CustomerAddressEntity::getCountry returns null

In my subscriber I was trying to load some customer addresses. Somehow $address-\>getCountry() returns null:

$addresses = $this->addressRepository->search(new Criteria(), Context::createDefaultContext());
foreach ($addresses as $address) {
  $address->getFirstName(); // this works
  $address->getCountryId(); // this returns a string
  $address->getCountry(); // !!!null!!!
}

Questions: Why does address-\>getCountry() return null? How do I get the associated country?

Thanks

Ok, works with addAssociation.