Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

country. The chaotic quarreling and the confused talk in the Duma is as much a national disgrace as Nicholas’ governingin the name of God. Maybe Kerentsky would be a possible prime minister, but his followers will desert him the minute hegains power. What do you propose? Seriously.""Niko, you do know on whom I set my hope. Not Lenin and his Bolsheviks, they are too extreme, but on Trotsky and theMensheviks. They are open to reason and could find a compromise with the bourgeois factions. Look at Jordania inGeorgia, he is trying that quite successfully."Niko heaved a sigh. "I wished I could convince myself that Trotsky could hold his own against the Bolsheviks. Georgia isa special case, you cannot compare it with Russia. Our sense of national identity and our traditions are a shield againstthe chaotic Russian radicalism. Here the Bolsheviks will simply push anybody aside who is not for them. The chaoswhich would follow a Bolshevik takeover not even you can imagine. And Georgia simply is, to the Russians, part of theempire. Jordania would be a marked man. And do not forget Josip Djugashvili, the Georgian criminal in Lenin’s employ!Should Stalin win the power in Russia he will settle his own account with Georgia, and he knows the Georgians."Tamara lowered her head. "Sometimes I, too, have such dark premonitions. They are the reason why I want to work withJordania for Georgia as soon as I get my degree."Through Niko’s intervention Tamara had, for the first time, been given the chance to finish her argument. Alexandraunderstood and appreciated Tamara’s resolve and within limits shared her ambitions.Tamara said. "I know what Alexandra intends to do in case the revolution breaks out and the Russian empire collapses,she too will go back to Georgia trying to help people in her way. Niko, what are you going to do for your Motherland?"Niko started and briefly glanced at Claudia. He fussed for a few moments and then said embarrassed. "I am afraid I willstay in Germany. As a physicist I have no future in an independent Georgia."He looked down.Tamara did not berate him. She said understandingly. "I thought so and wish you happiness and success in your field.There will be much heartache in your life, but Claudia will share it with you."Konrad’s second letter had taken three weeks to reach St. Petersburg.On the train from Samarkand, 24. October 1911Dear Alexandra,I am writing on the train that will take us to China. I have to describe to you a meeting on the day before our departure,which has considerably enlarged my understanding of the Sufi. We had a remarkable audience with an old teacher ofZafaran’s who had given me a letter of recommendation to him.After extensive inquires we were told that he lived outside of Samarkand. We took a droshki and drove through aseemingly endless Islamic cemetery. Ghostly, narrow steles tilted in all directions, dilapidated, not a tree, nor a bush.Stray dogs, their tails between their legs, roamed between the wind-blown graves. The cemetery covered the hills formiles, thousands of graves. A most holy place.Behind the cemetery began a peculiar rolling terrain, here and there old walls. The locals call the area Afra-Siab. Theseare the melted down ruins of Marakanda, where Alexander the Great spent a winter, stabbed his bosom friend Klitos in adrunken rage, and later married Roxana, the daughter of the local potentate. Djenghis Khan sacked and destroyed thecity in 1216. Timur Tamerlan built a new city right next to it, as it seems to be the custom in Asia. The ruins of Marakandacould keep ten Schliemanns busy for twenty years. The treasures buried in this earth are unimaginable.The compound of El-Zafaran’s friend hid inside an inconspicuous mud wall like all houses in Central Asia. A single gatepermitted access to a large courtyard. The living quarters, small, separate, single-story houses were glued to the insideof the wall, daily life took place in the shade of two high Chinar trees. In summer they also sleep in this yard.We were received at the gate by a servant who disappeared with my letter. After a considerable time the man returnedand led us into one of the houses. A fairly small room, bare except for a few loose cushions and a precious oriental rugcovering the floor. We took off our shoes and settled crossed-legged at a low table. Tea was brought. We were asked towait.In due time the master of the house appeared, a bent old man with a full white beard and sharp, penetrating dark eyes.He wore a long black cassock lined with blue silk, a splendid black turban on his head. His clasped hands played with thebeads of an Islamic rosary behind his back. He introduced himself as Asisan Ali Ramitani, the teacher and friend ofAnastasios El-Zafaran. A poignant figure.With infinite kindness he bade us welcome in his house, inquired after El-Zafaran’s health, and our plans and wishes. Itold him that my interest was the history of the Sufi orders, and because we were going to China, the relationshipsbetween the early Sufi and the Chinese Buddhists.Ramitami smiled, the same questions had occupied El-Zafaran’s curiosity for twenty-five years. Because El-Zafaran didnot speak Chinese, he had apparently burdened me with this unfinished search. I assured him that it was also my owncuriosity.Well, said the old man, I had come to the right place. Many of the great Sufi brotherhoods had been founded inSamarkand in the thirteenth century. Sufism was an invention of the Turkish-speaking people. One of the oldest orders,172