Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

Konrad picked up Alexandra at the train station. She took his arm and glanced at him. "Please, forgive my leaving you soselfishly? We reached Paris without a problem. The city is cowded with emigrants and refugees. I met Sasha Manovsky,the competitor of Becky’s father. He financed the Moscow uprising and is hiding from the Okhrana. I also ran into mypatient Akhmatova, who was having an affair with a young Italian painter by the name of Modigliani."Konrad raised his eyebrows. Her words were spilling out at great speed. What was coming? She had never before askedhim to forgive her one of her impulsive actions.He looked at her guessing. "Did Manovsky show you his collection?"She explained eagerly. "He tried but in such a plump and suggestive manner that I got rid of him."He smiled imagining her dismissing the old man with a imperious gesture of her left hand. "And Akhmatova? Isn’t shemarried to Gumilev?"She described the ambiguous circumstances of Akhmatova’s presence in Paris. "She was not at all embarrassed. Theyinvited me to Modigliani’s little mansard apartment for tea." She laughed briefly. "There, in the presence of Akhmatova,Modigliani asked me to sit for him as a model. A strange feeling, to be exposed in the nude to the searching eyes of apainter."She described how Modigliani had, with incredible speed, produced a drawing of her, which he, during a number of latersessions had painted in. "Only the face was missing, when Manovsky burst upon us."As she described the old voyeur sputtering and finally being pushed out of the room, Konrad began to laugh. His nakedwife pummeling Manovsky with her fists! "Where is the painting?" Konrad looked at her baggage. "You didn't bring it withyou?"She glanced at him in quizzical amazement. "Konrad, would you have liked a painting of your wife in her full nudityhanging in our apartment? It was an elegant and sensual pose from the back, a big canvas—I left it with Izabel to sell it toManovsky for the highest possible price and to split the money with Modigliani. He is really destitute."Konrad frowned. Now the old lecher, was drooling over Alexandra’s nude body. "We could have stored it in the attic!"In a complete non-sequitur, Alexandra said," After we had thrown Manovsky out, Amedeo made love to me. He had suchbeautiful hands."54.Konrad in China1911-1912In October Konrad set out for China. The entire family gave him a send-off. Alexandra was looking forward to the monthsalone.Niko and Claudia arrived the same day as Konrad’s first letter. Over dinner that night Alexandra gave it to Otto to read italoud, a glowing description of Samarkand.Samarkand, 16 October, 1911Dearest Alexandra, dear Otto, Claudia and Niko!Imagine I am standing in a large square framed on three sides by arched Medresses, Islamic schools. Their colossalwalls and gates are covered with tile mosaics in green, blue, yellow, ocher, and deep red. Monumental, they rival theimperial palaces of Rome. The Medressa to my right is flanked by two minarets, a gateway at its center. The wall above,a pointed arch, carries the mosaics of two of lions, mirror images of each other. Behind each rises a sun with a humanface! When you walk closer you see that the background is a carpet of most intricately interwoven flowers.This Registran square is a Babylonian confusion of animals and men. Horses, camels, lying, braying, wagons, tradestands,mountains of stacked watermelons, men in turbans of various colors and shapes, long, ragged greatcoats withcolorful trim, the women in dizzying silk blouses and shawls.And all this stinking squalor, heated by a fierce sun, is covered by clouds of fine brown dust which gets into everything…From here the bazaar of Tiflis appears to lie in a far-western country.I met George and his tea master in Baku. George suffered the rigors of this journey with a great calm and his specialkind of humor, a good travel companion. The poor Chinese, however is beset by a mortal fear of the emptiness of thedesert. He is hiding in his room behind drawn curtains.The journey from Baku to Samarkand took four days—sixteen hours of which we spent on a rusty ferry reeking of oil on169