Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

Whenever it did not rain in October and November, Alexandra took Konrad on ever-longer excursions. High on thepleasure of riding, they spent whole days in the vast steppe southeast of Tiflis, far from the prying eyes, the gossip,convention, and bustle of town.They left very early one morning when the air was still crisp and frosty. As soon as the squalor of the busy streets laybehind them, they let their horses fly. Except for a few shepherds and their flocks, no villages interrupted the expanse ofthis landscape.South of the road to Kakheti the grassy plain stretched for miles towards the hills of Garedshi on the Azerbeidjani border.They rode along a barely visible track straight into the noon sun."Let’s see who wins!" she shouted and gave her horse free rein.Konrad bent down on the neck of his mare, stirring her to give all she had. They flew over the empty plain like arrows.For the first time Konrad felt truly at one with his horse. Very slowly he gained a nose, then half a head, and finally half alength on Alexandra’s stallion."I give up," shouted Alexandra raising her arms. "This time you win."She reined in her panting horse, jumped off, and threw herself full-length into a sandy depression laughing and gaspingfor breath. He knelt next to his high-spirited Amazon and kissed her tenderly.The low sun threw long shadows of the two lonely riders over the yellow grass, when they reached the seeminglybewitched rock formations of David Garedja. In an amphitheater surrounded by rock walls pocked with caves they cameupon the Lavra, the dilapidated center of the monasteries of Udabno.An Azeri shepherd family and their flock occupied the ground floor in the only intact building. The shepherds spoke aheavily Farsi-inflected Georgian, which Alexandra could barely understand. They offered them an empty room on thesecond floor, once a monk’s cell, and for a small amount of money promised to provide for the horses.In the light of the fading day Konrad and Alexandra explored the ruins, defense towers, remnants of a collapsed church,and an elaborate system of water runnels feeding a cavernous cistern full of frogs. Hermits once occupied the caves inthe soft rocks.Along an extended incline they climbed to one of the caves, where they sat imagining the place inhabited by monks who,in the tenth century, had come to live at the feet of the revered Syrian mystic David Garedji.A full moon rose. The caves in the rock walls filled with spooky shadows. The chanting of the night vigil surrounded them."You wanted to learn Georgian?" She smiled quizzically at him. "Are you still prepared to do that, or have you changedyour mind?" He frowned. "How could I have changed my mind? Are you still prepared to marry me?"She put an arm around his shoulder and whispered, "Me umorchilesad gtkhovt tkveni kalishvilis khels." Irritated he shookhis head. "You know that I don’t understand Georgian, will you translate for me?" "Just repeat after me." Loud and clearlyshe said again, "Me umorchilesad gtkhovt tkveni kalishvilis khels."He stuttered through the line. "Is this the beginning of a poem?" "Perhaps, but it is definitely the beginning of our lifetogether. The triple consonants are difficult. Try again, you are getting better." Slowly he gathered that this was the magicformula that would persuade Irakli Dadiani to concede his daughter to him. In the end, after he had mastered the entirephrase and repeated it several times in a row, he kissed her and begged off until another day.In a beautiful, clear alto voice Alexandra began to sing songs that sounded sad, mysterious, and exciting, all at once. Themoon had come across the hills, and its light flooded the valley of the Lavra. A sheep bleated and the dogs began tohowl. Soon an answer came from the desert, a jackal or another sheep dog? The desert night sprang to life with voices.In the early morning they walked up a steep path across the broad back of the ridge behind the Lavra. Alexandra hadheard of another cave complex, but had never been there and had to ask the shepherds for the way. From an old chapelon top of the ridge a yellow-brown wasteland of rolling hills spread before them, here and there a darker rock formationcast slanted shadows. For a long time they searched for the elusive caves.Konrad had climbed along a steep precipice and called. "Alexandra, these rocks are full of discarded snake skins, theremust be dozens of them here. Come, have a look." "Snakes are one species I really don’t like," she shouted back."Thank you, I don’t want to follow you. They are dangerous Asian sand vipers. Thank God it is not spring, you simplycould not climb these rocks."Finally she discovered the caves that they had been searching for hidden underneath the overhang: a collapsedrefectory, numerous small cells, a chapel in a rock cave, the roof of which lay strewn about in jagged, crystallineboulders, fantastic sculptures in the early light.Alexandra had to climb on Konrad’s shoulders to reach the refectory, and then she pulled him up. Carefully watching forfalling stones, they found six benches and tables in the cave hewn from the bare rock.Suddenly they stood before a fresco of the Last Supper: Christ and the disciples seated around an oval table strewn withround loaves, a single fish in a bowl. Behind the table, to the left, the city of Jerusalem, a tree on the right. It was paintedin delicate hues of green, pink, and yellow. Konrad counted the disciples and found only eleven! Judas was missing!"Strange, in all four gospels Judas was part of the Last Supper. Why have these monks omitted him?""Maybe they wanted to punish him!" suggested Alexandra. "But these were Syrian monks, who often entertained strangebeliefs that are not part of the gospels. To them Judas was the only one who knew—who recognized Jesus as Christ."24