The Successor Read Online Free PDF Page A

on her shoulders. Her feet took her to her mother’s bedroom door. How in the world could she not be up, with all the commotion in the house?
    She turned the handle carefully and pushed the door open.
    “Mama,” she said in a whisper, so as not to startle her. But her mother seemed to be sleeping like a log.
    Suzana stood rigid on the threshold, not sure what to do. Incredible! she said inwardly. Her mother, who was in the habit of rising at first light, was still deep in the land of Nod. Just like the other time, on the night of December 14.
    “Mama!” she said a second time.
    It took the drowsy woman another minute to come to. You could see she was beginning to panic.
    “What’s the matter?” she snapped. “What’s going on?”
    “They’ve come to check … They’re here, in Papa’s bedroom, and downstairs as well, in the
grand salon
…”
    Her mother’s eyes bulged, but seemed to be blind.
    “To check what? What for?”
    “Their inquiries,” the daughter replied. “The minister himself has come. He said they were going to do an autopsy.”
    The woman’s hair, as much as her eyes, suggested distress. As if it was the last part of her to shake off sleep.
    “What’s all this nonsense about an autopsy? Why can’t they just leave us alone?”
    “They’re going to do an autopsy,” the daughter repeated. “They even said it was a scandal that one hasn’t been done before. Mama,” she added more gently, “I think it’s not … not a bad idea.”
    “You do, do you? And what’s not bad about it?” the older woman retorted, as she tried to cover her face with the pillow. It muffled the sound of her next words. “What’s not bad about it? You’re into autopsies now, are you?”
    Suzana bit her lower lip. She was about to walk out, but changed her mind.
    “I think it’s a good sign … The inquiry itself is a good thing. You’re aware there are suspicions that …”
    “Hold your tongue!” the mother shouted. And after a moment she wailed, “Unhappy that we are! Misfortune will be upon us evermore!”
    Suzana shook her head in despair, and left.
    The landing was still shrouded in half-light. Voices from downstairs had a muffled sound. Outside, dawn was breaking.
    She went back to her own room, shivering with the chill. All the same, she could not rid herself of a kind of good premonition. The minister’s eyes had been so kindly. And especially his voice. He had given just as much an impression of firmness when speaking of the autopsy as he had of attentiveness when he turned to her and said, “Did we wake you up?”
    So someone had not wanted an autopsy … somebody who might be held accountable … You avoid an autopsy when you have something to hide … In the present case, it wasn’t hard to imagine what … Had the event really been a suicide, or had it been … had it been … murder? In circumstances of this kind, an autopsy was normally obligatory … All the more so when the deceased was so prominent. Therefore, someone had wanted to hide something … Whereas now, someone else wanted the secret out in the open … Someone who went so far as to call the cover-up a “scandal” …
    My God, let it be so! Suzana implored. She wasn’t even surprised anymore that she had invoked the forbidden name.
    Truth would out in the end for all to see … The Party … as always … as ever … No, our comrade in arms, the trustworthy, the unforgettable … did not take his own life, as was first thought, but was murdered … perfidiously … by enemies of the Party … by saboteurs … by traitors …
    She had already dreamed so many times of hearing these words from the mouth of the Guide standing on a red-draped platform or speaking on the radio or the television! But this was the first time they seemed to her to be within the range of possibilities. My God, let it happen! she prayed once more.
    She was keeping her eyes shut in the hope that she would return to the dream she had been dreaming