Time Will Run Back

Chapter 8

STALENIN took up a pad of paper and signed his name on it. He shoved it toward Peter.

“Imitate that.”

Peter did his best.

“Try again.”

Peter tried.

“That’s a little better.”

Stalenin took a clean sheet and signed his name half a dozen times. “Take this. Don’t let anyone know you have it. But keep perfecting my signature.”

“But what’s the purpose of—”

Stalenin pointed significantly to his heart, and then rather vaguely to his brain. “We may have less time than I thought.” He looked appraisingly at Peter’s new but ill-fitting Deputy uniform.

“That’s more becoming.... Here is the address of my personal tailor.” He handed Peter a card. “He will measure you for Protectors’ uniforms, but you are not to wear them until the time is right. And now”—his tone was unexpectedly soft—“is there anything else you want?”

Peter got up his courage: “Would it be possible, father, for me to have a piano?”

“In this emergency you can’t afford to waste your time drumming—”

“But only for an hour a day, in the evening? Even your organized recreation platoons recognize—”

“I’ll think about it.”

At the government book store Peter found that he needed special ration coupons to get the history volumes Bolshekov had recommended. It would take at least a week to get these, he learned. It suddenly occurred to him that he might borrow the books at Edith’s little branch library.

He had not dared to see her since the kiss and the slap. But his new Deputy uniform, it struck him, gave him an excuse to patch things up....

Her glance was hostile.

“I don’t know how to apologize for kissing you—” he began.

“Oh, it isn’t that. But when you knew you were being followed by the secret police, and you led them to our house—”

“But I found I was being followed, not because I was under suspicion, but because they were thinking of promoting me. Notice?” He looked down proudly at his new Deputy uniform.

He was surprised himself to hear how plausible his explanation sounded. And, he thought, it’s even close to the truth.

He not only got his history books, but before he left had persuaded her to let him call the following evening.

He spent the night in his hotel room assiduously practicing forgeries of his father’s signature.