Читать книгу Mahler in love with Monroe? - C.-A. Rebaf - Страница 9

In Vienna, Gerstenmayer laboriously scoured the ruins of the Rennweg in the direction of the northeast. It was a cold autumn day. Luckily it did not rain even though the sky was full of gray clouds. In the rain, it was particularly dangerous to move outdoors. Depending on whether the clouds came from the west from the Atlantic or rather from the south of the heavily contaminated Mediterranean, the precipitation brought strong new amounts of radioactivity. On the following days, the grave-diggers had a lot of work again, because mainly older people died like the flies after the recent fall-out. "In the previous days it was much warmer; the accompanying continuous rain must have come from the south," speculated Gerstenmayer to himself. There used to be hourly weather forecasts, but that was once. Now they had to make their predictions from a few perceptible observations of their own! Why did this Middle East conflict escalate to such an extent and, of all things, completely ruin the eastern Mediterranean? The more Gerstenmayer put together these facts, the more angry he became. Had it caught the boss now? What would become of her jobs when he should not be there anymore? He was the sole bearer of knowledge! He who led her so successfully through this lousy time. How many times had he allowed the workforce to stay in the basement, even to stay for days, when a warm steady rain descended from the deadly southeast wind? Only when the wind turned and came from the west and the still little strained Atlantic rain had flushed the radioactive dirt back into the gullies, they went again into the open air. Even if their homes were looted because they had not guarded them in the evening, they had gained a bit of life again.

Gerstenmayer awoke from a daydream when he came to the Danube. The large, heavy bridge that had once led the subway and the highway across the river was destroyed, hanging in two places into the water and was impassable even for experienced climbers. Instead, there were small barges on the shore that could be rented for something edible. The ferry business was entirely in the hands of the Chinese, and a kind of Chinese mafia dominated the scene. Time and again they heard about protection and murderous slate-eyed ferrymen, though it was not clear that this was an unnatural consequence of the inflexible being forced by the organization to drink contaminated water, or whether it was the normal fall-out after a warm south rain. Who could distinguish this today? A police force in a deserted city like Vienna was written on paper, but the technical highs of forensics had gone down with the catastrophe. Screaming little Chinese with long, tousled beards stormed Gerstenmayer and wanted to offer him their ferry services. Thank God he had not eaten his breakfast sandwich today! One half and one half apple were sufficient for the first river crossing. The rest he needed for the second ferryman behind the Danube Island and the way back. The little, old ferryman wrapped the food down right away, then Gerstenmayer sat down and was stopped over. So he had always imagined ‘Vasudeva’, the ferryman from the Indian world of the inventor of the Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse, of which he had once read. This one, however, had slit eyes and was no Indian. Would the contaminated river still tell him something? Daily measurements of radioactivity? For other considerations there was no time in this present time.

Could one trust this ‘Vasudeva’? River crossing was always a risk, as there were cases where dishonest ferrymen robbed their passengers in the middle of the river and threw them overboard, which meant a safe ray death in the face of the existing pollution of the Danube waters. Some ferries were dressed in lead, as was the barge that Gerstenmayer had chosen. This offered the passengers, but also the ferrymen some protection against the radioactive radiation. Otherwise, the life expectancy of these river-Chineese was not very high. Nevertheless, Gerstenmayer was glad to have reached the other bank swiftly and safely. Over there, the high debris dumps of the former UNO City on Wagramer Street awaited him. The high skyscrapers had all been particularly affected by the disaster, especially since Arab suicide terrorist commandos had already blown up the IAEA headquarters, the headquarters of the International Nuclear Control Commission, with a small neutron bomb. It looked devastating. Gerstenmayer followed the narrow paths through the ruins and was now near the spot where he suspected the apartment Prof. Baum. It had to be somewhere between Bernstein Street and Bruno-Kreisky-Square? It had been a long time since Baum had asked him to come home to hand him an article written by a biochemist before the catastrophe.

The area was deserted. Gerstenmayer had the idea to ask someone, but he did not find anyone. Further away, a man in a black leather coat looked over at him. "Have not I seen him before?" He asked himself, walking up to him. But the next moment the man had walked around an advertising pillar. When Gerstenmayer arrived there and stepped behind the column, he saw no one else. "Did I dream?", He asks himself again and started looking for Prof. Baum's apartment where he thought he should remember. The first door to which he knocked was not opened, no one answered. The door was not locked, he pushed it open, and a torrent of corpse smell came to meet him. On a kind of sofa lay two old people, holding each other's hands. The rats had already begun their recycling; especially large specimens with smooth, shiny fur. Gerstenmayer forced himself to take a closer look at the man. Could that be Professor Baum? He visually scanned the dead body, but found no positive matches. Disgusted, he closed the door again and moved to the next. He pushed it open and was astonished: The apartment was completely ransacked. Everywhere leaves were scattered. Cabinets and drawers were not in the apartment, but a lot of boxes that had once been neatly and safely stacked with a system. Everyone was criss-crossing. Obviously someone was looking for something here. Gerstenmayer could not imagine that his boss should live in such a mess. Obviously, Baum had not been in his apartment for a long time. Where was he? To answer this question, Gerstenmayer took off his coat and scarf and took a closer look at the remaining papers lying around. Maybe he found a clue here. But he found nothing. Suddenly he came across a copy of a letter that made him speechless. He sat down, read again, and suddenly a light came on. Could that really be true? He was so fascinated by his discovery that he completely forgot the missing Professor Baum and only followed his discovery. Gradually it was getting dark, and Gerstenmayer found reading in the dark apartment difficult. He looked at his watch and started. "I should be on my way home. You should avoid the ferry-Chineese in the dark," he thought to himself, gathered up the most important papers, put on his clothes and left, still baffled by his extraordinary discovery.