Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

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