Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Alexandra Returns to Tiflis
Tamara's Quarrel with her Father
1913
Alexandra spent the day in a reclining chair on deck. The ship plowed the blue Aegean
Sea towards Constantinople.
The Cycladic Islands, bare, tree-less rocks crowned by white-washed villages, drifted
through the clear, sunny day. She found that she did not remember any of these islands, it
must have been night when they passed the Aegean on their honeymoon.
For two days she had walked through Venice in search of Konrad. The city still exerted
its spell on her. In a weak moment she had toyed with the thought of finding a man to make
love to. But Konrad’s presence was so strong, that she could not imagine another man able to
satisfy her longings. How could she recover the fleeting reflections in which she had seen their
love?
She had visited the Accademia to look for her favorite Giorgione. This time the painting
no longer spoke to her. It looked smaller than she remembered. Should one not attempt to
repeat such highs? The mood, the longings of another time cannot be recreated.
On the second day she felt as if someone was following her. Disturbed, she took refuge
in a church. She waited in the cold and musty place and carefully watched the people who
came in, genuflected in front of the altar, prayed, or lit a candle and left. They came and went.
No one paid attention to the lonely tourist.
The church felt like a tomb, gray marble, a second-rate altar, cold, exalted memorials
along the walls, dust and grime. None of the euphoria that had once rescued her in Santa-
Anna-im-Lehel in Munich.
This fear of being followed was not her usual Georgian affliction, it lay deeper, it would
not disappear on its own or be dismissed by a simple movement of her hand.
A voice came from behind her left shoulder. "Your death is watching you."
The voice was not threatening, rather, the words were delivered in a calm, matter of fact
tone. There was no one around. She was entirely alone.
She left the church in confusion.
In a quiet piazza she found a stone bench in the sun. She leaned against the warm wall
and closed her eyes.
Paranoia, auditory hallucinations, she analyzed herself with clinical precision. The next
step, schizophrenia. She shook her head. What was going on inside her: the bloodbath in East-
Prussia, the superstitious train conductor, Clara in Hanover, Dahl’s skeptical analysis of her
work, her clairvoyance before Kandinsky’s painting of Nina, and now, voices.
Were these events related? Maybe the vision of the bloodbath and the voice in the
church were products of her own distressed psyche, but she should not attach mystical
meanings to the other happenings, they were ordinary coincidences.
What really did she know about death? She had never faced it, death had never before
spoken to her.To imagine death as her constant companion was a matter she had not given
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