Publikacija SEP 2011 - Vilenica

Sigmund Freud’s Sister
Goce Smilevski
An old woman is lying in the darkness of the room. Eyes closed, she
sifts through her earliest memories. Three drifted into her mind: at a
time when many things in the world still had no name, a boy gave her
something sharp and said, “Knife”; at a time when she still believed in
fairytales, a voice whispered in her ear the tale of the bird that pierced
its breast with a branch and tore out its heart; at a time when touch still
told her more than words, a hand approached her face and touched an
an apple to her cheek. That boy in her memories who stroked her with
the apple, who whispered to her the fairytale, who gave her the knife,
was her brother Sigmund. I am the old woman dredging up memories,
I, Adolfine Freud.
“Adolfine,” said a voice in the darkness of the room, “are you sleeping”
“I am awake,” I said. My sister Pauline was lying beside me in bed.
“What time is it”
“Probably around midnight.”
My sister woke up every night, beginning the same story with the
same words:
“This is the end of Europe.”
“The end has come to Europe many times.”
“They are going to kill us like dogs.”
“I know,” I said.
“Aren’t you afraid”
I did not say a word.
“It was like this in Berlin in 1933,” continued Pauline. I no longer
tried to stop her from telling me what she had told me many times
before: “As soon as the National Socialists and Adolf Hitler came to
power, young people took to marching down the streets to the beat
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