Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

lethargy and got me into this adventure." He laughed. "I will never forget the argument we had
that day!"
She grinned, and teased her beloved brother. "And you have a new, attractive girlfriend,
Konrad told me."
Niko blushed. "Claudia is very anxious to meet you."
"Come here," shouted Konrad, "they even have an icebox!"
They all followed him into the kitchen.
"You fill this thing with ice blocks which the beer breweries make and will deliver to your
door. On certain days you can smell the malt from the breweries all over town."
Two of the rooms had mansard windows and the master bedroom had a large balcony
towards the south.
"Just like in Tiflis!" commented Alexandra. "Even the furnishings remind me of my
parents’ house."
Konrad suggested that they all have supper in the beer garden at the Chinesische Turm,
the Chinese Tower in the Englische Garten. Fascinated, Alexandra watched Niko nonchalantly
pick up the telephone, crank it several times, and talk most animatedly into the funnel that had
scared her so much. Niko invited Claudia to join them at the beer garden.
She smiled at him. "I see, you have learned how to have intimate conversations over the
telephone." She shook her head. "I had an opportunity recently to try that, but I panicked
before this black, impersonal hole!"
Niko pulled a face at his sister. "Lexako, you have been living in the provinces. You will
soon get used to it!"
In the long twilight of the warm evening half of Munich seemed to have congregated
under the Englische Turm. The long wooden tables under the chestnut trees were crowded
with people.
"This is so much like Georgia!" Alexandra said, touched by nostalgia. "Look, entire
families, a mother who nurses her baby, groups of men, and they all talk to each other!"
They were sitting on long benches rubbing shoulders—workers, students, academics,
men and women, children talking, joking, eating—and everyone had at least one huge Stein of
beer in front of him or her, even the nursing mother.
"Next time I will bring Otto along!"
Katharina and Niko finally found a table to share with a family who moved over to make
room for them. Alexandra sat next to the young woman admiring her two children.
"Where are you from, you are not from here," asked the plain-faced woman very directly
but not unfriendly.
"Ach, Anna," said her husband, "leave the strangers to themselves."
Anna apologized, but good-natured curiosity lit up her haggard face. Alexandra had
difficulties understanding her, she spoke a strange German.
Katharina laughing came to her rescue. She explained in Bavarian that her friends had
just arrived from Russia, that Alexandra was a physician and Konrad a professor who was
going to teach at the university for a year. Anna’s husband’s dark-face changed, and in no
time, Alexandra had the older boy on her lap examining his ear, which according to his father
was infected.
Alexandra suggested washing it with tincture of camomile and arnica. Katharina laughed
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