Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

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question which they thought they had settled years ago.Alexandra had made herself strong: they had a house and good jobs in Tbilisi. Here they were Georgians, in Germanythey would be "Russian" refugees, without possessions, with no place to stay, with few connections and little support.Germany was an alien land and not only to her. Also, if Joachim was only half-right, the political situation in Germanyafter a lost war would be at least as disastrous as Petrograd had been.Konrad did not contradict her cool argument He reassured Alexandra that he would stay with her. But this concession didnot settle the matter. Alexandra, in tears, suggested that they should send Otto to Niko in Göttingen. She had no right totie him to their fate. Otto was eighteen now and in eminent danger of being pressed into the army of whichever powerwould control Georgia. Claudia and Niko would receive him like their own son. She would persuade George Dadiani topay Otto a small allowance against her inheritance from his Swiss bank account. Otto could attend the university inGöttingen and return once times had calmed down.Konrad, moved by her last argument, a construct to still their darkest, unmentionable fear that they would never see Ottoagain, argued that Otto was old enough to handle his own life. He, Konrad, had left home at seventeen to attenduniversity in Berlin. She should also think of Dato, who had been little more than sixteen when they sent him to Jena.This did not quell Alexandra’s tears. Konrad began to realize that the reason for her distress lay deeper. The guilt of nothaving given Otto enough love and care made her miserable. He hugged her silently, and slowly Alexandra’s sobsquieted down.Next day Konrad took Otto for a walk to prepare him for the pending decision and found that Otto was most eager to goto Germany. Konrad mentioned his mother’s tears about losing him, but did not burden him with their fear of never seeinghim again.Otto’s enthusiasm—he talked about Germany for several days—helped Alexandra collect herself. She discussed thematter with Schulenburg who offered to take Otto along on his next home-leave and issued an Imperial German passportfor Otto."Strictly extra-legal," he said with a laugh, "but who cares. The Imperial government will not last much longer."To regain his balance Konrad went back to Shavnabada to turn. Persephone, who was in her mid-sixties and hadbecome very quiet, received him with an understanding smile."Konrad, I am very happy to see you among us. I heard that you spent many nights turning at El-Zafaran’s tekke in St.Petersburg." She encouraged Konrad to dance with the others that night, notwithstanding that he was not formallyinitiated and did not wear the shroud and hat of the Dervishes.After the sema Persephone took Konrad aside and told him, "We would like to embrace you as a member of this tekkeand bestow the hat and coat on you in a small ceremony." Konrad, moved by her sincerity, sat very quietly for a fewminutes with closed eyes. It had been a long time since his first evening in Shavnabada with Alexandra. Many timessince, he had found the turning exercises his last refuge whenever he felt off balance. He thanked her and accepted.Konrad’s initiation became a solemn service full of restrained, ethereal joy, a rite of passage for Otto as much as Konrad,a thanksgiving for their safe return to Georgia, and a welcome for their new friends. Konrad had invited SagdullaBakhrami and a reluctant Dato, and Alexandra, who had consented to the ceremony with a tear in her eye, broughtChristine and Berta. Gray-haired Henri had come. Deda acted as semabashi. The melody of the neys spun a tightconsoling cocoon around the small group. Deda dressed Konrad in the long, white, skirt-like shroud of the Sufi, andPersephone placed the high, felt hat on Konrad’s head, which would crown the tombstone on his grave. And then hedanced with his new brethren.It all happened very quickly. Three weeks later Germany collapsed. By December the German troops had left Georgia.The last person to leave was Schulenburg. He picked up Otto in the embassy car. A sullen Konrad loaded Otto’s fewcases. With a radiant smile Alexandra hugged her Tuscan child—for the last time. He got into the back seat. They allwaved, and in a few minutes he had disappeared down the street towards Poti.Only then did Alexandra break down in Deda’s arms.66.My Visit to Tbilisi 1982Following a conference in Novosibirsk I persuaded my all-powerful protector Academician B. at the Academy of Sciencesin Moscow to allow me spend a week in Tbilisi to discuss technical matters with Prof. Merab D. at Tbilisi University. Onprevious visits to Tbilisi, Merab had driven me to many places where Alexandra had lived. Merab knew of my search formy grandparents. I still wanted to find out what had happened to them after 1943 when they had vanished. But every206
time I asked this question I had met with embarrassed silence..This time my schedule was tight. Arrangements had been made for me to visit two new laboratories. No time for longexcursions with Merab. The meetings and the following dinners lasted into the nights.In the morning I told Merab that I needed to be alone and would spend an hour at Konrad’s Botanical Gardens. Heunderstood, and I went off on foot. The Botanical Gardens are separated from the city by the ridge with the Narikala Fortand the Iron Mother of Georgia. Absentminded, looking for the shortest way, I noticed a young pregnant woman with herhusband coming towards me pushing a child in a stroller. A few seconds later we would have passed each other, andshe would have disappeared forever.I don’t know, was it her condition, her unusual blond hair, or her light blue eyes looking at me? We smiled at each other,and I spontaneously asked her, in my poor Russian, for the way to the Botanical Gardens. She answered in fluentGerman. That was not unusual, other people in Tbilisi spoke German, but she spoke it with a strong Swabian accent.She explained that there was a tunnel below deda sakartvelis, the Iron Mother of Georgia, which led directly to theBotanical Gardens. I thanked her and intrigued by her Schwäbisch, asked where she came from."I was born in Uzbekistan, but my parents came from Elisabethtal, once a small Swabian village in the mountains southof here."She pointed in the general direction of the television tower on Mount Mtatsminda. Now I was fully awake, not because ofElisabethtal, but because of her mentioning Uzbekistan. "How did your parents get to Uzbekistan?"Her husband pulled at her sleeve and said something in Georgian.Perfectly natural she said, "Oh, that story is too long to discuss in the street. I was born in Shakh-i-Zabz, married aGeorgian, and returned to Tbilisi." She pointed with her head at her husbandShe was, I guessed, 30. What prompted me to ask whether she had ever heard the name Alexandra Dadiani?"Yes," she said to my complete surprise, "Alexandra was a friend of my mother’s. She delivered me. She was our doctorin Uzbekistan. Why do you ask, did you know Alexandra?"My voice was suddenly stuck, I could barely whisper. "Alexandra was my grandmother.""Oh, what a coincidence."Her husband was showing signs of irritation. It was not advisable to be seen talking to foreigners in the street. He tookher by the arm. She smiled apologetically. "I will have to go, we are late.""Tell me what was your maiden name?""Susanne Eberle."She waved to me as her husband led her away.They had already walked a short distance when I called after her. "Susanne, do you know where my grandmother isburied?"She turned and called back. "In the cemetery at Zaguramo."Rooted, I watched them disappear around the next corner. I knew I would never see her again.I found the tunnel and a bench at its far end. It was hot outside. I sat in the cool shade of the tunnel and looked down onKonrad’s garden. I put my head between my hands, my mind was spinning.... After all my fruitless searches, the mostimportant stone of Alexandra’s mosaic had fallen into my lap by pure chance. Alexandra had been in Shakh-i-Zabz inUzbekistan in the 1950s. She had returned to Tbilisi and was buried in Zaguramo.Merab drove me to Zaguramo. After a systematic search of the cemetery he found the grave. It was modest. No pictureof the deceased, no elaborate iron fence surrounding the well-kept grounds, a simple black, marble stone.Neither of us could decipher the Greek inscription. Merab insisted that I kiss the stone out of respect of my long-lostgrandmother. It was a Georgian custom. I knelt down and kissed her name distracted by the line about the circle'speriphery.It took me months to find the Greek inscription in a bilingual edition of Herakleitos’ Fragments. Literally translated itreads: “Identical are Beginning and End on the Periphery of a Circle.“A new riddle.My old father Otto wept, when I brought him my photos of Alexandra’s grave. In my memory father had never been givento shows of emotion. Shy, reticent to the point of awkwardness, more intelligent than his colleagues, he had no closefriends. I, like Alexandra, am an extrovert person—and a poor listener. On this evening I kept mostly quiet. And fatherwas more eloquent than I could remember ever having seen him…."You know," he began, "that I have not heard from my mother since 1939, when Schulenburg was German ambassadorin Moscow and prepared the infamous German-Soviet non-aggression treaty after the defeat of Poland."Alexandra had suddenly appeared in Moscow, had managed to slip Schulenburg a letter, and had vanished without atrace.207
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Table of Contents1. My Grandfather'
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1.My Grandfather's Watch among the
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ditch beside the road.Mother was tr
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Deep snow still covered Djvari Pass
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"But you know nothing about how to
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newborn baby! You won’t need a ba
Page 15 and 16:
Dadiani bent over the table, reache
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Autumn had come to Georgia, and it
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"Gespenstisch!" whispered Mouravi t
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Finally, depressed by his inability
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They slowly rode up the hill north
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On their way back to the Lavra Alex
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Blushing like a young girl, she gav
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Alexandra bowed deeply to a middle-
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All applauded and Ilia made a small
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She had done her hair up in a new w
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ape her. But then he must die, and
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a rear door when she entered.If Per
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Alexandra went purple with embarras
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The smell of roasting lamb wafted t
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Konrad quietly sat back. To his gre
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The tall, dark-haired woman began w
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She kissed him."Maybe you dream of
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14.Tuscany - the Wolfsons' House in
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ut are, unjustly, much more famous.
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Alexandra had fallen into melanchol
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She kissed him tenderly. "Niko, I a
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obligations, and she, ever since th
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months, was flooded with the diffus
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could they be aroused into communal
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19.An unexpected encounter with Vla
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chauffeur drop me at the station ju
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She described her sensation of flyi
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sky a thin, transparent blue. Imbed
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interest in Theosophy."Marti shrugg
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to?Mother had never mentioned any d
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"Ah, of course, of course, ‘Eine
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Konrad agreed that this sounded mor
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patriarchal oak and smiled, a littl
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have a similar situation in our vil
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Alexandra disagreed. "Most abortive
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a limited edition, hand-screened ma
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Alexandra touched her necklace and
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close!"She had hugged him, tears ru
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The others came lumbering up the st
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urden the heart with this task, whi
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the colors mixed and changed depend
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28.Kandinsky's suprising confession
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With kisses Alexandra removed the v
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He knelt, removed her knee and leg
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Joachim viewed Konrad with sympathe
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The rumbling continued at regular i
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Russia."She picked up a piece of br
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conservative pessimism, demanded th
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preventative method and taking it e
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new provocation in modern music and
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exhausted the Renaissance idea of b
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creative clairvoyance, and her shar
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Left to herself, Alexandra, awed, w
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public. She fended off the fuzzy wo
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ailways on strike. The strike had t
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Grandfather was very sad when he fo
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and put on his coat and shoes, he r
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Alexandra not in the mood to give V
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crowd of the fashionable and the ma
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established tradition with some mil
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42.Uncle Muravi's Benz, Tiflis1907"
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equisitioned a locomotive to take t
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meaningless rituals. That may be on
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lacking. I like this man, and at th
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are suitably ambiguous."45.The Dadi
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think of Munich or something else p
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He showed them the room where they
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death."Alexandra was more intereste
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they fought over the offering. The
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flew off cawing.Claudia grabbed Ale
Page 155 and 156: Together they were hedging out a pl
Page 157 and 158: the right of women to own their bod
Page 159 and 160: The Chinese wife of a sinologist at
Page 161 and 162: these texts."However, Ch'an is the
Page 163 and 164: times, but moved back together agai
Page 165 and 166: survived the Bolsheviks, the Fascis
Page 167 and 168: physically overwhelm her. Despite h
Page 169 and 170: Konrad picked up Alexandra at the t
Page 171 and 172: Abruptly her vision had narrowed, a
Page 173 and 174: the Kwadjagani, the Masters of Wisd
Page 175 and 176: somewhat, his back was still bent,
Page 177 and 178: century. The characteristic Chinese
Page 179 and 180: Alexandra was relieved and happy, a
Page 181 and 182: subconscious past her observant min
Page 183 and 184: Dahl leaned back in surprise. "This
Page 185 and 186: visions reappear. Entire armies mar
Page 187 and 188: "This method is not easy, I have ne
Page 189 and 190: He had started with representationa
Page 191 and 192: His hair had turned completely whit
Page 193 and 194: Overnight the mood in St. Petersbur
Page 195 and 196: daughter. His wife had left him no
Page 197 and 198: which was presented to him—with a
Page 199 and 200: "From the soldiers whom I took care
Page 201 and 202: He watched Alexandra’s doubting m
Page 203 and 204: lond, bony girl whose gray eyes loo
Page 205: call it intellectual humanism. It d
Page 209 and 210: "I spent most of the winter of 1918
Page 211 and 212: We buried him in the cemetery at G
Page 213 and 214: ways. Corruption became the way of
Page 215 and 216: 68.A Concert in Kreuth - Eliso1989I
Page 217 and 218: Eliso listened with increasing fasc
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