a flat level field. I spot a heron quite far away and take a picture. (If you have eagle eyes you might spot it in the middle of the picture, at the edge of the field beside the line of trees.)
Ernst Herzfeld was the first professor for Near Eastern archaeology in the world and led the archaeological expedition at Persepolis.
Robert Byron, in his travels across Asia in early 1934, met him when he visited Persepolis and in his book The Road to Oxiana, he gives a detailed account of the art and artefacts which the excavations revealed (as well as his opinions and reactions to them). He also relates an amusing conversation he had with Herzfeld, regarding his (Byron’s) right to take photographs of the newly-excavated doorways and staircase. (Herzfeld had had problems with others taking photos and passing off his discoveries as their own).
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| Ernst Herzfeld at Persepolis: photo credit: James Henry Breasted, Jr. wikimedia commons |
But Herzfeld’s situation was far from amusing. It would be less than a year from their meeting when the professor had to leave the excavations at Persepolis – not because he wanted to, but because, as a ‘non-Aryan’ he was obliged to.
Annemarie’s collection of stories, in which Persepolis – a Memory was to appear, was not published in her lifetime because of her sympathetic depictions of the plight of Jewish people. The editor feared it would not pass the censors.
Every so often, along the path, there are benches for people to sit on and admire the view. I liked this one in particular, with the lichen-covered small trees in the foreground, looking out across the river (hidden by more small trees) to the pointy hill beyond, with a clump of purple-tinged birch trees on its slope.
Robert Byron’s account of his time in Persepolis also mentions two other people who worked for Herzfeld, people who Annemarie writes about, (though uses pseudonyms). One of them is ‘Richard’, with whom she has a conversation later in the story, where they recall time spent together the previous year.
Herzfeld you could say, was one of the lucky ones, as, after leaving Persepolis, he was able to emigrate to the USA and taught at the universities of Boston and New Jersey, before moving to Switzerland where he died in 1947. ‘Richard’ was not so lucky. Once I’ve finished translating all that Annemarie wrote about her time spent in Iran, it’s my intention to write his story.
It’s twilight by the time I get home, a plumpish Moon dangling from the tree branches.
And this is the sky after sundown from a few days ago.
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