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.
Grinder plays the organ
"Gooooolie, Goooolie, Golie, where are you?" I shouted towards the village. Nothing moved. It was getting dark and I started to worry. "He'll probably be back with Steffen," I calmed down. However, as the high pressure weather – called ‘Föhn’ in Bavaria – was about to collapse and again heavy rain from the south was expected, I pulled on a cardigan and ran in the direction of the convent ruins, to look for him and get home before the fall-out. From afar I heard the organ. It was a completely different kind of music than I knew Steffen from before. Obviously somebody else was playing today and I did not have to wonder why Golie did not get home in time. The music was beautiful, I had not heard such a thing and I was anything but a complete layman in this field. My father introduced me to classical music. Or maybe everything was a matter of genes. He had recognized my abilities early and showed me how beautiful straight simple melodies could be and how subtle harmonies could be interwoven to dance with the keys. Recently, since Golie approached this art with frantic steps, I suddenly saw myself in the role of the teacher, especially in the sense that I was quite analytically exploring his potential and tried to promote him as optimally as possible. My father had owned a large collection of music: records, CDs and even a few old tapes. I remember that he had liked to sit in a chair with a glass of red wine at the end of the day, just before the Super-GAU, when there was electricity from the socket. Then he had cumbersomely threaded one of his old tapes into his TEAC machine and then completely surrendered to the music. As for the tapes, he had hovered not only in the realm of sounds, but also in the realm of his memories, since he had recorded all the recordings personally from the radio. During his studies, he had started collecting music, now there were some rarities for him: Salzburg or Bayreuth Festivals, which had been back several decades.
Was it this new music that reminded me of old times and made me daydream? Did my father even hear this piece that someone played here on the organ? I could not rule it out, but I could not say yes. Because at those times I was still too small. It did not sound like an organ piece, it was more like a symphony somebody played on the organ, because there were no orchestras anymore. I entered the ruined church under the tarpaulin, looked up, and recognized the stranger with the high forehead at the organ desk and his horsewhip on top. Seeing the stranger and hearing his music a feeling shot between my legs and warmly flooded up to my heart. I had not felt anything like that for years. In my emotional chaos, I noticed that the riding whip played a fascinating role. It was a sort of attraction.
Suddenly I recognized Steffen staying by. "Certainly, Golie kicks the bellows," I thought to myself, after I got my conscious again.
Then I realized that there were no notes on the console. The stranger seemed to know the many notes by heart? "What a genius!", I thought to myself and at the same time remembered how quickly Golie could now record melodies and play them with his little willow flute.
But what was a unanimous melody against three organ and one foot manual? The acoustics under the tarpaulin were already strange: muted as in a dry studio. The resonance box of the organ, which the magnificent baroque church had once represented, was now missing and was replaced by the tarpaulin, which looked like a sound-absorbing element. The organ sounds fizzled out in the air. Nevertheless, this music was not without charm. I climbed the ladder to the gallery. When Steffen saw me, he waved me with his forefinger on the mouth, that I should be quiet as a mouse. I ran around the console, looked through the open door of the organ and saw Golie raptly kicked the bellows vigorously. He did not notice my eyes at all, and I was fascinated by his devotion. So we stood at our positions, remained silent and listened to the stranger, who seemed to play a new music.
Suddenly there was a crash outside at the same time as my eyes met his. A thunderstorm seemed to raise not only outside but in my inner body too. A flash lit up the scene, and again it crackled loudly. Then the radioactive rain pelted down from the south. The stranger finished his play and looked skeptically at