The Final Testament Read Online Free PDF Page B

high-ranking member of the Nazi party?”
    â€œYes, I said that, but I was being modest.” Sauerwald looked down and uncrossed his ankles. “Everyone knows I am in good favor with our leaders and my star is shining brightly in Berlin.”
    â€œThen why are you in London, trying to blackmail an old man with cancer?”
    Freud picked up the book that Sauerwald had brought and tossed it down onto the carpet between them. It landed on its side with a muffled thud and splayed open, with a couple of its pages spilling out. So much for Vienna’s finest bookbinder.
    â€œDr. Freud, that was a mistake.” Sauerwald’s face began to turn bright red.
    â€œSpare me, please.” Freud shook his head. “Your promise to protect my sisters is meaningless. Even if you were sincere, you do not have the power to do anything for them.”
    â€œYou don’t know that.” Sauerwald puffed up in the seat.
    â€œHerr Sauerwald, I will die very soon,” Freud slowly lifted his eyes from the book on the floor. “You will die sometime after that. Probably not in as much pain, which is as good a proof as any that there is not a just and fair God. And long after we are both gone, there will still be good and bad men. And good and bad books. There will be people with characteristics of the Jews and those who hate them. What we do and say here today won’t matter. So throw your stupid book away when you leave here. Don’t disturb the forests any further by causing trees to be cut down for the paper to print such nonsense. Submit to the dust.”
    Sauerwald stood up abruptly and snatched the book off the floor. He closed it carefully, wiped the cover with his palm and then hugged it tightly to his chest.
    â€œYou should not say such things, herr professor .”
    â€œWhy? Do you still insist I should fear you?” Freud closed his notebook and put down his pen. “I’m an old man at the end of his life. My immediate family is safe here in England with me. And my sisters are beyond your control. So why exactly should I not say such things?”
    â€œBecause they are not the truth.” Sauerwald’s voice cracked like an adolescent’s before he caught himself. “I mean to say, they are not the whole truth. Yes, it’s a fact; I cannot save your sisters. But I did save you.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œI speak honestly now.” Sauerwald’s eyes had begun to brim. “You cannot dismiss me so easily. Without my help, you and your family never would have gotten out of Vienna alive. I made it possible to get back your passports. I could have had you all arrested for stashing money in foreign banks and sent to the work camps, where you would have surely died horrible deaths. You would not have had the chance to finish your Moses book. I could have wiped you all out and— yes — advanced my career to the very top of the hierarchy with just one phone call.”
    â€œMaybe so…”
    â€œAnd my good deeds continued even after you were gone.” Sauerwald pointed to objects around the room, his voice rising close to a hoarse shout. “All these beloved possessions that comfort you in this terrible time? I was the one who arranged to have them sent to you. Your books. Your rugs. The rare antiquities you have arranged just so. Your photographs and paintings. The chair you’re sitting in. I could have withheld them from you. Just as I could have withheld the passports for your most precious possessions, your children, your legacy…”
    In his high dudgeon, Sauerwald failed to notice that Anna was standing in the doorway, alarmed. Freud looked at her sternly, forbidding her to enter or interrupt.
    â€œI could have denied you all of that.” Sauerwald shook a fist. “I could have made your final days a misery, to my own lasting benefit. But I did not.”
    â€œAnd why didn’t you?” Freud looked up at him