Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

formal Sie with her first name. "Let’s go to the kitchen and find a vase for them," she added
disarmingly.
While Mrs. Dahl carefully trimmed each of the flowers and one after the other arranged
them in a glass vase, she asked Alexandra about her trip, her visit to Berlin, the apartment, and
with a motherly smile, whether she did not feel homesick.
"After having met your charming brother, I am no longer surprised by your excellent
German. But Niko, all by himself, was quite homesick in the beginning." Mrs. Dahl smiled.
"Together, Claudia and I took him in and tried to make him feel loved and at home."
"Yes," Alexandra returned her knowing smile, "he seems as much attached to you as to
Claudia. Thank you for your care of and devotion to him. It was I who sent him into exile. Under
your tutelage he has become a different person."
Claudia had disappeared upstairs and a few minutes later returned with a large box of
children’s toys, a train, a doll, a teddy bear. Otto, who had not seen any toys besides the few
they had brought, was soon playing happily in the living room. Mrs. Dahl placed the flowers on
a small table near the window. "Look, Alexandra, how they glow in the afternoon light!" And
indeed, it was as if they had been the missing touch of color in the room.
Over tea the three women had an easy, completely relaxed conversation. Alexandra
was asked to describe her parents house and life in Tiflis, St. Petersburg, and her medical
studies.
Slowly Mrs. Dahl brought the conversation to Alexandra’s social engagement. "I hear
from Claudia that you bring a strong social commitment to your medicine. I truly applaud that
decision, we need good doctors who are willing to help the underprivileged more than our
fashionable specialists."
Alexandra blushed. "The health conditions among the Russian workers in St. Petersburg are
so depressing that you can hardly imagine them here."
Mrs. Dahl smiled. "In Berlin and in the Rhineland exist similar industrial slums. However,
Claudia says that your main concern is to help women control the number of their children.
This is an area that is hardly restricted to the destitute, but how are you proposing to do that?
Here we know only of abortions and those have to be performed secretly because they are
illegal."
From previous discussions Alexandra knew that even her medically trained, female
colleagues could get highly irrational about this subject. It was dangerous territory, and she had
to choose her words carefully. "I consider abortion justified only in cases where the mother is in
grave danger, but there are pharmacological methods to prevent conception or abort a
pregnancy about which modern medicine knows and says nothing."
"Our village midwives," added Claudia, "also know all kinds of herbal abortifacients and
contraceptive brews. But how can you test the efficacy of such herbal medicines and study
their side effects?"
Seeing that she had a surprisingly receptive audience, Alexandra lowered her guard. "I
tried some of them, like the one I gave to Anna, on myself."
Mrs. Dahl raised her eyebrows. "I find that extraordinarily dedicated and courageous of
you, to experiment with yourself to help your patients."
Alexandra smiled. "I was not quite as heroic as you imagine." She described her
agreement with Konrad not to have another child until she had finished medical school.
"Another method is to observe the days during which a woman is fertile. Again little is
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