The Successor Read Free

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 engagement had been broken off. Each party had finally realized to what extent the whole thing had been worse than a mistake. It wasn’t a prospective marriage, it was mortal venom. But poison would have tasted sweet compared to the true horror of such an event! An event that would have plunged Albania into everlasting sorrow. For it would have signified a relaxation of the class struggle, and that would have borne a blow to the very heart of what had been the country’s pride for more than forty years. The country’s very Constitution, the foundation of its victories and its fame, rested solely on the principle of
ever greater firmness
, of
never letting up!
Other countries, enemy countries, had betrayed Albania one by one, and their wrongdoing had unfailingly started that way — with a loosening of the reins. Whereas here, in our country … heaven grant that the Successor had suffered only a passing weakness! That’s what it must have been, in all probability. That the engagement had been broken off so quickly spoke volumes about the depth of the man’s repentance. It was no mere trifle to take back your given word in a matter of marriage. In full sight of the entire nation, he had had to eat his shame on a dry crust, as people say in these parts. No betrothal had been abjured in the land for a thousand years. People may have slaughtered each other, may have flayed each other alive, but not once had a wedding been postponed, let alone canceled! But he had done it! And by so doing he had shown that obedience to the Party and to the
Prijs
— the Guide — ruled his heart. That showed you what sort of a fellow he was! You don’t get to be Successor for nothing, now do you?
5
    Like all bad news, the report of the broken engagement got around much faster than its formal announcement. Convinced that the crisis was a thing of the past, most people liked to think that the incident, far from weakening the nation’s moral fiber, had in fact strengthened it. The country and its Guide had shown just how steadfast they were in a storm of whatever magnitude. Just as they had done during the squabble with the Yugoslavs. As they did later on, with the Russians. And, of course, with the Chinese.
    As tension declined, so interest in the sentimental details of the end of the affair grew. Though whispered, stories were passed on by word of mouth almost everywhere. No more phone calls between the two youngsters. The young man and his father, Besim Dakli, standing at the Successor’s front door, wrapped in heavy winter coats, waiting to find out what would happen. The girl in despair, who had shut herself in her room and stopped eating. The poor boy drowning his sorrow by strumming his guitar, for which he’d written a new song that began:
    And so that is how
They tore us apart …
    In Albania, the majority of public holidays occur in the fall, which meant that the Successor had no chance of keeping himself out of the way of television cameras. Awkward as that was for him, there was no way he could avoid thousands of eyes studying his face onscreen, searching for a clue to the real truth. Some thought he looked more grumpy than usual; others thought on the contrary that he looked calmer. Both interpretations were obviously worrying, but the latter seemed the more ominous, since it implied that the Successor was feigning indifference.
    What had begun as mere curiosity took on a tragic hue at the National Day parade, where the Guide