The Final Testament by Peter Blauner Page B

urges.”
    â€œI’ve told him to leave already but he’s very persistent. He politely requested that I at least tell you he was here and mentioned that you both knew Josef Herzig.”
    â€œShow him in,” the doctor sighed, waving away the lingering dragons of smoke in the air.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œShall I ask twice?”
    Anna looked in distaste at the smoldering cigar between her fingers and left the room. He listened to the strain of polite conversation in the foyer and the singing of birds in the garden. A heavy tread on the stairs caused a slight tightening of his stomach. He wished she hadn’t taken the Cubana with her.
    â€œDr. Freud?”
    The man before him was in his thirties, of medium build, with blond hair and blue-gray eyes. He wore a dark wool suit, narrow at the waist and broad in the shoulders, probably the handiwork of one of Vienna’s finest tailors provided at a steep coerced discount. His nose was reddish and waxy-looking as if he’d scrubbed at it too vigorously. Under his arm, he carried a brown leather attaché case, bulging at the seams.
    â€œPardon me if I don’t get up,” the doctor said through gritted teeth, and passed a hand to indicate the length of his slowly atrophying body.
    â€œI understand.” Sauerwald nodded curtly. “May I take a seat?”
    Freud nodded toward a plain wooden chair near the bookcase. Instead Sauerwald took the doctor’s own plush green chair behind the head of the couch.
    â€œDo you know who I am?” Sauerwald asked, turning the chair so he could look straight at Freud.
    â€œI have heard your name.”
    â€œI’m sure you have.” Sauerwald put the leather case flat on his lap. “Years ago, I was a student of Dr. Herzig’s at the University of Vienna.”
    â€œHerzig was a good man and a fair card player,” Freud said, parceling out his words judiciously. “You are a chemist then.”
    â€œYes, I had my own laboratory in Vienna before I was hired by the government.”
    â€œAh…”
    â€œOf course, this was a few years ago, when one had to wear one’s Fatherland Front pin on the outside of the lapel and the swastika on the inside. The National Socialists were considered to be a terrorist group then, setting off bombs all over Vienna. My job was to work with the police, analyzing the contents of the material that was used in these explosions. Which I did very well, you see. Because thanks to our friend Dr. Herzig, I have learned to cultivate the virtues of patience, observation, and careful planning.”
    Freud put a hand over his mouth, revealing nothing by his expression. Never betraying that he’d had heard stories before he’d left Vienna. That, in fact, the reason Sauerwald was so efficient at dismantling these devices and determining the content of explosives was that he’d created them himself in his own laboratory the day before. Patience, observation, and careful planning.
    â€œBut you did not come here to talk about ordnance,” Freud said matter of factly.
    â€œNo, herr professor , you are right.” Sauerwald patted the case on his lap. “We have even more urgent matters to discuss. I know you have heard my name more recently because I am a member of the National Socialist Party now. I am one of those given the task of liquidating illegal Jewish assets and turning the profits over to the Reich. And I have been assigned to take a special interest in you and members of your family.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œAs I’m sure you remember, Dr. Freud, members of the party came to your publishing office and your home in Vienna to conduct a thorough investigation and confiscate the relevant records.”
    State-sanctioned thuggery. The doctor grimaced as the prosthesis dug into his badly-damaged soft palate, under pressure from the tongue he was trying to restrain. Not only had Nazi criminals come to the