Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

adventure on that German ship to Hamburg. It was one of the first ships on this route, the war
had just come to an end. Herr von der Schulenburg, the good man, was pathetically concerned
about the welfare of the orphan in his care. But later the entire misery of my having been
abandoned in that chaotic, defeated country overcame me with a terrible force, and it was
Mother whom I accused of coldness and neglect."
He stared absentmindedly into space. "For a few years I received an occasional letter
from Mother but then even that thin lifeline was cut by the Second World War. Between 1919
and 1939 I received a total of seven letters from her, all smuggled out, and only two of mine got
there, as far as I know. I was not able to go back and forth every two or three years to visit my
parents as you can."
He turned to me with a quizzical glance. "For a long time Andrea, your mother had to
carry the heavy burden of my hopeless despondency. She has not forgiven Alexandra, whom
she considers the source of all her troubles with me. Maybe I can still persuade her to make
peace with Alexandra. There isn’t much time left for that labor of love."
He picked up the photo of Alexandra’s grave and kissed it. I was startled—my father
would barely give me a kiss when I came or left.
"You said your Georgian friend told you that it was the custom to kiss one’s mother’s
grave. Well, it is really much more than that for me."
He glanced embarrassed at me.
To distract him from his troubled memories I asked, "What happened when you arrived
in Hamburg? Niko and Claudia had no idea of your coming."
"In Istanbul we picked up another decommissioned German diplomat and his wife. They
had been close friends of my parents, Joachim and Clara von Bredow. The man who, before
the First War, had repeatedly urged my parents to return to Germany. Although they hardly
knew me, they were truly delighted to see me. They took me in. They had a large house in
Berlin and no children. Clara became my adoptive mother."
"I spent most of the winter of 1918-1919 with them in Berlin. Clara spoilt me beyond
measure. These were wonderful days, although Berlin was in an uproar. When spring arrived
they took me to East Prussia to the estate of Joachim’s brother, Friedrich von Bredow.
"Do you remember, when you were small I used to tell you a ‘fairy tale’ of a young boy
who got lost in the Snow Castle which was inhabited by children with animal heads? That
young boy was I. When the train to St. Petersburg got stuck at the border in 1905 Friedrich von
Bredow picked us up and took us to his nearby manorhouse. The house had been ravaged
during the terrible battles in East Prussia in the early months of the First War, but by 1920 most
of the damage had been repaired."
He smiled at the memory. "I fell in love with Annika von Bredow, the Mouse in my fairy
tale. You are always so interested in the love stories of other people. Well, this was my great
love, and she would have been your mother, had tragedy not intervened. She was murdered in
the winter of 1924 by a gang of marauding Russians from across the border who broke into the
Bredow’s house. Annika and one of her brothers were killed that night trying to defend the
property with a gun. It was a terrible loss."
His voice failed him. Embarrassed, he took his glasses off, cleaned them with his
handkerchief, and rubbed his eyes. "The Bredows had convinced me to study agriculture, it
seemed like a good profession in those uncertain days, and they envisioned me as son-in-law
and future manager of their vast estate in East Prussia."
374