Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

non-aggression treaty after the defeat of Poland."
Alexandra had suddenly appeared in Moscow, had managed to slip Schulenburg a
letter, and had vanished without a trace.
"Schulenburg had a hard time finding us. You remember the winter of 1938? We had
moved to H—, and Alexandra did not have an address for us. Neither did she know that Niko
and Claudia had fled to America. Schulenburg finally found us through the Bredows."
A deep frown formed on his face. "My mother had a strange way of visiting me by
psychic means, clairvoyance, or whatever you want to call it. She watched over me, and once
she appeared to me in a dream…. No, I don’t want to talk about that—my mother terrified me
in those days."
He shook his head and paused in thought. "For many years Alexandra’s spying was a
fact of my life. And I had hoped that she would lose my tracks when we moved to H—…
terrible, don’t you think?"
"Claudia had explained to me, that Mother would go flying," he brightened a little and
made the silly gesture of flapping his arms, "and visit people and places at night. Claudia once
rescued her in St. Petersburg when Mother had fallen from the sky while looking for Konrad in
China. Apparently Mother got confused and nearly passed out in her trance. Claudia was still
shaken by this memory when she told me the story decades later."
He glanced questioningly at me through his glasses. "Mother had discovered that she
had faith-healing capabilities, and somehow her flying was related to that. I did not pay much
attention to this until, in 1920, she sent me a letter addressed to the Bredow’s in East Prussia
claiming to have seen me there in Annika’s arms. Can you imagine how that alarmed me? My
crazy Mother watching me without my knowledge. I had no sensation of her presence. In
Annika’s arms? She claimed she saw me often in this way, but she could not speak to me,
because she had not taught me how to get into that state. In 1939 she had lost my tracks. She
wrote, unhappy that she was not able to find the town nor the house we lived in."
My father ceremoniously got two glasses and opened a bottle of wine. My parents drank
very little and then only on special occasions.
Encouraged by his openness, I dared to ask the question which had pursued me many
times since I had emigrated to America.
"How was it when your parents sent you off to Germany in 1918? Were you very upset,
or were you excited by the prospect of this new adventure?"
My father looked silently at the photo of Alexandra’s grave. He had never talked to me
about his separation from his parents.
With a deep sigh he continued. "When you left for America I got a taste of what it must
have meant to my parents when I left Tbilisi. I have thought about that day many times since.
Maybe you too?"
I nodded, and he continued. "I was as excited as you were on that night in 1956 when
we saw you off on the train to Rotterdam. But you were twenty-five then and Andrea was to
follow you soon. You know how much we love her. We knew you would be in good hands.
When I left Tbilisi I was eighteen and apart from Niko and Claudia there was nobody in
Germany with whom I had a close relationship. Mother must have been very depressed when I
left, it had been her idea to send me to safety. I now ask her forgiveness for having accused
her for many years of having been strange, aloof, and lacking the love I craved."
He looked at Alexandra’s portrait on the wall of his study, and smiled. "I was full of
373