Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Otto's Birth
1900
At four in the morning, in the still darkness, Alexandra was shaken out of her sleep by
the onset of her labor pains. A fierce contraction, more powerful than she had expected. She
bit her lip and tried to relax as best as she could. Konrad was fast asleep beside her. Too early
to wake him, she decided, and when the attack let up she turned onto her right side and
relaxed completely, letting her mind float.
The last weeks passed by her inner eye in vivid pictures. Deda had insisted on coming
to St. Petersburg to be with her, and Aunt Sophia had joined her on the long trip.
Far from her husband and the conventions of Tiflis, unimagined dimensions of Deda’s
character had surfaced, an expansiveness that occasionally bordered on the reckless.
Deda had taken Alexandra on an all but irresponsible tour of the fashionable cafes and
stores, where she had indulged in a spontaneous shopping spree: French perfume, lingerie,
clothes, a fur coat, even some expensive jewelry. She gave generous gifts to Alexandra, a
largess of which Alexandra would not have believed her proper mother capable had she not
seen it with her own eyes: Tamunia-Deda, rejuvenated by several years enjoyed herself like
the mistress of some rich man.
Deda’s moods had the force of divine trials. For hours she would wallow in deeply tragic
lamentations. "All my children have left me. They have forgotten their beautiful country, why
are they living in this cold and foggy Russian city? Look at me, a poor, neglected Georgian
mother."
Alexandra, always conscious of her own occasional spells of the Georgian malaise, was
tested to the limits of her patience. But as suddenly as Deda had fallen into this seemingly
bottomless self-pity, she would come out of it, tilt her head to one side, flap her arms like a
strange bird, and while her face was still suffering, she would pout and say something
preposterously funny. These resurrections by her own power would invariably end in boundless
merriment.
One sunny morning, after days of gloomy, snowbound grayness, and Deda under the
spell of the weather, Konrad had suggested a walk to one of the out-lying islands. There Deda
suddenly snapped out of her mood. Giggling like a young girl, she had started a snowball fight
with Konrad. Alexandra, too big to participate, had watched with envious amusement.
Two days later they got into a political argument over Ilia’s latest actions, which
Tamunia-Deda, for an entire hour, fought for Ilia with heated abandon.
Not a dull day had passed during the last month.
Meanwhile Sophia had taught Alexandra yoga techniques to ease her delivery. The
position on her right side was one of them. Sophia had for some time studied meditation and
yoga with a woman from Central Asia in the hope of finding methods to control the pains of
delivery.
She showed Alexandra how to breathe evenly, relax completely, and let her mind drift.
Sophia told her to let images drift into her consciousness, look at them, and then dismiss them
to make room for yet another image.
"And when the contractions come, pull up your legs, so you are as comfortable as
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