Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

"Was it Katharina?" she asked with a trace of anxiety in her voice."Yes," he said, "we spent a weekend together at the Kochelsee south of Munich. It was wonderful, she is such a warm,passionate woman. You have taught me many things, but I guess she is the first woman whom I seduced."No further explanation, but Alexandra understood why this experience had left him exuberant. Curiously she felt not theslightest jealousy, only an immense joy and an entirely unexpected gratefulness towards her old friend.Konrad shook his head. "Katharina sends you her greetings. She smiled when she said that and asked me to give you akiss, and not to forget to do that. I do not understand you women."Alexandra stole her friend’s kiss from him. "I have been thinking of her, and I cannot wait to see her."Konrad eagerly told her of the various times he had gone out with Katharina, a visit of the Pinakothek, a premiere-concertat which Richard Strauss conducted Gustav Mahler, and once they had gone to a dance together."But you dance many times better than she does." He laughed.So, Alexandra mused, it seems to have done us both good to explore our own ways—and he even arrived before me. Icould not have taught him what Katharina did. Now, how will I tell him of my adventures? He has no way of suspectingVladimir."Where are you taking me?" she asked."You do confuse me! Did I not tell you? I am taking you to the Varieté, a show at the Wintergarten on Friedrich-Strasse,the latest entertainment imported from Paris, modified to suit Berlin."The Wintergarten, turned out to be a glassed-in cast iron structure that had become the rage after the Paris WorldExposition. Small groups of people sat at single tables eating dinner or just drinking champagne or wine. Potted palmsand banana trees gave the whole a tropical ambiance. To one side opened a stage. An orchestra played popular music.The hall, brightly lit by numerous electric chandeliers, was filled by a noisy crowd, rousing cheers, the clinking of glasses,the occasional pop! of a champagne cork. Long-legged, skimpily dressed waitresses moved between the tables. A maîtred’, whom Konrad slipped a sizable tip, escorted them to a table close to the stage. Konrad shrugged. "Otherwise wewould be sitting way in the back."Konrad had barely placed his order when the lights dimmed and a hush went quieted the crowd. The orchestra wentsilent and an old man pushed a Leierkasten, a barrel-organ on wheels, onto the stage grinding out a sentimental populartune. The audience applauded. The filles de corps de ballet in gaudy dresses sailed on stage and danced around theorgan grinder.A fanfare. Down a passage between the dancers, caught in a bright blue spotlight, undulated a slender, no longer younglady in a tight, glittering lamé costume. Thunderous applause greeted her. In a low, husky voice she began to sing:"Ich hab’ noch einen Koffer in Berlin."Renewed applause, shouts, and whistles. The lady smiled, threw hand-kisses to the audience, and sang the next stanza:"Berlin, Berlin meine Sehnsucht ist dahin."Konrad’s eyes glazed over. After all, thought Alexandra, he still does have a sentimental suitcase of memoriessomewhere in Berlin.Alexandra smiled bemused and uncertain, the voice of the singer drove a shiver down her spine.To fend off this wave of alien sentimentality Alexandra let her eyes wander over the crowd. She found the shiny faces ofthe well-fed, middle–aged bourgeois gentlemen in their uniforms or starched shirtfronts repulsive. Their eyes were gluedto the singer with stupefied attention. This was a different crowd from the aristocrats and the intelligentsia that attendedsimilar, popular entertainment in St. Petersburg. Was this the "republican" public of the future? She was not sure that shewould like to live among these people.The waitress, dressed in a fancy, push-up dance costume, silk stockings covering her exposed legs, brought twoglasses, a bottle of French champagne, caviar on ice, and two large plates of belegte Brote, slices of bread covered withvarious cold cuts."The Russians call this butterbrot," exclaimed Alexandra. "Mein Gott, I am lost between three cultures none of which Icould honestly swear allegiance to."Cardboard trees, a few symbolic bushes, and a park bench floated on stage followed by three monuments and a mockupof the Siegessäule in the Tierpark.Two characters wandered through the park, one in an Austrian uniform with a lorgnon on a golden chain, the other aBerliner Bürger, slovenly dreessed in civilian clothes."Ah," cried the burgher doffing his hat at the uniformed character, "Gutentag, Graf Bobby, I am so glad I met you."Graf Bobby put the lorgnon in his eye and delightedly exclaimed with a heavy Austrian accent. "Grüß’ Gott, Ferdinand,it’s my pleasure!""Graf Bobby," said Ferdinand, "I am bewildered, every week our government puts up another monument, you are astudierter Mann, who is that over there?"He pointed at a monument everybody in the audience recognized as representing Goethe."Äh," said Graf Bobby peering through his lorgnon, "this must be the famous Austrian composer van Beethoven."Ferdinand relieved, intoned a short melody.74