The Successor

  “Didn’t I tell you he was almost blind?” Suzana jerked her head to the side as if to shake off the secret her brother was telling her.

  Despite the efforts he made to hide it, the Guide’s blindness was obvious from his every movement. Even his voice seemed affected by his infirmity. “My best wishes! May the happy couple prosper and multiply!” had been said in his deep-throated tone as he looked around for the betrothed. Suzana stood stock-still, unable to decide whether it was easier to bear a clouded gaze than one that was too piercing.

  Before he left, the Guide had embraced her father again. They must have been having a heartfelt conversation, as they seemed unable to part from each other; they both seemed to be swaying on their feet together, waving like reeds caught in a gust of wind. When finally they let each other go, Suzana noticed that there were teardrops in the blind man’s eyes; but just as she was pondering how all eyes secrete the same kind of tears, her mother’s high-pitched voice broke in with a “Would you like a tour of the house?”

  Every time Suzana had thought back on it she felt the same malaise about the Guide’s slow progress toward the antechamber.

  She now followed the same route. In the milky light of the moon, the lounge looked enchanted. The finest room in the house: That’s what all their family and friends who’d been to visit recently had said. Whereas her brother, looking at the room from the doorway on the eve of her engagement party, had answered her question — “Doesn’t it look wonderful?” — with, “Sure it does. Maybe more than it should.”

  Suzana hastened to join the tour group as if she had been prodded. The Guide’s overlong black cloak partly muffled the irregular sound of his footsteps. Suzana could hear her mother’s harsh voice, sharp as a cleaver, doing the honors: “And here is the antechamber; everyone agrees it is the best room in the house.” What’s gotten into you, Mama? Suzana murmured to herself. Her eyes suddenly met the architect’s. They were like burning coals, and it seemed astonishing to Suzana that their jet-black hue made them even more incandescent than if they had been flaming red. Alongside the sparkle and the anxiety caused in turn by the hope of flattery and the fear of deprecatory remarks, there was something else in those eyes that moved between both emotions and diluted them.

  As always, her mother’s thin and steely voice managed, most oddly, to break through the general hubbub. She was explaining how the lights in the lounge were controlled by a special kind of switch that was the first of its kind in Albania. “Not that, Mama!” her daughter quaked once more. But the Guide had stopped in front of the switch that the mistress of the house was pointing out to him. The black cloak that up to then had masked his fumbling steps could not now hide his groping hands. He moved closer to the wall, and, in movements characteristic of the poorly sighted, felt for the switch with his hand. Silence had suddenly fallen all around, but when he had managed to turn on the light and make it brighter, he laughed out loud. He turned the switch further, until the light was at maximum strength, then laughed again, ha-ha-ha, as if he’d just found a toy that pleased him. Everyone laughed with him, and the game went on until he began to turn the dimmer down. As the brightness dwindled, little by little everything began to freeze, to go lifeless, until all the many lamps in the room went dark.

  Each time she thought back on that turning out of the lights, which had amused the company at the time, she felt overcome with anxiety. Sometimes it seemed to her as if that had been the precise moment when the wind had turned.

  Suzana felt worn out again and silently went out of the lounge. Her anxiety seemed to be nearing its end. Such great inner turmoil was only a symptom of its imminent lifting. Among other signs, that the lounge and its antechamber, which had been under seal for so long, were now left open confirmed that the end was nigh.

  FOUR

  THE FALL

  1

  She was almost aware of being once again in a dream. The doorway was low, its lintel overhung with a peaceful, almost drowsy creeper, and she still could not work out why she was there. She put out her hand toward the iron ring, but she thought she heard herself knocking even before she had grasped it. Well now, she thought, although she did not feel any great surprise. It was fear that overcame her instead.

  She took one step forward, but the knocking, far from halting, came louder and louder. The thuds were coming from the other side, sounding now far away, now very close. “Diabolical door!” Suzana yelled out loud, and woke up with a start. It was almost the same dream she had had two weeks ago, except that the knocking was now even louder than in her dream …

  What’s making them knock like that? she wondered, not without a pang of anxiety. They had the keys and could come and go as they pleased any day of the week.

  It was obvious that they could come as they pleased, and they often did. Suzana put the pillow down over her head like a thatch roof and figured she would be able to get back to sleep. The knocking had in fact stopped, but now she could hear feet tramping up the stairs. She also thought she could hear her mother’s voice. Suzana pulled her head out from under the pillow. Yes, that was her mother’s voice. But she wasn’t so much talking as screaming.

  The young woman leaped out of bed, but before she got to the door it swung open. The screams seemed to be coming less from her mother’s mouth than from her tousled, long-faded hair. “Wake up, my daughter, they’ve come to evict us! Get up, unhappy daughter!”

  Though only half dressed, though the blood had drained from her face, Suzana still managed to grasp the main point. They had two hours maximum to leave the house. A truck was parked outside and was waiting to take them away. Her brother was already racing down the stairs with armfuls of books.

  Suzana needed to stay in her bedroom while she tried to get her hands under control. Then she realized it wasn’t her hands that were at fault. It was her brain that was jerking them this way and that. First she believed she should take none of the many objects surrounding her, then she thought on the contrary she should take everything.

  The truck had backed up to the residence with its tailgate almost touching the front door. Suzana could not help noticing the license plate as she went up to it with her first load of winter clothes: LU-14 17. That means it’s come from Lushnje, she thought mechanically. Central Albania. The prime area for relegations.

  As she went back upstairs, she passed two soldiers carrying furniture down. Her mother was busying herself on the landing on the second floor. Without looking left or right, her brother was running down the stairs a second time. This time he was carrying not just books but also a large package. Maybe his tape recorder. Or else a typewriter.

  Suzana puzzled over the half-open drawers where her underwear was kept. With languorous, hesitant gestures, she took out her cotton underclothes, then the sanitary towels her mother had brought back from a trip abroad. As she placed them in her bag, she tried to work out how long her supplies would last. Three months? Four months? She couldn’t be sure.

  The voice of her mother on the landing could be heard piercing the air. She was talking to Suzana’s brother. Probably about his books.

  The other drawer where her silk things were kept also put Suzana in a quandary. She stretched out her hand, then withdrew it almost in the same movement. Each garment was in a different style and color, but for her they all fell into one of two categories: those that were connected to him, “Number one,” and the others, fewer in number, that she associated with Genc.

  She picked up a pair of sky blue panties, the ones she had worn her very first time. It was probably on account of this garment that he had come out with these unforgettable words: “I like expensive women.” She put it back, then picked it up in a bundle with the rest, then in exasperation let go of it. Everything seemed to her to come down to one blinding, unbearable core: For years, in one way or another, what had been required of her was always one and the same thing — to renounce her love. And they always won! She came close to screaming, No! out loud, as her hands hurried
ly swept up the whole lot, like a thief.

  The door opened behind her back, and she heard her mother saying, “Faster, my girl!”

  They always win, she kept on saying to herself as she went down the staircase. She had tried to protect herself, had bleated feeble protests, like a lamb being led to the slaughter, but she had ended up giving in. And now that has to stop! she yelled inwardly. Her sacrifices had been totally in vain. Nobody had even noticed. Except her first man. He who had been destined for the sorry fate that was now hers.

  Suzana felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Cold and salty-tasting, like the tears of any woman with hands made dirty by housework, they just kept on flowing. The kind of tears she would no doubt shed henceforth on a towpath or behind a bush as a local farm worker did up his fly.

  “Faster!” her mother shouted again as she walked over to the truck with a portrait. “You’ll have plenty of time to cry later on!”

  The soldiers weren’t accustomed to this kind of work and loaded the furniture clumsily. The tall mirrors sent back oblique reflections every time they were jolted. They had presumably witnessed the eviction of their former owner, and had been waiting their turn for years.

  “Careful, soldier!” her mother commanded in an ever more tinny voice. “Wedge some cardboard underneath so it doesn’t shift around too much!”

  Dimwit! thought Suzana. Her mother was bustling around the truck, keeping hold of the portrait with both hands. That was when Suzana saw that it was a portrait of the Guide. “Insane!” she muttered under her breath.

  Her brother followed behind with a great pile of things. “There’s no room left,” one of the soldiers said. The truck driver and the two plainclothesmen supervising the loading looked at their watches from time to time. The uniformed policemen kept their distance. A bunch of onlookers had gathered on the sidewalk opposite, to watch the free show.

  “Come on, time for you to get in,” the driver said, pointing to the back of the truck. “Make a bit of room for them,” he said to the soldiers.

  Her brother stretched his long legs and climbed in first. Suzana felt her knees buckling. “Give the old lady a hand,” someone said. With deathly eyes, Suzana’s mother stared at the soldiers in turn, unwilling to let go of the portrait. Her son jumped down, roughly took the picture from her, and pulled her up into the vehicle. Suzana bowed her head.

  All of a sudden they were enveloped in the regular rumble and throb of the engine, and the two women, who had been quiet so far, burst into sobs. The young man stared at them as if he could not recall who they were.

  2

  The truck was still laboring across Albania’s central highlands while the event was already being talked about in all the cafés of the capital.

  The shock that people registered seemed to be of a very particular kind. It masqueraded as a precursor of things to come, but clearly it was actually the final jolt in a whole series of upsets. Briefly astounded, people went on to rediscover a feeling they had almost forgotten. Initially diffuse, it grew ever more identifiable, despite the fog surrounding it, and it became apparent in due course that what had first looked like blankness, weariness, and a kind of lethargy was in fact the expression of relief. In other circumstances, the word “plot” would have aroused terror, but on this occasion it was on the verge of being treated as good news. As they went around repeating that word, people came to realize how much they had been tired out by its not having been uttered all winter long.

  So there really had been a plot, or a conspiracy, to use the other term, and people not involved in it had no reason to be afraid.

  No one was unaware of where campaigns that began with the thin end of the wedge ended up. They might start with a few apparently indulgent relegations for liberal ideas in the cultural field, or for foreign influence, or for new artistic trends … Then there would be a meeting at the National Theater. Then a firing squad on some empty lot on the outskirts of Tirana.

  Whereas this time there was an open announcement that the issue was a conspiracy. In other words, a putsch planned by the Successor, an attempt to overthrow the Guide. Which presumably meant he had had loyal henchmen and supporters, secret codes, weapons, and staging posts. The Successor would not have done himself in for nothing, would he now, seeing how many times he’d mocked at suicide. So the word “plot” was as reassuring as could be. That is, for people who didn’t have bees in their bonnets. That’s what separated the guilty from the innocent as cleanly as a knife cuts butter. In past times, nobody ever felt certain of anything. You thought you were as white as snow, and then, without even knowing what you had done, you found you had been subjected to foreign influences. Or that you had been contaminated despite yourself by the wind of liberalism. It wasn’t by chance they called them winds of ill fortune — you could get caught out by a diabolical draft anyplace you stood. But this time you couldn’t get picked on and blamed, for instance, for making love to your wife incorrectly — in a decadent manner, as they used to say. But could you call that a plot against the state? Come off it, you know what you can do with that kind of nonsense. Decadent behavior was rightly so called; it wasn’t very savory, to be sure; it was extremely unhealthy for all and certainly unworthy of a Communist, not to mention an official, but you had to face facts: No way could things like that constitute a plot!

  The latest news that reached the city’s ears at nightfall only made the day’s rumors more plausible. In late afternoon, the Successor’s tomb had been demolished and his mortal remains bundled up with the planks from his coffin and the soil around it, put in a plastic bag, and removed to an unknown location.

  To judge by the way these facts were reported, something seemed to have affected people’s linguistic abilities … Some kind of petrifaction of language had condensed their stories, and this in turn curiously served to make them more precise. The soil-stained tarp that had been used to carry off the Successor’s remains probably revived memories of snatches of ancient epics, parts of which had been dropped from school textbooks as a result of campaigns to eradicate medieval mysticism from the national curriculum.

  When, two days later, the Communists assembled once again in fourteen of the city’s halls to listen to a speech by the Guide, the last winter winds sweeping down from the hills seemed to bring with them some ill-remembered scenes from the past … In the Yellow Valleys, the fourteen lords of Jutbine foregathered within the walls of their fourteen towers …

  The astonishment that had arisen on the previous occasion was provoked once again by the wording on the invitations. The same tape recorder was to be seen on the same small table with its vase of flowers. The Guide’s voice was weary and almost off-hand, which spread a sense of menace more effectively than ranting would have. He now hardly bothered to hide the imminence of his own demise; time was too short to waste it on unnecessary words.

  So what had happened had been a conspiracy. The most heinous in the whole history of Albania. The most terrifying. Pressured by foreign sponsors, the Successor, the instigator of said conspiracy, had been cornered into making a desperate move — to sacrifice his own daughter. That was the only way he could signal that he was intent on dropping the class struggle and initiating a change of line. He had thrown his own daughter into the maw of the class enemy so as to make his own preference clear to all.

  Fear glazed the eyes of everyone listening to the Guide’s explanation. The country’s history was full of examples of clans who had sacrificed their daughters for the sake of the nation. The celebrated Nora of Kel-mend had gone to the tent of the Turkish commanderin-chief not to give herself to him, but to slay him. Whereas he, the Successor, had pushed his daughter into the enemy’s clutches for the opposite reason.

  Had the wedding taken place, it would have sounded the death knell of Albania.

  Silence fell after these final words. The continued humming of the tape recorder made it seem even deeper, so much so that people began to think that they would soon be able to hear the thoughts
that were buzzing around in each other’s heads. They stayed riveted to their chairs until someone walked quickly and stiffly onto the platform and switched the machine off.

  3

  The fourteen halls of Tirana were full again a week later. Although the same number of invitations had been sent out as on the previous occasion, the halls seemed particularly crowded this time. The impression that shadows had slipped in between the seats was presumably due to what was coming out of the tape recorder. It was broadcasting the answers given to the interrogators by the Successor’s wife, son, and daughter. The most serious accusation was made by the wife. Unlike his mother, the son insisted he had not been aware of his father’s goings-on, save for a letter he had posted at his father’s request during a trip to Rome, which had aroused his curiosity at the time and which, moreover, still puzzled him. As for the daughter, she spoke only about her broken engagement. Her speech, which was confused and broken up by bursts of sobbing, made it sound as though she was not talking about one engagement, but about two, both of which had been shattered for reasons connected to her father’s career.

  The judge interrupted her in an attempt to get some clarity about the earlier affair, but his question actually made things even murkier. No, her father had not encouraged her, quite the contrary, he had been against her first love insofar as it might be disadvantageous to his career, though from a different angle.

  “Our information is that this man, your first sweetheart, was from a Communist family and worked as a journalist at National Television. Is that correct?” “Yes,” the young woman concurred. “In other words,” the judge went on, “your boyfriend had socialist credentials, and that was enough to make your father stop him ever darkening his doorway.”

  Suzana’s breathing grew faster, distorting her words now and then. The judge reiterated his question, saying that as far as he could see her father had in mind to reserve his daughter’s hand for a damaging political marriage, but all she could reply, between two sobs, was: “I don’t know!”