MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow (21 page)

“Oh, hi there, Boris,” Sean said. “It rang.”

“That’s a likely story,” Boris said. “With the exception of three people, everyone who has that number is playing poker at the Legion. And of the three exceptions, one is Hot Lips, who for some reason won’t use the number, and the other two are for some mysterious reason piqued with me. … I’d hate to tell you what they told me to do earlier today. Obviously they haven’t called.”

“It was the Pecker Checker who called, Boris,” Sean said. “Himself.”

“He did? Did he call to apologize for saying that to me?”

“No, he called to say he and the Sainted Chancre Mechanic have changed their minds.
Horsey’s
sending an airplane to pick them up.”

“Is that so? You’re not just making this all up because I found you playing with that cast-from-life objet d’art, are you?”

“Cross my heart!” Sean said. “I really hated to pick it up, to tell the truth.”

“It makes me a little uneasy myself,” Boris said. “But the girls seem to think it’s charming. More than one has tried to make off with it, and the President’s wife has been trying to get me to give it to the Louvre.”

“It is a little larger than life, isn’t it?” Sean said.

“Not at all,” Boris said, indignantly. “If anything, it’s a bit smaller than life.”

“Well, it’s of museum quality, that’s for sure.”

“Thank you,” Boris said modestly. “Well, Sean, I believe you. And you can have your present, after all.” He paused and then called over his shoulder, “Monique, Antoinette, Jacqueline, come in here so that poor Sean can see what I brought him to pass away the idle hours!”

“Brother John,” said Brother Born-Again Bob Roberts to J. F. X. McIntyre, M.D., F.A.C.S, in the living room of B. F. Pierce, M.D., ‘F.A.C.S, in the quaint and picturesque hamlet of Spruce Harbor, Maine, U.S.A., “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Trapper John replied.

“We are both looking forward,” Hawkeye said, “to listening to your little
Brunhilde
and our little Boris sing together.”

“And your friend, Colonel de la Chevaux, is really going to send an airplane right away?”

“That’s right,” Hawkeye said. “And soon after that, we will all be privileged to hear Boris and
Brunhilde
sing together. I can hardly wait to hear Boris come in on the second stanza of ‘Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.’ ”

“And I myself,” Trapper John replied, “am beside myself with impatience to see his face when he sees what we have brought him for the all-around enrichment of the world’s music.” He took
Brunhilde’s
color photograph from her father and looked down at it with a wide smile on his face. “I knew that the time would eventually come, Brother Bob, when I could do to Boris what yea, verily, he has so often done to me.”

“We’d better call
Brunhilde
right away,” Brother Born-Again Bob said, “and get her right down here.”

“Help yourself,” Hawkeye said, handing him the telephone.

Moments later, sixty-five miles away in the dormitory set aside for the gentle sex of the When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder Bible Seminary and Junior College, the telephone rang in Room 219, assigned to Ms. Bobby-Sue (a/k/a
Brunhilde
) Roberts. In the flesh,
Brunhilde
looked, it must be reported, at least as bad and, if possible, worse than the photograph of herself at which Drs. Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre had been looking.

Her hair was even more mouse-colored and stringy than the photograph had shown. The warts on her forehead, nose, and chin were even more ugly (the ones on her forehead and chin had long, black whiskers curling outward from them; this had not been evident on the photograph), and in person she seemed to have fewer teeth, and of a more revolting greenish hue, than those she had been proudly displaying in the photo.

And when she snatched the telephone from its cradle and spoke, her voice—raspy, piercing, and harsh—was not the sort of thing one would expect from someone with an ambition to sing, for example, the title role in
Madame Butterfly.

“No,” she shrieked at the phone. “I told you before, I’m not going to take Weekly Sacred Harp Sing-Along with Reverend
Wattersley
with you!”

“Bobby-Sue, this is your daddy!” her caller said, shocked.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Daddy,” Bobby-Sue/
Brunhilde
said. “I thought it was somebody else.” She was so immensely relieved, since it had turned out to be her father calling, that she had run out of breath before she had been able to finish her intended opening announcement. Dear Daddy would have been disturbed to hear her call someone “an oversexed Bible beater.” Dear Daddy, who was of another generation, would simply be unable to understand what h—l on earth it was for her to be here, surrounded by 269 divinity students of various religious persuasions but who shared a common desire to violate both her and the commandment concerning the most intimate interpersonal relationship without having gone through a wedding ceremony.

She realized that part of it was her fault. She never should have gone out for the When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder cheerleading squad. Once she had done that (and once was all that she had done it, when the When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder football team, “God’s Chosen Eleven,” had played The Truth and The Whole Truth Full Gospel Seminary, once having been more than enough), her life had never been the same. Seminarians had thereafter spent most of their waking hours trying to get close to her.

“Bobby-Sue, darling,” Brother Born-Again Bob said. “I’ve got some good news for you, honey.”

“Great,” she said. “I can sure use some.” She was a little ashamed of the thought which popped into her mind. She was hoping that Dear Daddy would announce that medical science had come up with a pill, which when taken by the other sex would make them think only of roses and birds and strike s-e-x from their minds once and for all.

“You remember telling Daddy, Bobby-Sue, that your greatest desire in life was to sing the role of that Italian lady, Carmelita
…”

“That’s Spanish lady, Daddy,” Bobby-Sue corrected her father, “and her name is Carmen
…”

“Whatever,” Brother Born-Again Bob said, “with that Mexican
fella
, Boris Alexander Whatever.”

“He’s Russian, Daddy, and his name is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,” Bobby-Sue said. “I remember. But so what?”

“And you remember I told you that if you were a good girl and went up there to When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder, your Daddy would look into it?”

“Yeah, I remember,” she said.

“Well, it’s fixed,” Brother Born-Again Bob said. “What do you think about that?”

“What do you mean it’s fixed?” she asked.

“I mean, just as soon as you can get down here to Spruce Harbor, an airplane’s going to fly you right over to Paris, France, to meet him!”

“Daddy, dear, you haven’t let your sacramental grape juice ferment, have you?” Bobby-Sue asked. It wasn’t that she disbelieved her daddy, it was simply that as a rather serious student of the opera she was completely familiar with the reputation of the world’s greatest opera singer, both on stage and off. She had agreed to attend When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder for two reasons. One was to please her daddy, whom she truly loved, and the other was that she realized she needed several years of practice, four or six hours a day, before she could hope to earn a spot in an opera company. She had decided that When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder campus would be a place where she could practice without interruption.

She had, in other words, not paid a bit of attention to her father’s announcement that she would see what he could do about getting her an audition with Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov. He meant well, of course, but what he proposed to do was simply beyond the realm of possibility.

“Bobby-Sue, I mean,
Brunhilde
, has your daddy ever lied to you?”

“No,” she replied. He hadn’t. He’d told her some pretty
farout
things, but he had never lied to her.

“Then trust me,
Brunhilde
,” Brother Born-Again Bob said. “You just pack some clothes in a bag and get down here just as soon as you can.”

She paused before replying. As incredible as it sounded, there was no sense staying here. Between the men’s Bible study class climbing up the fire escape and the When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder astronomy club turning their telescopes on her day and night, she had had hardly any time to practice at all lately.

“I’m leaving right away, Daddy,” she said. “Where should I meet you?”

“At the Spruce Harbor International Airport.”

“That the one that they used to call the Napolitano Crop Dusting Service and Garage before that Boston and Maine Airways DC-3 ran out of gas and landed there?”

“That’s the one,” Brother Born-Again Bob said.

“See you there, Daddy,” she said, and hung up. She then went to the window of her room and peered out. The men’s Bible study class was still draped all over the fire escape and the trees on the lawn, and she could see the sunlight reflected in the telescopes of the Up Yonder astronomy club as they focused on her window.

She let the curtain fall back in place, and picked up the telephone. It was answered on the second ring.

“The Reverend Bosworth J. Murray, D.D., speaking.”

“Brother Bosworth,” Bobby-Sue/
Brunhilde
said, disguising her voice. “This is Sister Clementine, and I’m ashamed of you!”

“Ashamed of me? Are you aware that you’re speaking to the Reverend Bosworth J. Murray, D.D., president of the When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder Bible Seminary and Junior College?”

“Indeed, I am. And you should be ashamed of yourself, Brother Bosworth. Corrupting the morals of our young!”

“Explain yourself, Sister!” Brother Bosworth said.

“As if you didn’t know!”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That the men’s Bible class, drunk as lords, have climbed into the trees outside the young ladies’ dorm and are reading the
risque
passages from the Bible to the young ladies!”

“You don’t mean it!”

“I do, too, mean it. And the Up Yonder astronomy club, the source of their booze, just had their still blow up in the Divine Sciences Laboratory!”