Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

In a weak voice Alexandra begged Konrad. "I am so terribly sorry, but I don’t think I can go with you to Tusheti in thiscondition, don’t be discouraged, please go without me!"Konrad did not tell her that he would never leave her alone, not even in the care of her mother. He quietly shelved the tripthey had planned for such a long time. She had to recover completely before they could sail for Italy."Listen my love, try to lie absolutely still and sleep like the Sufi do, very lightly and floating quietly, concentrating ongetting better even in your sleep."After a week, she slowly began to recover. She showed some appetite and took part in everyday life. But Konrad insistedthat she rest quietly for several hours a day during which he read to her from Goethe’s Italienische Reise a copy of whichhe had found in the Dadiani library. From that time on reading to each other became one of their secret pleasures.Three weeks later they sailed on an old, rusty steamer from Batumi to Trapezond where they boarded an Italian steamerfor Venice.13.Floating on the shimmering waters of Venice1899Very thin, a mere line floating between the sky and the sea, the Lido appeared in the early morning light. Billowing cloudstowered in the north over the Upper Veneto, a thunderstorm of the past night. The sea a pastel blue, cold pink, green, atinge of yellow in the sky. A thin, ethereal mist softened the horizon.Slowly, before Alexandra’s eyes, this whimsical trace of God’s crayon grew more distinct. First it was just a fleetingyellow and green, then she could distinguish the two lighthouses at the entry to the Lagoon, a few buildings, the beachesto the north a white streak.The islands of San Erasmo and Murano lay directly before her and in the mist, suspended over the water like a mirage,the transparent blue towers and churches of Venice.How long this city had lingered in her dreams. How well she remembered its many spires from the etchings Aunt Sophiahad brought back from her travels, which had left indelible images in her young mind.They had spent a day in Constantinople—sagging, heavy and debauched, drained of its beauty, ravished by uncountedconquerors. Venice floated in her imagination, a piece of art, elegant, refined, fluid—un mirage.A rowboat took them and their luggage to a modest hotel at the confluence of two canals behind the Piazza di SanMarco, which Aunt Sophia had recommended. The musty-smelling room, its walls covered with half a dozen mirrors, wascrowded with ornate furniture and an old-fashioned four-poster bed. Konrad pulled the heavy, silver-blue damask curtainsto let in the sun and the bustling noises from the canal.The porter had barely closed the door, when Alexandra threw off her clothes, and endlessly reflected between twomirrors, leaving all caution aside they made love on the creaking bed.Alexandra saw her love and Venice in a myriad of reflections. A peeling palazzo dissected into uncounted images. Slowlydrifting puddles of color on the surface of a canal, the serrated black prow of a gondola waving distorted by its own wakein the multi-hued images of the Doge’s palace. And in the evening the copula of San Giorgio Maggiore floated on asurface of gold, pinks, and powder blues into the sunset.Aimlessly following the unreliable, winding vicolos, they ventured into the labyrinth of the city, got lost, walked in circlesunable to recognize the place they had come from. At the dead end of one narrow lane they found an altar leaf by Bellinihidden in the murky darkness of a church, or they suddenly stood before the house of Marco Polo—which they couldnever find again.A labyrinth, which seemed made for them and uncounted hours of happy discoveries.They dawdled away one afternoon in a Café watching the children, who had drawn their own maze on the flagstones ofthe piazza through which they skipped on one foot.In the evening they would find a trattoria in a working neighborhood and eat the simple fare at the same table as thelocals.Alexandra’s love became boundless, overflowing. In the past she had imagined that she would dance at fabulous balls,see herself, a mysterious masked lady, being rowed by a lover over dark waters to an undisclosed destination. All ofthese fantasies vanished, were replaced by a simple, unquestioned happiness in the arms of this very real man.One day, from one of the bridges, she saw herself arm in arm with Konrad reflected in the waters of a canal. A boatpassed and their image wavered, hovered a moment suspended, and then exploded into a myriad of colorful shards.46