Freud's Sister by Goce Smilevski

Author:Goce Smilevski [Smilevski, Goce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Historical
ISBN: 9781101603611
Google: IlCvHcyKuroC
Amazon: 0143121456
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-08-27T23:00:00+00:00

THE RIVER CAST THE BODY UP AT THE EXIT FROM THE CITY. I was brought to the hospital by people who saw me running along the quay, pleading for help, falling to my knees, pounding the palms of my hands on the quay, and falling into unconsciousness.

I lay in the hospital bed and looked at my bloodied palms. A quiet madness saved me temporarily from the pain. I spoke with Rainer, and in those moments he was still alive to me. That is how I survived. “You will return,” I told him. “Everything is past, your eternal search and eternal loss of self, your cruelty toward me and my desire to return that cruelty to you, all the pain, everything is past. Your question to life—Who am I?—has been answered with your death—You are nothing!—and with the way you confronted death eye to eye and your desire to fall into it. You will return, Rainer,” I told him. “The river is only a great purgatory. Do you hear me, Rainer? It is only a sailing away. I will be waiting for you at the end of the river, Rainer. I will be waiting there where it flows out into another existence. I know that you are here, Rainer. Here is my hand. Look at my hand, Rainer. Everything will be fine, believe me. When you finish your voyage, when you come out of the river, you will just need to change your clothes. You will need to put on new clothes, and everything will be fine. Believe me, Rainer, believe me, as I believe in myself. Here is my hand, Rainer. Grab hold of my hand, and I will pull you out, and then we will set off toward a different existence.”

I spoke those words to myself, my eyes closed, and I stretched my hand toward Rainer, but my hand struck the wall. I opened my eyes. All around me were hospital beds.

I returned to reality and felt fear. Young women my age, when they were unmarried and became pregnant, often killed themselves to preserve the family from shame; or, rejected by their families, they left home and worked as prostitutes; or they secretly obtained abortions.

I lay in the hospital bed, my hands on my belly, and looked up at the white ceiling. I recalled the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.” I lay in the hospital bed with my hands on my belly, and I looked up at the white ceiling. And then I closed my eyes. I tossed in the bed and cursed. I cursed the moment of my birth; I cursed my mother, who had not pressed her legs together to crush the small bloody head that had barely come out of her. I cursed my mother’s womb, which had held me for nine months, that it had not become my grave. I cursed my father’s seed, and his desire to approach my mother during the night of my conception.

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