Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Alexandra's Journey to Munich
1913
Alexandra shared a second-class sleeper compartment with three others. Her upper
berth afforded some privacy, but did get hot and stuffy at night. East Prussia passed cold and
gray by her window. Pouring rain had transformed the land into one vast lake. Eydtkuhnen, the
memories of their long wait in the snow and the night at the Bredows, lay behind her.
She spent a good amount of time sitting on her bed reading and meditating. At home
she did breath-counting exercises every morning after she woke up. "To separate my dreams
from the new day," she would tell Konrad.
These exercises had become an effective way of renewing her energies and controlling
the tensions of her days, to let her deep feelings and hunches surface and to prepare for her
patients. She was convinced that these exercises had released her healing powers.
She now experimented with a less-structured method of visualizing spontaneous images
floating from the depth of her subconscious past her observant mind, unpremeditated. She
looked at them, took them in, and discarded them for a new image.
Among pictures from the past—Otto on the sleigh ride in the full-moon night, her ride
with Dato to Shuamta—all of a sudden deeply disturbing images surfaced: the East Prussian
landscape appeared covered with corpses floating in blood. She quickly wrenched herself out
of this frightening state, but the latent afterimage returned whenever she looked at the pouring
rain.
"An outgrowth of my hidden fears and anxieties," she told herself.
Suddenly the conductor stood before her. "Frau Doktor Dadiani-Rost, may I please see
your ticket?"
Perplexed, Alexandra looked at the smiling man.
"Where are your son and husband? Don’t you remember me and the night you took the
pregnant woman to Gumbinnen?"
Now Alexandra recognized the man who had asked her for help seven years ago. It was
not possible, was it?
"Yes," he said, "I am still traveling the same beat between Eydtkuhnen and Berlin, three
times a week. Our meeting is a coincidence. Would you care to join me for a cup of tea? Or do
you prefer an excellent Belgian coffee?"
Alexandra chose the coffee to revive her spirits and banish her black thoughts.
To her own surprise, she did most of the talking—was it because she had talked a
whole day only to herself? The things that had accumulated in her mind for weeks just flowed
from her. She had tried to keep those events to herself, especially her success in healing
people.
The man was less surprised than she had expected.
"Here in Masuria live many women who do that, and in Kashubia, through which we will
pass this evening, all the women seem to have a sixth sense. They are famous, the Kashubian
Sibyls." He laughed.
But then he looked at her with serious eyes. "Frau Doktor, you are an educated lady.
You live in the Russian capital, but you are not Russian. You are very different from the
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