Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

physically overwhelm her. Despite his age, he still looked powerful enough, but she had little doubt that she couldincapacitate him with a blow to the right place. She doubted that he would go as far as using a weapon, and she smiled,she had experience with that too. She did not fear him. His most probable action would be that he would expose himself.Well, that would be unpleasant, but she had seen naked men before. What put her off was Manovsky’s crassinsensitivity. She had seen enough of him for tonight. She would finish with Manovsky on another day.He was deflated when she asked him to order a taxi for her, but she could see that he was used to being turned down bywomen. He would go back to his place and console himself among his Gauguin nudes.Manovsky offered to accompany her home, but she found it easy to shake him off. She thanked Manovsky once more forthe evening and from the taxi waved at him with her gloved hand.On the following weekend, at another drinking session, Manovsky was not present, but Amedeo, the Italian painter hadbrought along a friend—Anna Akhmatova!Akhmatova immediately recognized Alexandra. For a few moments the two women stared at each other, thenAkhmatova began to laugh. Without embarrassment she explained that Gumilev, her husband, had been with her until aweek ago. He had suddenly and urgently been required to return to his family estate. She had stayed. Paris waswonderful, she did not get here so often. Amedeo was a long-time friend.Alexandra smiled relieved. Last time she had met Akhmatova in St. Petersburg, Alexandra had recruited her for her studyof female cycles. Their meeting had been personal yet distant, and Akhmatova had impressed her by her poise andsense of purpose. Now she seemed softer, less haughty and self-conscious. Quite obviously Amedeo and she werehaving an affair, which Akhmatova did not care to hide.Handsome Amedeo had the natural, unaffected manners that Alexandra had found so attractive among the men she hadmet in Italy. His colleagues seemed to like him, but he was, as he said himself, not yet famous, and he loved Russianwomen. Akhmatova , with a mischievous smile, corrected him, Alexandra was not Russian but Georgian and on top ofthat a princess. Alexandra blushed and Amedeo asked naïvely whether that was a Russian fairy tale. Disarmed,Alexandra admitted it, but told him that it was also unimportant to her.Amedeo invited her to visit Akhmatova and him at his studio. Alexandra felt his soft, brown eyes on her. Oh, she thought,I would not mind spending an afternoon with him.Alexandra had imagined a large attic filled with half-finished canvasses. Instead, after climbing five stories, she found atiny mansard room with a large bed, an old easy chair covered with faded, dark-red plush, a simple table, and awashstand. There was hardly room for an easel. A large window, overlooking the roofs and chimney pots of the quartier,was the only luxury.Akhmatova prepared tea on a small gas burner, while Amedeo pulled some paintings from under the bed: a portrait of ayoung Pole and his wife, "my best friends," and an unfinished nude: Akhmatova sitting in the plush red chair.Their domestic arrangement, however transitory it might be, was touching. Over tea they talked about Amedeo's manyEastern-European emigrant friends and St. Petersburg that he longed to see.Alexandra felt Amedeo’s painterly eyes resting on her again. And as if on cue, Akhmatova asked whether Alexandrawould pose for him.Amedeo smiled with lowered eyes. "I would really like to paint you in the nude. You are the most elegant lady who everstrayed into this dismal place."He said this with such charm and in presence of the woman he slept with, that Alexandra felt completely taken bysurprise. She looked questioningly at Akhmatova , who shook her head. "Doctor Alexandra, don’t let my presence troubleyou. You have seen me without clothes!"It is an arranged game, thought Alexandra, they plotted it before my arrival. But the two were so without guile thatAlexandra felt ridiculed.She blushed. "I have never sat as a model for a painter. What do you want me to do?""You can undress behind the Japanese screen. I will give you a shawl to cover yourself, and then I will make some fastcharcoal sketches of you lying on the bed." He shrugged. "Unfortunately there is no other place for you to lie downcomfortably."After a few moments of hesitation Alexandra disappeared behind the screen. Akhmatova had turned away busyingherself in the "kitchen." Amedeo threw her the shawl and put a new canvas on the easel. When he turned around he wasfacing Alexandra in her full beauty. She had discarded the shawl as a silly prop.For a few seconds Amedeo stared at her, but then lowered his long eyelashes. Alexandra flushed from head to toe.She sat on the edge of the bed with her arms crossed over her breasts. Amedeo asked her to lie on her left side with herback to him and her head turned towards him. She should look past him out the window. He asked her to rearrange herright arm and to bend her right leg over the left one.Akhmatova brought her a cup of hot tea, sat in the chair, and looked at Alexandra with the most serious expression.Amedeo disappeared behind his easel. He worked with incredible speed. Occasionally he peered over the edge of thecanvas to determine her proportions with a short stick.During this first session Alexandra could not think of anything but the three of them in the small room, Akhmatova who167