Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

was very much of her own mind.
Melikishvili grinned with raised eyebrows, David Ortaladze would be head of the medical
faculty, and Ortaladze was a good friend of Alexandra’s from long ago….
Konrad arrived at home in the best of spirits.
"For all practical purposes Javakhashvili has offered me a professorship and, sit down,
one for you too!"
He watched Alexandra’s doubting mien grow, but his enthusiasm was too strong. "Aren’t
you impressed by their interest in you? ‘Frau Professor Dadiani-Rost?’ It sounds grandiose,
doesn’t it? You should have seen their faces when I told them that this would be entirely your
decision. Your dean would be Dato Ortaladze, head of the medical faculty—‘an old friend of
yours!’ Melikishvili smirked when he intimated that to me. I tried hard not to blush."
He gave her a kiss. "Javakhashvili and Petre Melikishvili are more excited about their
project than anybody I have met in years. The only aspect of the deal which I don’t care for is
their overbearing national chauvinism: ‘all professors will be Georgian and all teaching will be
conducted in Georgian.’"
"Oh," said Alexandra, "after eating dust for a hundred years, they should be forgiven a
little chauvinism, in particular where it is directed against Armenians and Russians. I am sure
Germans are excepted."
Alexandra was relieved, she had not seen Konrad in such high spirits for several years.
How well she remembered his delightful sarcasm in the discussions with Walter in Florence. "I
will go and visit Dato at the hospital, I had that in mind anyway."
Dato received Alexandra with honest pleasure. "Are you staying?"
"I am afraid so, St. Petersburg has become uninhabitable. We left everything behind and
fled."
Dato called Christine, who was even more delighted that Alexandra was in Tbilisi.
Christine suggested having dinner at their house, and she should bring Konrad.
Dato showed her the hospital with obvious pride. Despite the war, he had done an
admirable job. Cut off from Europe, he was forced to buy secondhand instruments, but the
discipline of his personnel and the cleanliness in the house were exemplary. Alexandra was
impressed.
She asked Dato whether he could use her as a physician. Dato was delighted, he had
lost two German doctors at the beginning of the war. She would make an excellent
replacement.
Alexandra congratulated him on his university appointment which Konrad had heard
about from Javakhashvili. Dato became serious, he had long hesitated to take on a second
major burden besides running the hospital. He would have to teach four hours in addition to the
bureaucratic paperwork of the department.
"You know what I would like to do? Hire you as my deputy director of the hospital. Your
qualifications are excellent, and your organizational talents," he smiled, "are probably better
than mine."
Alexandra blushed, but she liked the idea. She felt that this could be a satisfying job with
considerably increased responsibility compared to St. Petersburg.
"Yes," she said, "it would be a good way to keep me from getting ‘kartuli-fied’ and
turning into a lazy Georgian matron!"
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