Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

Autumn had come to Georgia, and it began to rain. A strong wind blew the yellow leaves of the plane trees across thewet pavement of Golovinsky Boulevard.Konrad was waiting impatiently for Alexandra in a café on the second floor across from the Grand Theatre. She wastaking a course on architecture from Professor Schröder, and they had agreed to meet at the café after the lecture. Shewas half an hour late.Ever since the theater had opened Schröder had become a celebrity in Tiflis. The theater, an instant landmark, was soldout every night. Konrad shook his head at the multicolored, Oriental fantasy across the street. The Georgians hadbestowed their enthusiasm for dramatic theater on this sad piece of pseudo-Byzantine architecture.Tonight he would attend a performance there for the first time. Alexandra had obtained two scarce tickets for Chaika,"The Seagull", a controversial play by a young dramatist named Anton Chekhov. All they knew about him was that hebelonged to the Russian avant-garde, and that Chaika had been torn to pieces by the critics at its Moscow premiere twoyears earlier. A few months ago Konstantin Stanislavsky, an unknown director, had dared to re-stage Chaika. It hadbecome a sensational success for Chekhov, Stanislavsky, and the Moscow Performing Arts Theatre. Tbilisi was jostlingto see the controversial play on its first tour outside of Moscow.When Alexandra finally walked down the boulevard from the opposite direction from which he had expected her, he knewthat she had a legitimate excuse for her lateness. She had been to the Dadiani’s townhouse to change for the evening.She had thrown a black shepherd’s burka over her dress. Its simple rectangular shape enhanced her tall, slender figure.She knew how to dress with the simplest pieces available. Fascinated and full of expectation Konrad watched the elegantblack figure walk among the brown leaves drifting in the wind.His anger at her late arrival was gone. He got up to receive her at the upper landing of the staircase. The pleasure ofwatching her from a distance prevailed over his guilt of lying in wait for her. When she saw him, she gave him one of herradiant smiles. They embraced and exchanged the three perfunctory Georgian kisses, which still electrified himdisproportionately.He helped her out of her burka, which was of the finest Daghestani wool. Underneath she wore a deceptively simple,charcoal gray dress from which evolved, enhanced by her warm body, the merest trace of perfume. Around her exposedneck lay a thin, exquisitely handcrafted gold necklace.He loved her deliberate simplicity, which suited her clear candor so well.Very lightly he put his hand on her back, a gesture of pride and affection and guided her to his table at the window.He sat across from her, spellbound by the play of emotions on her even face. Delight, alternating with open, unrestrainedexcitement, swept in waves across her features like the wind over a quiet lake, breaking into ravishing smiles around hereyes. Then again, she could be very still, as if listening to the beating of her own heart. Several times Konrad wastempted to spontaneously take her in his arms, but all he permitted himself was to kiss her hand.He would have liked to sit far away from her, at another table, out of reach of her radiance, to observe her—and himself.For a moment he succeeded and was startled: He had lost the freedom for such games. He had fallen hopelessly in lovewith this extraordinary woman. Irresolute, he said, "That is an exquisite necklace.""Do you like this necklace?" She raised her delicate brows, her blue eyes laughed. "I put it on for you, thinking of yourlove of unadorned austerity."She unhooked the necklace and handed it to him. It flowed like water from her hand. Its links were simple ringlets, all thesize of a thumbnail. The lower part of each ringlet had a broadened lip, hammered from behind, so that a slight wavewandered through the necklace. The rings were connected by thin horizontal bands. A figure-eight link, lying on its side,acted as clasp. Every link had been made separately, so that none was exactly like any other. This slight, almostimperceptible unevenness was the source of the life and beauty of the piece.He looked at it, pouring it between his hands with true sensual pleasure. "An amazing piece. Who made it? Where does itcome from?""Henri Halvejian, an Armenian goldsmith in the Bazaar designed it especially for me. I have to take you to him. He is anunusual man who only works for people he knows personally. No two of his pieces are alike. He says that a good pieceof jewelry should heighten the beauty of a woman, to where she will—in the eyes of her lover—surprise herself."She smiled, her questioning eyes holding his."I don’t know where he gets his seemingly inexhaustible designs. In fact, what are you doing tomorrow? Can we go tosee Henri in the afternoon after my boring architecture class?"Confounded, Konrad lowered his eyes. "Are you bored by Schröder’s lectures?"He handed her the necklace. She struggled with the clasp, and he got up to help her."Bored is hardly the word for it."She shivered when he touched her neck."The man is insufferable. All he does is show us design templates for windows, doors, and ornamentation. We had to buyan entire book of such curlicues from which we have to copy five pages for tomorrow. He is the exact opposite of Henri."Konrad nodded. "I am not surprised. Look at his building over there, he designed it from a set of such templates: ‘Russo-17