Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

She sighed. "1943, that fateful year…"
Her eyes were far away. "My earliest memories are of that year. I was three. In January
my father died in the battle of Stalingrad. In the hot summer Christine Ortaladze, Alexandra’s
closest friend, contracted poliomyelitis and died under Alexandra’s helpless hands. And later
that year, Stalin, the Georgian monster, ordered all Germans deported to Uzbekistan. Konrad
and Alexandra did not fall under that order, but their close friends in Elisabethtal did. 1943 was
the lowest point in Alexandra’s life. Konrad persuaded her to volunteer her services as a
medical doctor to the German deportees. They left with that transport. Sophia and I stayed
behind."
She looked at me. "Have you heard of these people?"
I nodded. "From Alexandra’s letters I even know of Dato Ortaladze and Berta and
Wachtang Eberle and Sagdulla Bakhrami. Entirely by accident I met Susanne Eberle on the
street in Tbilisi in 1982. She told me that Alexandra had delivered her in Shakh-i-Zabz and was
buried in Zaguramo—but she was too afraid to tell me more. I figured that Alexandra had
returned to Tbilisi after Stalin’s death. What happened to Konrad? I always assumed that
Alexandra had decided to accompany the German colony to Uzbekistan. She made all other
decisions in their lives."
Eliso remained silent for a while.
Deep shadows had formed around her eyes. "Konrad was seventy-four when he
persuaded her to leave Tbilisi. Alexandra was in such a dangerously depressed state that he
had to do something decisive to rescue her. He knew that he would never return. He died in
Shakh-i-Zabz in 1954 and is buried there. When Alexandra returned a year later she chose me
as her close companion. For ten years she lived with us. Unbroken and a formidable,
outspoken person. She could be very warm and would protect me like a lioness, but she
intimidated me often. Several secrets surrounded their leaving for Uzbekistan and Konrad’s
death, which she never explained to me."
She rose and retrieved three photographs from her bedroom, a formal picture of a soft,
blond Georgian woman in her forties and another of a Muslim grave. A narrow stele crowned
by the hat of the dervishes. Its weathered inscription was in Russian. I could barely decipher
the name, Konrad Rost and the dates 1869-1954. The third photo she kept in her hand.
Eliso said, "This is my mother, and the grave is Konrad’s. Why does it look like a Muslim
grave?"
An intriguing question. Yet it opened up an unexpected explanation of why Konrad had
taken the depressed Alexandra to Uzbekistan.
I hesitated. "It will shock you. Konrad was an initiated Sufi. Three weeks before Otto left
for Germany, they celebrated Konrad’s initiation at the Halveji tekke in Shavnabada. The
conical object on his grave stone is the dervish hat he was given then."
"What," Eliso exclaimed, "Grandfather Konrad, a Moslem? You cannot be serious—but
Alexandra also used to call it a Sufi hat."
I shrugged. "It is improbable that he ever converted to Islam—although I do not know
what happened in Uzbekistan—but without doubt Konrad was a Halveji. It is a long story, which
all started with the necklace you wear. It is a Sufi necklace which Konrad made for Alexandra
in 1899."
She touched the necklace. "I do, of course, know that Konrad made this necklace.
Alexandra gave it to me before she died. She told me that it had mystical powers to protect me,
387