Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

own. He could not take them any further than Mleti, he said, because he had to be back for a
wedding in Kobi on the weekend. He invited them to stay at his house for the wedding, he
would take them early next week. The pass road had been cleared now by the army, but only
God knew whether this unseasonably warm weather would hold.
They discussed the reliability of the weather, the problem of having to find another
vehicle in Mleti, and the temptation of staying for the wedding. The good man finally helped
them come to a decision by suggesting that they were not dressed to brave a snowstorm in
these mountains.
They left after breakfast. Alexandra got a very favorable price, because, he said, she
had cured the child’s abscess.
The man was not willing to take their companions along, the road was very bad, washed
out from the sudden snow melt, and steep. He had only one horse. Their companions would
have no trouble finding another vehicle. He laughed, everyone in the village was in the
transportation business these days.
The road up the bare mountains beyond Kobi was indeed like a riverbed. Huge boulders
lay strewn in their way alternating with deeply eroded sections. A landslide had carried part of
the road away. Snow patches still covered other stretches. Several times Sophia had to walk.
The horse could barely pull the cart, which often listed so much that Sophia was in danger of
falling off. On the pass itself the snow was still so high that they passed through a deep
channel which the soldiers had dug through the snow.
They had a brief rest at the hospice in Gudauri where Konrad and Leist had spent the
night. Alexandra wept when she saw the hills of Georgia in the distance. By nightfall they
wound down the last serpentine to the bridge across the Aragvi at Mleti.
In Mleti the Kobi man introduced them to a friend who offered them a room for the night
and promised to take them to Ananuri in the morning, an easy hike of six hours.
They reached Tbilisi two days later, exhausted but glad to be home. Tamunia-Deda,
who had received no warning of their coming, took was crying and laughing. Frail, white-haired
Irakli was shaking with excitement.
Alexandra and Deda in a flurry of hectic activity prepared two rooms. Later Alexandra
took over in the familiar kitchen and prepared dinner. Deda cried : "You were forced to walk
across Djvari Pass! At this time of the year, and they nearly took Otto away! I am so happy to
see you all safe and healthy in my house."
Nobody in Tbilisi had seen Vladimir. Alexandra called Etzeri and left Tamara in tears. He
had not arrived there either. Alexandra feared the worst.
A few days later, in the first week of May, a blinding blizzard swept the mountains. All
passes were closed again for another two weeks. Svaneti would remain cut off from the
outside world well into June.
All through May and June Tamara did not give up hope that Vladimir had taken refuge
somewhere, or that he had been held for a while by the Chechens in the northern Caucasus.
One morning two villagers from Betcho appeared at to her father’s house with a sled-like
contraption, pulled by two oxen, which the Svaneti peasants used summers and winters to
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