Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

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The Sufi had been driven completely underground, turning had become dangerous and could only be done secretly inprivate houses, which is what they had done in remote Elisabethtal under cover of the wedding.Otto sent an answer by regular mail, telling her of Annika’s sudden death and that he had met Katharina, my mother, andhad moved to Breslau. He must have asked Alexandra for her spiritual support of his wish to marry Katharina, because aletter by Alexandra carried by a Georgian wrestler on his way to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin begins with a blessing.I take you and Katharina into my arms and wish you the happiness you lost. I tried to see Katharina, but her images areoverlaid with those of the Bavarian Katharina. I cannot see her clearly. But tell your Katharina that I loved the other verymuch and maybe there are more parallels between the two than I can fathom. The Bavarian Katharina was an eminentlypractical woman with a great, imperturbable sense of reality and her own place in it. Such a woman would be good foryou, my would-be poet.Did Alexandra guess that the reason for her inability to see my mother was, at least in part, caused by my mother’s lifelongrepudiation of Alexandra? Alexandra’s characterization of my mother was surprisingly accurate. I can only assumethat Katharina Weisshuber once fit Alexandra’s description, the Katharina Dahl whom I had met had little in common withmy mother. And yes, in a way my father was a would-be poet, although, to my knowledge, he had never written a singleverse.In 1936, during the Great Purges, Beria rose to political prominence in Georgia as Stalin’s henchman. He mercilesslyliquidated the last remaining Mensheviks, among them Tamara. She vanished in the Gulag and never returned.Tamri has left us. At this time Asmat is living with Deda, who has moved into a small apartment in town. Deda is in poorhealth, I don’t have much hope that she will live much longer. Asmat cares for her in the most touching way. Asmat isintelligent and inherited the independent spirit of her mother. She has been selected for a special elite school, and unlesswe come up with a better idea, will soon go her own way.Asmat, the gifted orphan of a "misguided" revolutionary, had been selected for a special Party school. It would open agood career for her in the party hierarchy, but remove her completely from her foster-parents’ influence. A standard trickof many ideological dictators. Alexandra was looking for ways to save her from this fate.By 1939 the worst purges were over. Cowed, the Georgians kept their heads down. Yet undaunted Alexandra hadsuccessfully slipped Schulenburg her letter—her last.I have good news for you. Your sister has found a man whom we all like. We hope to celebrate their wedding before theend of the year. He is a young physician who is an intern at the hospital. I am very happy that she will take her own life inher hands. My soft, pliable Georgian girl has lived too long under my charge.Inexplicably, Alexandra did not mention Sophia’s husband’s name, apparently because she hoped to describe Sophia’swedding in a future letter. That letter was never written. Once again war was raging behind the mountains.I am glad to have borne you so early. You are now a man in your best years and out of the worst danger of contractingany of the children’s diseases which are haunting the young these days. We are having occasional outbreaks ofpoliomyelitis leaving cripples and many young dead, and I have nothing to help them with. It is very depressing, as arethe terrible thunderstorms over the high mountains at night. The world has become a dangerous place. I hope thatSchulenburg’s efforts will help cement the peaceful coexistence of our two countries. Then I might be able to write youagain.To her relief Otto was beyond the age when he would have been in danger of being drafted.A few months ago we had the rare treat of a concert at the Opera House. Mravinsky, the new director of the Leningrad,alias St. Petersburg Symphony conducted the Fifth Symphony by Dimitri Shostakovich. A controversial composer youprobably have never heard of. Since 1913, when the Dahls took me to a performance of Mahler’s Sixth in Munich, have Inot heard a symphony like Shostakovich’s Fifth. Maybe you have to have lived in St. Petersburg during the past twentyyears to understand why we cried in shame and silence. Like Mahler’s prophetic vision of the end of the Europe we knewand Meyerhold’s "Masquerade," the requiem for the Russian Empire, Shostakovich put our sufferings and hopes tomusic.During that year Shostakovich waited, expecting that Stalin would have him shot any day.Your father has retired. He gets a small pension and occasionally visits the Botanical Gardens, but he is glad to berelieved of his teaching duties. Considering his age, he is in excellent health, a quiet, philosophical man who has turnedinwards. He spends much time with the study of Eastern cultures.Konrad tends more and more toward contemplative, abstract speculations, while I practice living every day on this earthin the greatest possible lucidity.Both are meditation exercises. I will not retire for a long time, my spirit is unbroken, and my long search for completeawareness of my actions has not come to an end.I had traversed twenty years of Alexandra’s life in half as many hours. We were approaching Los Angeles. Below usstretched the hot, dry valleys and mountainous spines of the Nevada desert. How had Konrad and Alexandra ended inUzbekistan, a land like this below, Konrad over seventy and Alexandra in her sixties? Did she make the decision to gothere? I practice living every day on this earth in the greatest possible lucidity.214
68.A Concert in Kreuth - Eliso1989I was visiting friends in Munich. To celebrate our reunion we had supper in a neighborhood Biergarten. "Would you like tojoin us tomorrow for a concert at a music festival near Tegernsee?" said my friend. "The Borodin Quartet and a Georgianpianist will play Shostakovich and the Schubert Quintet. You are in love with Georgia, aren’t you?"The idea of listening to music in one of the enchanted Bavarian places on a beautiful spring night was beguiling. "Who isthe pianist?""Eliso Abashidze." I had never heard that name.In the soft light of a warm afternoon my friends drove me through the lovely Bavarian countryside, rolling hills, villagesflocking around the onion domes of Baroque churches, dark woods, wide-roofed farm houses in green meadows, toWildbad Kreuth, a nineteenth-century spa—with a history. A bronze plaque commemorated the sojourns of EmperorNicholas II of Russia, his wife and children on vacation in the years before World War I.The French doors of the small concert hall were all open yet the room was unbearably hot. Tall, erect, self-possessedEliso walked onto the tiny stage. Her black hair and strongly sculpted features, the prominent nose….I shivered.I could not determine the color of her eyes.Unsmiling, she bowed—the skeptical look of Modigliani’s painting—and with eloquent elegance swept up the agingRussian string players.I barely listened to the music. I mumbled under my breath. Who is this woman?In the intermission I headed, like a sleepwalker, to the performers’ dressing room. Tired, Eliso gave the intruder her mostcritical look. Another admirer, how boring."I am sorry to disturb you. My name is…"A l e x a n d r a’ s N e c k l a c e…Tongue-tied, I stared at the chain of golden Omegas around her neck.She scrutinized me disconcerted—Yes, she did have Alexandra’s blue eyes! She extended her hand. "What can I do foryou?"Barely audible, I stuttered. " I am Otto Rost’s son."Her eyes softened. Wordless, we fell into each other’s arms. She kissed me.Next door the Borodin started Shostakovich’s tenth quartet. We just sat there and looked at each other.She gestured with her hands. "Otto? Grandmother Alexandra was certain that Otto had died a long time ago. She hadlost spiritual contact with him. And I looked all over Germany and had given up all hope of ever finding any of you.""Otto died six years ago. For thirty years I have been living in Los Angeles. Sophia is your mother?"She nodded.I smiled at her. "Your necklace…All this time I searched for the woman who wears Konrad’s necklace!"She undid it and let it flow into my hands.Fighting tears, I arranged its links on the table into Alexandra’s mandala.The quiet melody of the second movement of Shostakovich’s tenth quartet could be heard from the concert hall.I realized that all these years the Alexandra of my imagination had been the ever-young woman of her portrait, ageless,the icon of my childhood. I now sat across from the Alexandra of her last letter to Otto:…my spirit is unbroken, and mylong search for complete awareness of my actions has not come to an end. Eliso’s serious, compassionate eyes,surrounded by creases, had seen a lifetime of deprivations. Alexandra’s challenging frivolity was gone, her sensitivemouth had softened. But the well-defined, mobile arches of her black eyebrows and the shadows under her highcheekbones were unmistakably Alexandra’s—Modigliani’s painting."1964," said Eliso. "Shostakovich wrote the tenth quartet a year before Alexandra died. We had a recording of it. Sheloved this quartet. It summed up the agonies and hopes of her life."She looked into space. "Can you stay tonight? There is so much to say. I am renting a small apartment in the village. Youcould sleep on the couch."Applause came from the concert hall. The Borodin was embarking into the fourteenth quartet.I still had trouble speaking. "I would like to stay with you. Friends brought me here."She nodded. "Let’s wait. This is Shostakovich’s most beautiful quartet."We fell silent. The necklace was still lying on the table. I rearranged it into an arc and finally collected and kissed it215
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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
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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
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Together they were hedging out a pl
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the right of women to own their bod
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The Chinese wife of a sinologist at
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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 and 206: call it intellectual humanism. It d
Page 207 and 208: time I asked this question I had me
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: ways. Corruption became the way of
Page 217 and 218: Eliso listened with increasing fasc
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