Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

The tall, dark-haired woman began with several of the familiar, sad tunes accompanied by the orchestra, but then shetried to provoke young, innocent Niko Dadiani by teasing him with her Byzantine eyes to sing with her. She would start asong and call on Niko to finish the verse. They were love songs, the lines of which were alternatingly sung by the loverand his woman. Niko blushed deeply, but could not produce a single sound.Suddenly George Chavchavadze answered Darejan’s couplets, and soon an improvised poetic exchange between themensued. As George caught on to her mood, Darejan interspersed her songs with single verse lines to which Davidresponded with the appropriate rhyming line, to eventually join her in another duet.The guests listened in breathless silence. As David became bolder the verses flew back and forth in rapid succession.Darejan challenged David in no uncertain ways as man and lover, but the exchange remained in perfect taste. Konrad,sensing that this was an ancient art, was enraptured. The audience was obviously familiar with it, but George becamequite enamored with Darejan, far beyond convention."Darejan is famous in Tiflis," whispered Alexandra. "Family rumors claim that David’s father had a passionate affair withDarejan when she was very young. Some even maintain that she had born him a daughter, but nobody seems to haveever seen the child."Around midnight Ilia, to loud shouts of "Bravo!" from the men, unveiled his surprise—a belly dancer. Konrad had neverseen a belly dancer before and was surprised by her advanced age. He made a whispered remark to Alexandra, whowith a devastating glance put a finger on her lips. Watching he sensed that this dance demanded a full figure. A younggirl would not have possessed the body control, nor radiated the mysterious aura this experienced woman of fortyshowed.She had appeared covered by a veil which she used to play hide and seek with the men in the front row and especiallyKonrad who blushed in nervous embarrassment. Slowly she let one after the other of her veils fall. She was in control ofevery muscle of her beautifully proportioned body. Finally the music stopped. She ended her long dance on the floor,nude, except for one last veil.After an almost reverent silence the audience broke out in wild applause.Konrad wanted to make a sarcastic remark, but Alexandra cut him short: he was childish and had no appreciation for thehigh art of this woman, who was one of the best dancers in Georgia. He shook his head, how could Alexandra, a woman,defend this dubious performance?For the reception at the Dadiani townhouse in Tiflis a week later Irakli had hired a modern dance band. A French-stylebuffet was served to the numerous guests, and everybody danced to their hearts’ delight.On that evening Konrad discovered the Bredows. At the wedding there had been little time to talk and his mind had beenpreoccupied with the events. Then Herr von Bredow had appeared like the proverbial disciplined, professional diplomat,obliging but reserved, a gaunt man of small stature.Talking to him now he found that Bredow had a thorough knowledge of the history and art of Georgia. Naturally, as theGerman consul, he was especially interested in the many Germans who had lived and worked in Georgia. To Konrad’ssurprise he learned that two von Siemens brothers had died in Tiflis and were buried there. Others, like the idiosyncraticOrient explorer von Bodenstedt, had left interesting descriptions of Georgia at the beginning of the century, and Konrad’sown grandfather Kiepert had spent many months in Tiflis surveying and mapping the land. For over three generationsthese travelers and emissaries had been hosted by the Chavchavadzes.In addition, the gray-blue eyes of Clara von Arnim, the fine-boned, lively wife of Joachim von Bredow’s enchanted andattracted him more than he would admit to himself.Alexandra saw at once, that Clara excited Konrad’s interest. Ah, she thought, the women from his own tribe againstwhom I will have to defend myself all my lifeDancing with Konrad, Alexandra smiled. "Clara has beautiful German eyes. She is tactful and sensitive, I would like tomake her my friend. Don’t you like her too?"Konrad only nodded.As Alexandra took Konrad around and introduced him to all the important friends of her family, he noticed that she hadred spots on her cheeks, her eyes were unnaturally brilliant. He dismissed her feverish appearance as excitement. Thenhe lost sight of her for a while.He was dancing with Clara when she told him that Alexandra was not feeling well and had quietly disappeared to herroom upstairs. She did not want to spoil the evening.Alarmed, Konrad took Clara by the arm, and together they went upstairs to look for Alexandra. They found her lying onher bed glowing and feeling very weak. Konrad got some cold water and sitting at her bedside, put compresses on herforehead. Clara slipped out and looked for Deda. The three could not find any definite symptoms. Alexandra’stemperature was high, and she felt terribly exhausted and tired.Finally Deda sent a messenger to their family doctor, Friederika von Haffner, a competent German physician who cameimmediately. After a thorough investigation, the doctor suggested that it was probably a neuralgic fever caused by theexcitement of the past weeks. She ordered strict bed rest, prescribed a few drops of paregoric in water and told Deda toput wet stockings on Alexandra’s legs. "No excitement, please," she said waving her finger at Konrad with a smile.45