MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow (27 page)

“I think we’d better take him with us,” Hawkeye said, nodding toward Brother Born-Again Bob, who was, a smile of utter contentment on his face, snoring loudly in his seat.

“I hate to disturb him,” Dago Red said. “He looks so … peaceful.”

“If we’re going to set things right between Boris and El
Teetho
,” Hawkeye said, “we’re going to have to have somebody whisper the right things in his ear. No disrespect, Dago Red, but I think Our Noble Leader will be more likely to be sympathetic to a total-abstinence clergyperson named Born-Again Bob than he is to an archbishop from Rome named Dago Red.”

“You may have a point,” the archbishop said. He walked to the seat where Brother Born-Again Bob was resting and, with surprising agility for someone of his slight build and years, quickly knelt and arranged Brother Born-Again Bob over his shoulders in the fireman’s carry. “Let’s get this show on the road!” he ordered.

As this was taking place, a long-wheelbase Rolls-Royce, bearing both the CD (for Corps
Diplomatique
) insignia of the Diplomatic Corps and a large silk and gold-thread hammer and sickle flag on the right front fender, rolled majestically around the Arc de Triomphe de 1Étoile and turned down the Avenue de la Grande Armée.

It carried both the official ambassador of the Russian peasants and workers to the oppressed workers of France and his immediate superior, who was cleverly disguised as the chauffeur.

“To tell you the truth, comrade, off the record, of course,” the ambassador said to the chauffeur, “I’m just a trifle worried.”

“Why is that, comrade?”

“The last time I paid an official visit to Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov,-vis-à-vis his returning to Moscow to perform at the Bolshoi, he was rather rude.”

“Oh?”

“Specifically, he said that if he ever saw my ugly face again he’d make me eat my top hat.”

“You have your orders, comrade,” the chauffeur said. “We must all be prepared to make sacrifices for the cause.”

“My thinking exactly, comrade,” the ambassador said. “How about you going to give him the visa?”

“Not on your life,” the chauffeur said. “My orders are to remain under cover until the revolution starts and the French workers and peasants take to the barricades.”

“Then you’d better get ready to come out from under the covers,” the ambassador said. “Look up the street!”

“I see it—so what?” the chauffeur said.

“If that isn’t a revolution in progress, with workers and peasants at the barricades rising up in righteous rebellion against the oppressive forces of capitalistic imperialism, I don’t know what it is.”

“Talk about stupid!” the chauffeur said. “Talk about jumping to the wrong conclusion! No wonder you’re only the ambassador!”

“I don’t quite understand, Comrade Chauffeur,” the ambassador protested.

“That riot in the streets up ahead is nothing more than Den #707 of the
Shur
-lee
Strydent
Fan Club,” the chauffeur said. “You can tell by the flags, the ones they’re beating the gendarmes with. It says what they are right on the flags.”

“But they
are
rioting,” the ambassador said.

“What they’re doing, comrade,” Comrade Chauffeur said patiently (if a trifle condescendingly), “is simply practicing.”

“Practicing for what?”

“The arrival of their idol,” the chauffeur replied. “The
Strydent
person has just landed at
Orly
. I heard it on the radio.”

“And she’s coming here? Perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone, as they say.”

“You’re supposed to give her a visa, Comrade Ambassador. Nobody said anything about killing anyone. And that would be in my department anyway, not yours.”

“A figure of speech, Comrade Chauffeur,” the ambassador said. “Nothing more. I wouldn’t dream of usurping your privileges.”

“Don’t let it happen again, comrade,” the chauffeur said.

A gendarme stepped in front of the limousine, blowing his whistle, and waving his white baton.

“Stop!” he said. “In the name of La Belle France!”

The chauffeur lowered the window.

“This is the official Rolls-Royce limousine of the workers’ and peasants’ ambassador to the oppressed workers of French capitalism,” he announced. “What do you mean, ‘Stop’?”

“I wouldn’t want that you should get the paint scratched,” the gendarme replied. “Which is what’s going to happen if you persist in driving past the maestro’s apartment.”

“We are on our way to see Comrade Korsky-Rimsakov,” the chauffeur said. “On official workers’ and peasants’ business.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wouldn’t kid about something like that,” the chauffeur said. “Now get out of the way!”

“I’ll do better than that,” the gendarme said. He gracefully swung his hips, which caused the famous gendarmes’ cape to move away from his ample hips. He reached down and took from his belt a device known in France as a “
systeme
radiotelephonique
pour les communications”*
(*
It would be known In America as a walkie-talkie.)
and spoke to it: “Antoine, Antoine, here is Gaston, Gaston.”

“
Alio
, Gaston, here is Antoine,” the walkie-talkie replied.

“Antoine, I have here the Russian ambassador. He wishes to see the maestro.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Antoine, I kid not. Would you be good enough to relay the information to the maestro?”

“With the greatest of pleasure, Gaston,” Antoine said. “Stand by.”

Gaston turned to the chauffeur and announced. “Lieutenant Antoine de la
Foret
is liaison officer between the Gendarmerie
Nationale
and the maestro,” he said. “He is at this moment in the maestro’s apartment, relaying to the maestro the information that you and the ambassador wish to see the maestro.”

“That’s better,” the chauffeur snapped. “You’re not dealing with any of your own oppressed workers, you know.”

“Gaston, Gaston, here is Antoine, Antoine!” the walkie-talkie said.

“Here is Gaston, Antoine.”

“The maestro says that if you’re really sure it is the Russian ambassador, you are to ask him if he has come to talk about the maestro performing at the Bolshoi.”

“Tell him we are, we are!” the ambassador said. He and the chauffeur looked at each other and beamed as Gaston relayed this information to Antoine.

“Gaston, the maestro says he would consider it a great personal favor if you would escort the ambassador and anyone with him through the riot and into the front yard,” the walkie-talkie said.

“Tell the maestro that his every wish is my command,” Gaston replied. He blew his little whistle again, three short blasts, and a squad of gendarmes in hard hats, face masks, and other battle gear came trotting up. “If you will be so good as to follow me, Monsieur
L’Ambassadeur
,” he said, opening the rear door with a little bow.

“Wait for me!” the chauffeur shouted, getting quickly out from behind the wheel. A flying wedge was formed, with the ambassador and the chauffeur in the middle, and, at the trot, the group made its way through the lines of
Shur
-lee
Strydent
fans being held at bay by other gendarmes and members of the Sheikh Abdullah
ben
Abzug’s Royal Bodyguard.

The ambassador’s silk top hat was knocked from his head by one especially zealous member of Den #707 of the
Shur
-lee
Strydent
Fan Club, and he stepped on it, but with that exception no further damage was caused, and in a matter of moments they were inside the fence outside the maestro’s apartment building.

“Antoine,” the Gendarme said, “here is Gaston. We are in the front yard. Please inform the maestro.”

“Gaston,” the walkie-talkie replied. “The maestro asks if you are absolutely sure that the man in the Ted Lewis top hat is really the ambassador, and if the ugly man with him is also a member of the Soviet delegation wishing to call upon him.”

“Antoine, please tell the maestro he has my personal assurance,” Gaston replied.

“In that case, Gaston, the maestro asks that you and the other gendarmes step away from the Soviet delegation so that the maestro can come on the balcony and see for himself.”

The gendarmes quickly moved fifteen to twenty feet away from the ambassador and his chauffeur. The ambassador and the chauffeur raised their faces expectantly upward toward the balcony.

“Comrade Chauffeur,” the ambassador said. “That doesn’t look like Comrade Korsky-Rimsakov!”

“That’s because it isn’t Comrade Korsky-Rimsakov, stupid,” the chauffeur replied. “That’s his good friend, the well-known Arab oppressor of the people, Sheikh Abdullah
ben
Abzug.”

“There he is!” the ambassador said excitedly. “I recognize him now!”

Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov appeared on the platform and peered downward, grinning broadly. Behind him appeared Colonel Jean-Pierre de la Chevaux, Dr. T. Mullins Yancey, and the familiar face of Sean O’Casey
O’Mulligan
.

“Hi, there, Comrade Korsky-Rimsakov!” the ambassador called cheerfully.

“Greetings from the Soviet Secret Police!” the chauffeur, caught up in the excitement of the moment, called.

“One, Two, Three,
heave!”
Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov called.

FROM THE COMRADE AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE

EMBASSY OF THE
USSR

PARIS, FRANCE

TO
THE COMRADE COMMISSAR OF FOREIGN RELATIONS

THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW,
USSR

INFORMATION COPIES TO

THE COMRADE COMMISSAR OF THE SECRET POLICE THE COMRADE SUPREME CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET

IN
COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR TELETYPE MESSAGE REGARDING GRANTING A VISA TO VISIT OUR BELOVED MOTHERLAND TO THE SINGER B. A. KORSKY-RIMSAKOV, THE UNDERSIGNED ACCOMPANIED BY HIS CHAUFFEUR WENT TO THE RESIDENCE OF COMRADE
B.
A. KORSKY-RIMSAKOV.

WHILE STANDING IN THE FRONT YARD OF SAID RESIDENCE, AND IN FULL VIEW OF DEN
#707,
SHUR-LEE STRYDENT FAN CLUB, CITIZEN KORSKY-RIMSAKOV,
AIDED AND ABETTED BY THREE OF HIS IMPERIALIST, CAPITALIST GANGSTER ASSOCIATES, THREW TWO BUCKETS OF DIRTY DISHWATER, ONE BUCKET OF GARBAGE, AND ONE BAG OF VACUUM CLEANER DIRT DOWN UPON THE UNDERSIGNED AND HIS CHAUFFEUR.

CITIZEN KORSKY-RIMSAKOV ALSO SHOUTED CERTAIN SCURRILOUS ALLEGATIONS VIS-A-VIS THE LEGITIMACY OF THE COMRADE SUPREME CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET AND THE UNDERSIGNED, THE EXACT
WORDING OF WHICH THE UNDERSIGNED IS RELUCTANT TO REPORT VERBATIM.