Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

He showed them the room where they would sleep and then invited them all to his house. His wife, a pale, worn outwoman, greeted them, her youngest on her arm. At her feet five more small children, one year apart, clambered overeach other. Alexandra and Tamara offered to help and cooked a big pot of vegetable soup for the night meal. Herhusband killed a chicken, which was added to the soup.After dinner they sat around the fire and answered the eager questions of the teacher, while Alexandra inspected thesores of two of his ragged children and quietly listened to the woman’s lamentations about her hard lot. Together, theteacher and his wife pleaded with Alexandra to hold a clinic next day and prescribe medicines for the many ailmentsamong the villagers. They would then send someone to Zugdidi to pick up the medicines.Alexandra sighed, but how could she refuse? She would stay in Ipari while the others rode up to Adishi to have a look atthe glacier above the village. Eventually Claudia, sympathizing with her friend, offered to keep Alexandra company andhelp.The night in the schoolroom was cold and uncomfortable. Fortunately it stopped snowing, and the morning sun warmedthem quickly.A large crowd of people waited in front of the schoolhouse where Claudia and Alexandra had set up their clinic. Many oldpeople with eye infections had come and young ones with respiratory problems. Undoubtedly some of them sufferedfrom tuberculosis. What could she do? They needed better food, a dry home, and rest, none of which was available.Deeply depressed by this daunting task, Alexandra finally decided to write notes for the people she suspected to sufferfrom tuberculosis and advised them to go down to the Zugdidi clinic for a better diagnosis and treatment.Alexandra was lancing abscesses, using high-grade raki as antiseptic, when an old withered woman appeared andhanded her a jar of ointment, arguing that it would do the job without a knife. It contained arnica.Alexandra smelled the ointment. "Look Claudia, memories of Soranus! Salve vesicans con arnica, we should have paidmore attention to the general medical chapters of Soranus."Alexandra sat down with the wrinkled witch and asked for other medicines. Sure enough, she had an entire apothecary ofherbal remedies. Alexandra invited her to join them. Alexandra made the diagnoses, and the woman, after a consultationbetween the three of them, produced a suitable medicine. More than half of the patients would not have to go to Zugdidi.Alexandra smiled. The shrewd witch speculated that the city doctor would add to her reputation among the villagers."I am beginning to enjoy this," said Claudia. "Maybe we should spend some time up here and work with this woman.What is her name?"Alexandra inquired."Her name is Gocha," said Alexandra. "She is the wife of the khevisberi or ‘mountain hermit’, the shaman of the area.You have met a jadukali, a wise woman. In Tiflis she would be considered a witch. I am mightily honored that she trustsme."At the end of this long day, a young lad appeared who presented a formal invitation from his father for the two doctorladies to stay at their house. They should bring their husbands and friends along too. Alexandra equally formallyaccepted the invitation, and the boy promised to pick them up as soon as their friends would be back from Adishi.Alexandra was pleased. They sat down with Gocha and made a list of her remedies and their indications advising her inreturn on how to diagnose the corresponding diseases. Claudia and Alexandra felt like during those exciting days ofresearch in Munich, only this time the old, cunning woman was really the center of their fascination.Tamara, impressed by their success, told Alexandra that the father of the young boy who had invited them was thenatsvali, the local headman of the Upper Svaneti. A great honor for herself too. He was an institution quite separate fromher father’s authority and often his political antagonist. And Gocha, she shook her head, was a thorn in the flesh at leastof the priest at the church."You are going to become famous up here. That you gave support to Gocha will be remembered for a long time. A doctorfrom St. Petersburg…and a Dadiani! They have long found out everything about you from the teacher. You are going tocreate a socio-political éclat in Svaneti." She laughed. "Prepare yourself! When we get to Murkmeli you will have theentire sick population of the Upper Svaneti waiting for you."And so it happened. When they arrived at the natsvali’s house a man from Murkmeli was already waiting for the doctorsto beg them to hold a clinic for the three Ushguli villages. No doctor had been up there for several years.A long negotiation ensued. Alexandra made one condition, a horse and accommodations in Murkmeli had to be providedfor Gocha. The man was reluctant pointing out that the problem was not so much Gocha’s questionable status in thecommunity, but she could not stay overnight at any arbitrary house. She was subject to a number of taboos: nomenstruating woman could be in the house, and no pregnant ones either, no death for at least two months, and she hadto perform some purification rites of the place before she would stay there. She was not easily accommodated.Alexandra was unmoved. In that case, she would stay with Gocha at the schoolhouse, which would satisfy all thoseconditions. Which, of course, was an insult to the hospitality of the village. The man left with the promise that somesolution would be found."Well, you see nobody wants her in their house overnight," explained a grinning Tamara later, "because she might cast aspell on her hosts. That is the deeper problem. Most people are afraid of her."147