The Final Testament Read Free Page A

things, let alone commit them to paper.”
    â€œPerhaps so.”
    A thatch of blond hair fell over Sauerwald’s ruddy brow, and he swiped it away in a state of growing excitation.
    â€œBut up until now, you have never been afraid to publish any of it. I’ve read Totem and Taboo , The Interpretation of Dreams , Future of an Illusion , and Essays on the Theory of Sexuality …”
    â€œI hope you paid for all of them, instead of borrowing library copies,” Freud interrupted.
    Sauerwald gave a hoarse barking laugh. “Yes, I’ve also read The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious. Amazing. Fantastic stuff. Only you would have been daring enough to write it.”
    â€œOr be foolish enough to write it,” Freud said, aware of a stiffening throughout his body.
    â€œBut you have not published this Moses book yet.”
    â€œIt’s not finished.”
    â€œNo?”
    He turned and saw his guest pick up the pages, weigh them in his hand, and return to the chair behind the head of the couch. Then Sauerwald donned a pair of glasses, crossed his long legs, and began to read more closely.
    â€œAre you are forgetting that I’ve been in your office and seen your notes?” Sauerwald asked evenly, pushing the center-piece up his nose. “You see, I know you have been working on this Moses book for years. This is actually much of the same material I saw back in Vienna. The book was finished long ago. But you have not published it. What is the reason?”
    â€œI think the only one who can say when a book is truly done is the author.”
    â€œYou are lying and we both know it.” Sauerwald gave him a glacial stare. “You have not published this book because you’re afraid to do so in this lifetime.”
    â€œI’ve heard the Nazis were working on a number of scientific breakthroughs,” Freud broke in. “I didn’t realize mind-reading was one of them. Perhaps you’ll render psychoanalysis obsolete without having to kill me personally.”
    â€œI don’t blame you for being frightened of your own book.” Sauerwald ignored him and held up a page. “Your thesis is a highly disturbing one. If you had simply stated your theory that Moses was not a Jew, but an Egyptian, that would be enough to cause an uproar.”
    â€œWhat do you want, Mr. Sauerwald?”
    â€œ Doctor Sauerwald. I studied medicine and law at the university, so I am due that respect as much as you are. And may I remind you, Dr. Freud, we were speaking of your sisters before.”
    Freud cupped a hand over the lower half of his face, his jaw almost exploding with pain as he clenched it. “Yes,” he said, between his teeth. “I have not forgotten.”
    Sauerwald took another page from the top of the manuscript and put in on the bottom. “It’s a blasphemous notion, but you don’t stop there,” he said blandly. “You assert that if Moses existed, then he was almost surely a follower of the pharaoh Akhenaten.”
    â€œCorrect.” Freud nodded calmly as the image of Munch’s screamer flashed in his head.
    â€œAnd this pharaoh was the first monotheist, the individual who insisted on destroying images of all the other great Egyptian gods in favor of worshipping just the one sun god.”
    â€œI am not the first to suggest something like that. Greater scholars have put forth similar theories.”
    â€œBut you go much further than anyone before you.” Sauerwald reached for the figurine of Neith on a nearby shelf, but then thought better of it. “You say that after Akhenaten died and Egypt went back to its many old gods, this Moses, the gentile, this fanatic , sets out into the desert with a ragtag group of Hebrew followers, where he convinces them to join up with the wandering cult of a violent volcano god to form a new heretic religion.”
    Freud steepled his fingers, choosing his words as carefully as a