Time Will Run Back: A Novel About the Rediscovery of Capitalism Read online

  “But Mozart,” Peter insisted. “What possible harm can there be in the liquid gold of Mozart?”

  Surely a member of the secret police! This was a tricky question. Her livelihood might depend upon the answer.

  “What possible harm? It isn’t for me to say. But still, it’s safer to confine every book of whatever kind carried over from the old poisoned civilization to a Special Privilege list. A very wise decision.”

  She was watching his eyes closely, apparently to see how he was taking this answer.

  “Don’t worry too much,” she went on, now in a kindly tone, “about not having a Special Privilege card. We have many wonderful books.” She led him along the shelves. “Here, for example, are our books giving the life story of our Great Dictator, Stalenin.”

  “Why is there no one in the library but myself?” asked Peter.

  Her glance once more became suspicious and fearful. “The library does everything possible,” she said, “to induce people to read these books. We always recommend them first. Some of them doubtless do not praise Stalenin in sufficiently high terms to satisfy readers. And then I think there is a moral laxity in the people. We need to get after that.”

  That answer is self-contradictory, thought Peter. What is she saying—that the books are not good enough for the readers, or that the readers are not good enough for the books?

  He felt beaten. The books looked hopelessly dull. He sensed, moreover, that he was being too inquisitive. And he wanted her to like him.

  “Well, these are very wonderful books,” he said, “but it just occurs to me that I am going out with friends tonight, and I may mislay a book if I take it now. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “The library’s closed tomorrow. May Day.”

  “Oh yes; of course. Will you be watching the parade?”

  “Naturally.”

  “So will I. I may see you then.”

  She smiled at the improbability. Suddenly she understood. Of course he would see her. He had been assigned to see her. She stared at him in open fright. Her eyes fell on his left lapel, where his number badge should have been. There was none. Triumphantly: “I’ll have to see your identity card, please.”

  His identity card! It might give him away. But his father had assured him... He produced the card.

  “Peter Uldanov,” she read expressionlessly. She wrote down the name in a card file along with the date and the hour he had been there. “Number?”

  So the name didn’t mean anything to her.

  “I haven’t got a local number yet. This is my first day in Moscow. I’m sorry about my stupid questions. But I’d like to drop in again—often—and look at your books.”

  Chapter 3

  IT was growing dark. He found himself in a workers’ section. From up the street came the sound of marching in cadence. A column of men and women approached, four abreast. Every once in a while it would halt at a command, then start again. It came almost opposite. A hard faced woman was in charge. “Halt!... Numbers T349, T35o, and L184!” The column stopped; two men and a woman stepped forth, saluted, and marched past him into neighboring houses. The column moved again.

  Peter stopped a passer-by. “Is this a parade, comrade?”

  “Parade?” The man looked puzzled, then suspicious. “That is part of the workers’ army being marched home, just as on any other day!”

  Peter mumbled his apologies.

  He was getting hungry. Time to look for a good restaurant. He trudged endless blocks, occasionally coming on a dingy little eating place from which nauseating cooking odors oozed out.

  Just as he was giving up hope, he found himself in front of a restaurant better lighted and cleaner than the others.

  He was challenged immediately inside the entrance. “What are you doing here?” The waiter looked pointedly at Peter’s proletarian uniform.

  “Why, I thought—” Peter looked around. The tables were occupied solely by Deputies in navy blue. He went into the next proletarian eating place that he found. It was noisy, crowded and dirty. In spite of his hunger, the stench of cooking made him feel faint. But he took his place on line as he was told. In time he came up opposite the desk of the registry clerk.

  “Why aren’t you at your regular restaurant?” asked the clerk.

  “I’m new in Moscow.”

  At last a large registration book was shoved in front of him and he was told to fill in the blanks under the headings: Name; Address; Time of Entrance; Purpose of Visit....

  “Purpose of visit?” asked Peter. “Does anybody ever come for any other purpose than to eat?” “They might come to conspire against the government by spreading false rumors,” said the man at the desk.

  “Would they put that down in the registry book?”

  “Probably not. But then the government could get them on the additional crime of perjury.”

  Peter was led to a table for four. It was already occupied by three others. None of them spoke to him.

  “What have you got tonight?” he asked the waiter with cheerful anticipation.

  The waiter stared at him as if he had been guilty of some piece of impudence, and walked away. He came back in fifteen minutes with a dish containing some dark-gray mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts and mashed turnips covered with grease.

  Was this, Peter suddenly wondered, the usual food of Wonworld? Had he been pampered up to now?

  The grease on the handles of the cutlery came off on his fingers. The tablecloth was covered with coffee stains and cigarette ashes.

  At intervals the waiter came over and looked at Peter’s plate. “Not finished even yet?” he asked. Peter gently pushed the plate toward him. “Wasting good proletarian food?” asked the waiter. Peter nodded. He was impatient for his coffee. It would take the taste of the food out of his mouth.

  The coffee was lukewarm and tasted like mud.

  Peter looked about. At a nearby table a big man with bushy eyebrows seemed disturbingly familiar. Then he remembered. It was the same man he had noticed, standing on the opposite side of the street, when he came out of the library. Odd coincidence that he should be here!

  He took out his ration books and began to study them. They were bewilderingly complex. He didn’t know which to offer the waiter, so he pushed all of them at him.

  The waiter tore out coupons from three of the books and turned them back to Peter with a new look of respect. “You are very well supplied, comrade. I see you even have entertainment coupons. You must be a Stakhanovite!”

  Peter had not the slightest idea what the waiter meant, but gave a vague nod of confirmation. An idea occurred to him,

  “Anything interesting to see or hear tonight?”

  “What sort of thing do you like?”

  “Music.”

  “Ah, then you should certainly hear Eliena Bolshekov sing.”

  “Who’s she?”

  The waiter stared incredulously. “You must certainly be new to Moscow. She’s No. 2’s daughter.”

  “No. 2?”

  “Bolshekov! Bolshekov’s daughter!”

  After standing on a long queue, presenting his ration coupons and identity card, and signing in, Peter got a good seat in the balcony.

  He looked around. There was only a handful of proletarian uniforms. Most of the seat holders up here were Deputies. The boxes and the first dozen rows in the orchestra were filled with Protectors and army officers.

  The opera was based on an historic story set in the Dark Ages, just prior to the birth of Marx. It represented a struggle between the capitalists and the rising proletariat. The proletarians, when they arrived late to work on the railroad, or fell down from the fatigue of stoking the engine, were repeatedly flogged. Bolshekov’s daughter, the heroine, took the part of a ticket seller on the privately owned railroad and was constantly flogged when she failed to sell her quota of tickets, which the railroad kept marking up in price. Her voice was only a little above mediocre, but she had wonderfully shapely thighs and wore red silk tights throughout the opera.

  The music was mainly noise.

  Eliena Bolshekov got tremendous applause and repeated curtain calls.

  On his way out through the lobby Peter caught another glimpse of the big man with the bushy eyebrows.

  He found that he had been assigned to a dreary little hotel room. His baggage was already there.

  Chapter 4

  HE was awakened by a reveille bugle blast coming from a radio speaker built into the wall. There was no way of turning it off.

  The strains of the International followed. Then a throaty voice began shouting commands for setting-up exercises. Five minutes later a more suave voice broadcast the news. Production of paper boxes was now running 16 per cent higher than in the preceding year. In the output of straw mattresses there had been evidence of sabotage, but the guilty ones would soon be rounded up....

  At breakfast Peter had to wait on another long queue.

  He hurried to the Red Square. At the Gate of Communist Salvation people were already pouring in from all directions. Impressed, he stopped to watch them.

  Suddenly and miraculously, he caught sight of the girl from the library! He elbowed his way over to her, fighting the human torrent.

  “What a coincidence!” He grabbed her arm.

  She was startled. “Is it?”

  “Oh come now,” he protested. “Do you think I’ve been following you?”

  She gazed at him steadily. His naïveté half melted her suspicions and she broke into a smile. They were being jostled along by the crowd.

  “May we see the parade together?” he asked. 15

  “How can I avoid it?” she said; but her tone had changed to a good-natured banter.

  They were lucky enough to get a place near Lenin’s Tomb.

  Ten o’clock. A great cheer came from the crowd, and a band struck up the International.

  The ranking members of the Army and Party, marching in single file, began to fill up the temporary reviewing stand on top of the tomb. Rear rows were filled first. Army officers and Party members of increasingly high rank began to fill the rows in front.

  “Watch the line-up carefully when the first row comes in,” said the girl. “That’s how we find out about changes in the Politburo.”

  “You already know my name is Peter,” he replied irrelevantly, “but you haven’t told me yours.”

  She pointed to her badge: L—92-05.

  “Yes, but—” he persisted.

  “Comrade Maxwell.”

  “You have a first name?”

  She hesitated. “Edith.”

  The first row was filling up. A hush fell on the crowd. Politburo members ranged themselves on one side, the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force on the other. They left a vacant place in the exact center.

  “No change in the rankings,” announced Edith in Peter’s ear. “Bolshekov, on Stalenin’s left, is still No. 2, Adams No. 3...”

  The music stopped, followed by a burst of drums. Then amid complete silence Stalenin, in a pure white uniform, marched to the center position, turned to face the crowd, raised his clenched fist, held it for a dramatic moment, and then dropped it smartly.

  The crowd roared. The band burst into “Wonworld Forever!” The parade was on. First came the infantry, then the tanks, and then a cloud of planes roared overhead. This took an hour. “The parade is to be very short today,” said Edith again in 16

  Peter’s ear. “Stalenin has an important speech to make at the end.”

  “Where do you learn all this?”

  “Don’t you read the New Truth?”

  A fresh burst of cheers. A barelegged majorette was leading a brilliantly uniformed band. Then came row on row of male gymnasts and athletes, barrel-chested, big-muscled, faceless, each carrying a basketball, football, tennis racquet, or other symbol of his sport. Then came the women athletes, heavy and hard-looking.

  Next the professions: bureaucrats with briefcases, doctors with kits, painters with palettes, journalists with notebooks and pencils.

  Each group carried a banner proclaiming Stalenin not only the world’s greatest citizen but the greatest in their particular line. He was the doctor who watched over all; he epitomized the scientific spirit; he knew the news before the newspapers; he was the architect of socialism, of industry, of the State; the supreme engineer; the poet of progress; he created the poetry that others could only record.

  Next came the workers: bricklayers with their trowels, carpenters with their saws, plumbers with their wrenches. Rows of railroad workers with blacksmiths’ hammers alternated with rows of farm workers with sickles. They swung these in reverse unison. At the top of each swing, hammers crossed sickles to bursts of applause.

  Next came the floats, dedicated to the Spirit of Work, of Efficiency, of Production. Some carried enormous charts, showing the output of guns, tanks, steel, wheat, pigs, education, music and poetry. All charts showed sharply ascending curves.

  But to Peter the most interesting floats were two that came at the end. The first consisted of a great steel cage. Inside was a peasant family consisting of a father, his wife, and two children—one a girl of nine or so and the other a boy of about five. They cowered in terror and shame. The float immediately behind was strewn with flowers. In the center was a raised throne on which sat a boy of about twelve, smiling, laughing and bowing from side to side. The first float was greeted by the crowd with hissing and imprecations, the second with wild cheers.

  “Who are they?” asked Peter. “Those are kulaks in the cage,” answered Edith. “Kulaks?” “Yes; people with a capitalist mentality.” “What have they done?” “Held back grain.” “All of them?” “The father, anyhow. The rest ate more than their quota of potatoes from their collective farm.” “How do the authorities know?” “He confessed.” “Voluntarily?” “Not till the boy in the back float reported everything to the security police. That is why everyone is cheering the boy.” “Who is he?” “He’s the kulak’s oldest son.” A pause. “What will happen to the family?” “They are to be guillotined at three this afternoon—like that other family after last year’s parade.” “All of them?” “Of course.” “What did the wife and children do?” “They ate the potatoes. Besides, they didn’t report him....

  Didn’t you read all about it in the New Truth?”

  Next came row upon row of marching children, mainly about eight or nine years old, carrying huge bouquets of pink and blue flowers.

  “The Young Pioneers!” shouted Edith. “The most honored youngsters of Moscow!”

  “What did they do to distinguish themselves?” “Most of them also reported treachery by their parents—but the kulak family you just saw must have been the worst case.”

  “That’s why the boy was selected for chief honors?”

  Edith nodded.

  The parade was at an end. The bands stopped, and silence fell.

  Stalenin arose. He stood for a time motionless, amid deafening bravos from the crowd. Then he raised his hand for silence, and began to speak.

  He spoke of the glories of Wonworld, of the incredible progress made, of the launching of the new Five-Year Plan. He cited statistics, statistics of everything, revealing the magnificent progress made in the past twelve months over the twelve months preceding. But—and here he paused significantly—he deeply regretted to have to report that one or two lines of production had not met their quotas; and that in one or two others, quality was defective. To what could this be attributed? Only to one thing: to saboteurs, to traitors, to still uneradicated traces of capitalist mentality.

  (Denunciations of the traitors from the crowd.)

  They were a very small percentage, these traitors, Stalenin continued, but the future of Wonworld could not be secure until they were utterly stamped out. (Cheers.) And (with a smile) he thought he knew how to stamp them out. (Cheers and laughter.) The comrades must have noticed, by a float in the parade, how a few of them had been uncovered and were going to be dealt with as an example at three o’clock that afternoon. (More cheers and laughter.)

  But then Stalenin paused a moment, and his expression assumed a more serious cast. He had a very important announcement to make. The cares and responsibilities of his office had been mounting; the demands on his time were staggering; to meet them he had to make still further sacrifices. The people must have noted that his public appearances had become rarer. This had been simply the result of increasing demands on his energies in more important directions. He had to make a decision, and he had now made it. This would probably be his last public appearance. He would not preside hereafter even at the May Day exercises.

  Shouts of “No, no!”

  Stalenin raised his hand. He was not deserting them: he had made this decision only in order that he might serve them still more intensely in other ways. He must hereafter leave the laying of cornerstones and the making of speeches to others. And there were others who, acting as his deputies, could do that very well: Bolshekov, Adams—he turned to look at them—need he mention every member of the Politburo? (Great cheers.)

  Hereafter Comrade Bolshekov, acting as his deputy, would preside at the May Day parades and other functions, while Comrade Adams would have to assume some of Bolshekov’s former powers and administrative duties. In fact—and here he assumed a jovial, bantering expression—instead of Bolshekov being No. 2 and Adams No. 3, as heretofore, it might almost be more accurate hereafter to call Bolshekov No. 11/2 and Adams No. 21/2. (Much good-natured laughter. A sick smile from Bolshekov.) And here Stalenin must take his public farewell, but only so far as public appearances were concerned, for the people would know that, silently, often alone, late into the nights, he would be working for them with the last grain of his vitality and the last drop of his blood. “Work! Work! Work!” he cried. “And Wonworld forever!”

  The applause, the shouting, the crying, rose to a height never before reached. People became hysterical. Some fell on their knees. Soon the whole crowd was on its knees.