All that seemed to be but a dress rehearsal for what would take place years later, when Albania broke off relations with China. The same questions would be asked, the same answers suggested, and apart from the fact that it was all a bit more bland, and that the word “Poland” replaced “Czechoslovakia”, the conclusions were roughly the same as before.
The death of the Successor that cold December was therefore the third time the files on Albania had been dusted off. Supervisors in various intelligence agencies grew ever more critical of their clerks: we’ve had enough folklore, and to hell with your birds of prey! We need some serious background on the country! There were forecasts of upheaval in the Balkans. An uprising in northeastern Albania, which some people called Outer Albania and others called Kosovo, had just been put down. Was there any connection between that rebellion and the event that had just taken place inside the country?
On one of the files, some exasperated hand had inked a red circle around the words “Are there six million Albanians, or only one million?” and added an exclamation mark to the question. Then scrawled his own exclamation: “Unbelievable!” In the view of the unnamed annotator, such hazy reporting, such imprecision, boggled the mind. Lower down the page, an identical question mark stood next to the query “Muslims or Christians?” A pencilled note in the margin added, “If there are not just a million Albanians, and if they are not all Muslims, as the Yugoslavs assert, but six times as many, that’s to say roughly the same size as other Balkan peoples, and if they’re not just Muslim but split three ways between Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Islam, then the geopolitical picture we have of the whole peninsula will probably have to be turned completely upside down.”
A transatlantic intelligence agency was the first to realise not only that its espionage operation in Albania was completely outdated, but that a significant number of its agents, most of whom were getting on in years, had gone over to the Albanian Sigurimi. That was presumably why the news from the country following the death of the Successor was so disconcerting.
Nonetheless, the western cemetery of the capital was the scene of the burial of the deceased, which took place in a biting December wind. Members of the family were in attendance, together with a couple of dozen high-ranking state officials. There were some government ministers and the heads of a number of institutions, among them the white-maned president of the Academy of Sciences. Soldiers and other officials bore wreaths. The funeral oration was pronounced by the dead man’s son. As he reached his final words — “Father, may you rest in peace” — his voice cracked. No salute was fired, no funeral march played. Suicide was still, very obviously, a mortal stain.
The December night swallowed the hills that surround Tirana one after the other, as if it was in a hurry to get the day over with. Two solitary soldiers in arms standing guard at the head and the foot of the newly filled grave of the Successor appeared to be all alone in the civilian necropolis. About a hundred feet away in the dark, other people not in uniform slunk behind the hedge, on the look out.
4
The relief that a newly buried corpse brings to the living did not fail to materialise. Not to mention that, for reasons readily imagined, it was more profound than ever before.
The days of anxiety gave way to unseasonable quiet. Milder weather altered the December skies and drained off what had been tormenting the population, or at least made it seem less terrifying. Even the underlying question — deciding whether it had been suicide or murder — no longer had the same weight, since the Successor had taken the answer with him to the grave.
Now they were free of the bottomless dread that the deceased had exuded, now that the man’s corpse had finally disappeared into the dark, people found it easier to grasp all that had happened in the course of that long-drawn-out autumn. The event and its unfolding were now cast in a very different light.
It had all begun with the first days of September. On their return from holiday, city-dwellers found the capital buzzing with rumours of the kind that in the past might have been called scandals. The Successor had just promised the hand of his only daughter to a suitor. In addition, he’d just moved into his new residence, a building project that had attracted a great deal of interest and attention in Tirana. In fact, what was referred to as the “new residency” was the same villa he’d been living in for years, but it had been remodelled with such skill that over the course of the summer it had been transformed beyond recognition. Despite innumerable campaigns to eradicate superstitions, the old saw that “new houses bring new curses” seemed to be coming true as the autumn set in. It was never known whether the Successor believed in the saying or not, but there was unending gossip about his rushing to celebrate his daughter’s engagement on the very day of the housewarming party. It looked as though, by taking this step, the Successor had wanted to force a blessing into his new house. In other words, he had tried to trick fate, or to defy it.
Everybody responded to the summons: family members and members of the government, the relatives of the putative son-in-law, and of course the young man himself, who had played the guitar, as well as the architect who had designed the new home, and who, having become roaring drunk, began to weep. Some people laughed and some cried as they wandered around a house lit by the glint of crystal and camera flashes. But before the party lights went out, and as the Guide (whose attendance and good wishes had constituted the high point of the soirée) was on his way back to his own residence on foot, an icy draught coming out of nowhere suddenly seemed to chill all who were still there.
Had he heard some unexpected news during the brief walk from the house of the Successor to his own? Had it been handed to him en route, as he plodded with short strides, weighed down by his black coat — or had he found it on the doorstep as he reached home? Nobody ever knew. On the other hand, it is true that from that point on, the first rumours of ill omen began to circulate: namely, that the Successor had made a political error in agreeing to the engagement. Despite the fact that the Party granted the future bridegroom’s father, the famous seismologist Besim Dakli, permission to give an occasional lecture at the university, the Dakli clan still belonged to the ancien régime. You could have turned a blind eye if the bride had been the daughter of a second-rank official, but there was no way you could pass over such an issue where the Successor was concerned.
The dread question, which was expressed less in words than through pregnant glances and oblique allusions, related to the fact that the alliance between the family of the Successor and the Dakli clan had been made public at least two weeks before the Guide had paid his visit. It could thus be inferred that his attendance at the party, and the expression of his good wishes, signified his approval of said engagement. That is, moreover, the probable reason why that unforgettable day had been so exceptionally joyous. Nonetheless, as soon as the Guide had left the house, something strange happened. Was it a last and unexpected discovery about the Daklis? A piece of information coming from who knows where, or maybe from far away, about some disturbing fact that two weeks of intense investigation by every branch of the service about every imaginable dimension of the Dakli case had failed to turn up until then?
As often happens to people who stave off asking dangerous questions by showing uncommon interest in matters they believe much safer, gossipers kept on circling back to the issue of whether or not what was forbidden to others might be permitted the Successor. Most people thought not, and they ventured to recall numerous instances where ill-considered marriages had brought families, and even whole clans, to sorry ends. But there were some people who thought differently. The Successor had done so much for the country, he had followed the Guide every step of the way with such touching steadfastness through the most horrible turns of fate, that he surely deserved an exception to be made for him. What’s more, they said, maybe this case in particular would set the wheels of change in motion. It was hard luck for people who’d already come unstuck, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us from profiting from new rules. That’s just our point, the naysayers insisted, that’s how rot sets in. No good can come of setting a bad example to others.
This sort of conversation was stopped in its tracks by the news that the