The Successor

  Thousands of the inhabitants of the capital felt the same disturbance, identical to what had been felt some time previously by Politburo members on the morning of December 14. In living memory, no one could recall such a brutal stop being put to the working of the clock. Because of this interruption, the twelve hours that had elapsed, most of them night hours topped with the beginning of sunrise, had been completely swallowed up. It had thus been a sudden Tuesday, though endowed with a secret dose of clemency that Monday had given it. The Guide’s soft and at times almost liquid voice, coming close to a gurgle, cut through total silence. He addressed the Successor by his first name, as he had in the past: “And now, when you have had time to think again during the night, I am absolutely certain that when we gather again tomorrow in this same room, you will have an even clearer understanding of your mistake and you will at last be with us once again, with your comrades who love you, and as precious to the Party as you have ever been.”

  The morrow had come for everyone, except for the Successor. So it had been laid down that these words would never be heard by their addressee. The extension of the plenum — this delay that had prompted the Guide to say, “All the comrades on the Politburo have expressed themselves, now it’s my turn to speak, but since it’s so late, I think it’s preferable for me to leave my speech until tomorrow morning” — had therefore turned out to be fatal for the Successor.

  The adjournment, that isthmus of time between Monday and Tuesday, the furrow that the Successor had been unable to stride over, had tipped him into the abyss. Everybody had been present at his pardon except the man pardoned.

  People in the meeting halls began by stages to feel a great sadness. How was it that a man who had put up with anxieties and irritations throughout that unending fall had been unable to endure one more night of worry? Why had he been in such a hurry?

  The Guide’s voice droned on in tones no less merciful, and at times it even almost broke into a lament. Members of the audience stole glances at each other: Ah, what things the Successor had missed!

  But the wave of regret was suddenly crossed by a kind of glacial current. How far could such feelings go? The suspicion that had been nagging at them all morning reasserted itself. There was something very unnatural about all this. The words they were hearing were from the Monday, when the Successor was still alive, but they had not been spoken until the Tuesday, when he was no more than a cadaver. Breaking the rule of the passage of time, the past had been made present. The day before, the day after. It was enough to make them all feel lost.

  In the course of the afternoon, people’s feelings of bewilderment evaporated. They were seized instead by unusual agitation as they recalled the main lines of the story: the Successor’s mistake, the atypical nature of the announcement of his death, the absence of a day of mourning, the rumors about that famous silhouette, the suspicions. Then, as if that had not been enough, now they had to cope with a permutation between Monday and Tuesday. That really took the cake! A cramp in time was, it seemed, something that a capital was least able to tolerate.

  5

  “Albania continues to live with the unsolved mystery of the Successor,” was the more or less standard sentence at the start of reports now finding their way into intelligence agencies around the world.

  Given the two long-familiar hypotheses — murder or suicide — supporters of the second alternative still wondered: Why was he killed, and by whom? It was logical to expect that the answer to one of the questions would help to solve the other. To date, however, there was no sign of any answers whatsoever.

  Meanwhile, an Icelandic medium, who had taken a second stab at the mystery of the Successor, had finally managed to get somewhere with it. The deep sounds of the dead man’s death rattle reached him as through a winter squall. Among those sounds had been heard something about the night of December 13, and also about a woman, or more precisely about two women, either one of whom excluded the other for the good reason that the presence of one of these women made the presence of the other abnormal, and in fact impossible. Between the Successor and these two women there was some sort of debt or arrears, which could equally well be interpreted as a request, a promise, or even a threat. The medium’s explanations, written up very oddly, aside from the passages in German and Latin, raised knowing smiles in intelligence agencies. To believe that the enigma of the Successor might be wrapped up in a story of rival women showed a profound misunderstanding of the Communist universe. To the Icelander’s great despair, that was pretty much all the response he got from intelligence analysts.

  At the same moment, more than a thousand miles away, at the place where the events had occurred, the Guide’s speech that had been delivered right after the announcement of the death now plunged the Albanian capital into a frenzy of guesswork. Nonetheless, through the fog of supposition, you could possibly theorize that the case might be reopened, and perhaps that the Successor might even be rehabilitated: There was that autopsy carried out rather late in the day, then there was this new inquiry into the circumstances of the death, alongside rumors that if they had not been officially prompted were probably being actively tolerated (such as the one about the “shadow” slipping into the residence under cover of darkness, or the one about the two men glimpsed by a housekeeper as they accompanied the Successor down to the basement, or alternatively manhandled his corpse down the steps), and so on and so forth.

  If the new investigation was intended to bring back to the fore the supposition of murder, then the Successor would probably end up as a Martyr of the Revolution, the victim of assasination by a group of evil conspirators — an extremely common scenario in Communist countries.

  One of the new analysts advanced the idea that it was likely the Successor would wander ad aeternam from one hypothesis to another like a damned soul wandering through the circles of Dante’s inferno. The last words of the sentence — beginning “like a damned soul” and ending with “Dante’s inferno” — were subsequently erased from the report by the writer, who wanted to hold them in reserve for future use, maybe in his memoirs.

  THREE

  FOND MEMORIES

  1

  The morning would have been like any other if “they” hadn’t turned up so early. But they might as well be here, Suzana thought, as she stuffed her head under the pillow. She had been expecting them for several days. It felt like they had been dragging their feet, that they’d dropped the autopsy and all the rest. So that’s fine, she said to herself as she tried once again to get back to sleep. But something unusual about the noise they were making prompted her to get up instead.

  Her brother was standing in the half-light in the middle of the hallway, nervously biting his fingernails. Before she had time to ask him, What’s going on? he nodded toward the bedroom door. A narrow slit of light shone from underneath, unnervingly, like the last time.

  A very distinct but muffled noise could be heard coming from the room.

  “They’re firing shots in Papa’s bedroom,” the young man whispered in explanation.

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  “They’re firing a gun. But don’t be afraid.”

  “You’re out of your mind!” the young woman replied.

  Her brother did not respond. Instead, he stretched his head toward the door, almost losing his balance on his long legs. Suzana realized that his nightshirt must be open, revealing his bare chest; her mind a blank, she tried to do it up, but could not find the buttons.

  Then there was another thud, clearly audible in spite of its dull tone. You’re all completely insane! Suzana thought. In her sleep-waking mind, the idea that someone was assassinating her father anew, or rather, murdering his corpse, seemed as plausible as it was insane.

  She felt that her brother was about to rush toward the door, and she grabbed his hand tightly.

  “Wait!”

  They stood side by side, almost glued to each other, in total silence, hearing only each other’s breathing, until the door op
ened. Against the light that streamed forth from it they could make out the shape of a man hurrying out. He was holding a revolver, without any doubt the one he had just fired.

  The young woman felt she was not in a state to ask the question “So what are you doing here?” or even the words “madness” or “horror.” Through the half-open door, on the heels of the man with the gun, came two others, wearing white coats and holding various implements in their hands. Oh no! Suzana groaned to herself. The implements looked as if they had been splashed by blood. Then, to make bad worse, a fourth man emerged, carrying in his outstretched arms a receptacle containing a huge chunk of raw meat.

  What a nightmare! Suzana thought as she buried her head on her brother’s shoulder. It was probably only one of those bad dreams she’d been having more and more of lately. She dug her nails into her brother’s hand, but that didn’t help to wake her up at all. “Don’t be afraid,” he kept saying to comfort her. “They’re doing weapons trials.” One of the experts had just explained it all to him. “Do you understand?”

  Suzana wasn’t listening. He put his mouth to her ear, to explain the details that were most painful to understand. “They’re conducting tests, to check whether the gunshot could or could not have been heard outside, got it? The trials had to be done by shooting into flesh, in this case a hunk of beef, because a gunshot has a sound like nothing else when it’s fired point-blank.”

  Some part of all that was at last making its way into Suzana’s brain.

  “Where did you get all these details?” she butted in. “Are you collaborating with them?”

  Now it was the young man’s turn to say, “You’re out of your mind!”

  For days on end, the two of them had shared their suspicions about this or that member of their clan they thought had been involved in the murder.

  The young man put an arm around his sister’s shoulder, to lead her back to her bedroom. She was grateful to him for not having said, So you aren’t satisfied with being the cause of this catastrophe, you also have to get on our nerves with your stupid questions! The bloodied implements that had so scared her a moment ago were there, like all the rest of the setup, for their own good. Thanks to these tests, she and her family might possibly be going back to the life they had known before.

  Once she was alone, she passed her right hand over her breast, then her belly, then lower down. The feeling was still very diffuse, but it prompted her to think that she had not made love for five months now. Desire, which she thought she would never feel again, had returned, and it was more insistent than ever.

  Five months, she thought. How could that be? She had always thought she could not go more than a week without making love, yet she’d been living like a nun for five months!

  The memory of her last stay with Genc, at the villa by the sea, began to unfold in her mind. It had been in mid-September, after the engagement party. It was the end of the season, and the villas all around were closing up one by one. Though it had not been cold, they had made a fire in the hearth. Then they lay down stark naked, something they had recently come to like doing. His desire, and shortly after, her groans, had been unusually intense. Though it was not his habit, he too had moaned a little, sounding like a wounded man.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked immediately, still panting for breath. Then with a bitter smile she remarked that right after an orgasm partners’ minds always switch back to what they had been worrying about that day.

  Genc looked her straight in the eye. “Have you heard anything at all?”

  She nodded. Of course she had heard certain rumors that were making the rounds, even inside the Bllok. But she’d told herself they were not as important as they might seem. It’s a well-known fact that engagements always prompt gossip.

  He said nothing.

  Suzana gently stroked the fluffy edges of his hair. “Even if you won’t admit it, you felt the effect,” he said.

  She didn’t deny being annoyed, but not for the reason he supposed.

  “It’s not easy for me to explain it to you … It’s connected to a kind of obstacle that’s been bothering me for a long time … Do you understand? … I mean … I so much wanted this thing to happen … more than you can even imagine … and now this is happening — to me?”

  “But what has happened to you?” Genc broke in. “You yourself pointed out that wagging tongues are run-of-the-mill in these kinds of circumstances …”

  “Of course, that’s the way things are … That doesn’t prevent it from being like a barrier, a disenchantment, I don’t know how to explain it … In something as delicate as love, a mere trifle can sometimes wreck all the joy you feel.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he studied her wavy auburn hair, as if he was trying to guess what path the thoughts beneath it were taking. That was something she had said, on that unforgettable day when for the first time they had gotten undressed and lain down together in the same bed. With trembling hands she had taken off her summer dress, then her underclothes. Her eyes were clouded by desire, and she did not notice his hesitation. She was whispering things she never dreamed she would be able to say while stroking him so brazenly … “I love to make love, especially this way, like that … you see? … you put me in such a state” … when she suddenly became aware he was not at ease. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, thinking she had guessed the reason for his holding back. “Haven’t been for a long while, you know … Come on, my darling,” she began again, in a throaty plea, offering herself to him even more provocatively, almost exasperatedly, as if she was under the sway of some blind rage, whereas he only turned his head to the side, as if he had been found out. No, he couldn’t do it, he started explaining. It was the first time. It had never happened to him before with anyone else.

  She had tried to hang on to the outrage that the words “anyone else” had provoked. Knowing full well she was in the wrong, that she was acting like a spoiled brat, she could not manage to break free of her anger: So, it all went swimmingly with anyone else, but what she got was sweet nothing!

  “Listen, will you listen to me” … He tried to explain in straightforward terms that things were not at all as she thought. Not only was that not the reason, it was the opposite of the truth. His incapacity was the direct result of how much he adored her.

  She had meant to interrupt him, to say she’d already heard that old refrain. At school dances, boys in her class were as hot as hell when they brushed up against the other girls, but when they had to partner her on the floor, they went stone cold, as if they were bewitched. Their cheeks turned bright red, to be sure, and their hands were unsteady, but not from temptation, as you might first have thought, but rather from the opposite. From the waist down they became limp. Instead of pressing themselves up to her, they kept a safe distance, but went wild a few minutes later when they were up against other girls.

  It was more or less what he was trying to tell her himself. The daughter of a top leader aroused desire as well as respect and fear, but it was the last that always overcame the other feelings. All the more so in his case, because of the additional factor of his own background. She heard disconnected fragments of sentences about Genc’s father: a seismologist, studied in Vienna under the monarchy, uncertainty forever hovering over the fate of the family …

  She had listened to these paltry excuses with an ironical glint in her eye, for what she could hear herself saying inwardly was like a lament: Why does it have to happen to me? … As her stifled resentment showed no sign of abating, she blurted out harshly a question so sour that she immediately regretted saying it: “Does fear of dictatorship unman you to that extent?”

  The young man bit his lip. She had tried to minimize the effect of her words by adding, in a joking tone, “Are we really so terrifying, my father and I? …”

  The despair that was written on the boy’s face seemed irremediable. She had taken his hand, bent to kiss it, placed it on her breast, then between her legs. Abandonin
g all modesty made things easier for her. “Don’t look away,” she said sweetly. “Does it look black and threatening to you? More fearsome, more somber than the dictatorship of the proletariat? Say something, darling!”

  He had not responded. Naked as she was, Suzana got up and walked over to the window. She gazed for a while at the empty beach. The sea was cold and gray. In the far distance you could make out the shape of a woman walking along the water’s edge. Had she not known it was her mother, she would not have recognized her. The long shawl draped over her shoulders made her gait look even more eerie. Suzana could feel a grimace distorting her features. She thought of her mother imagining her daughter’s orgasm. Poor Mama, if only she knew! she sighed to herself. A month ago, when she had told her mother about the boy she had just met, the older woman had shown Suzana a degree of tolerance for the first time in her life. Suzana had laid her heart bare with all her passion. She told her mother about things they had never spoken of before. In plain words, without shame, she spoke about her physical suffering. Since she had broken off … or rather, been forced to break off … with her first love, she had been living in hell. It wasn’t just a matter of emotional suffering, which her mother might have thought a spoiled girl’s luxury, but something else, which no one dared admit to: It had been physical torture. After two years of regular sexual relations, her body had suddenly been obliged to cut itself off from that whole world. She had obeyed her father’s injunction, she had yielded to the argument of force majeure relating to his career. She had been as meek as a lamb in respecting his wishes and in renouncing the most sublime pleasure that this world has to give. But it could not go on forever. She had at last met a boy she liked. Both of them took matters seriously, of course, and intended to get engaged, but she needed to see more of him to get to know him better. For well-known reasons, that seemed impossible: because of the guards, because of the Bllok where they lived, because the Sigurimi kept on her tail whenever she went into town. Only her mother could have the torture suspended. By helping them see each other, discreetly, from time to time. For example, at the villa on the shore, in the off-season … To Suzana’s great surprise, her mother did not say no.