MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow (4 page)

“I don’t have a supervisor, you moron, I’m the Chairman.”

“Well, I guess you don’t get to call Paris, then, Comrade Chairman. Rules is rules.”

“Katherine!” the Chairman bellowed. He had to bellow it three times before Comrade
Popowski
appeared, visibly sulking, in the doorway.

“Something for you, comrade?” she asked coldly, disinterestedly.

“Something the matter, my little cabbage?” the Chairman, confused, asked.

“It’s Comrade
Popowski
to you, comrade,” she said. “And that isn’t all that’s changed in the last couple of minutes, if you get my meaning, I’ve got my heart set on Cher Boris, too. And you know what that means!”

“Let’s not be hasty, Katherine,” the Chairman said. “What I called you for was to give you permission to put in a call to this Korsky-Rimsakov character in Paris.”

“
Maestro
Korsky-Rimsakov to someone like you, tubby,” Comrade
Popowski
said.
“Cher Boris
to his devoted fans.”

“Whatever,” the Chairman said. “You have my permission to get him on the phone.”

“Why don’t you get him on the phone yourself?” Comrade
Popowski
asked.

“According to this simpleton,” the Chairman said, gesturing toward the Commissar of Communications, “I need permission from my supervisor.”

“You don’t have a supervisor,” she replied.

“But you do!” the Chairman screamed, taking off his shoe and beating it on his desk. “Now get me Cher Boris, or whatever you call him, on the phone!”

It took about thirty minutes to reach the Paris Opera, and another thirty minutes to get Maestro Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov to the telephone. The conversation itself lasted about fifteen seconds. The Chairman, having had an hour to get control of himself, was at his most charming.

“Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov,” he oozed. “So good of you to spare me a moment of your time. This is the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, calling all the way from Moscow
…”
Then his face took on a stunned look. “I’ll be damned,” he said, as he sat the telephone back in its cradle. “He said it again.”

“Said what again?” the Commissar of Communications asked. Comrade
Popowski
walked over to him and whispered in his ear. The Commissar of Communications, who was already possessed of a somewhat ruddy complexion, turned tomato red. “He said
that
to the Chairman? But you just can’t say things like that to the Chairman!”

“Cher Boris
can,” Comrade
Popowski
said. “Cher Boris can do anything he wants to do! And you should have heard his voice! Such diction! Such well-rounded syllables! Such timbre!”

The Chairman, his face pale, extended the index finger of his left hand and moved it slowly to a button mounted atop his desk. After a moment’s hesitation, he exhaled deeply and then pushed it.

Immediately, bells throughout the Kremlin began to ring. Within moments, the Supreme Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet (that is to say, the Commissar of Secret Police, the Commissar of Foreign Affairs, the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Commissar of Feminine Affairs) rushed into the office.

“Is it war, Comrade Chairman?” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff asked.

“Worse,” the Chairman said.

“The Americans have shut off our credit?” the Commissar of Foreign Affairs asked.

“Worse than that, too,” the Chairman said.

“What can be worse than that?” the Commissar of Secret Police asked.

“You won’t believe what someone told your beloved Chairman,” the Chairman said. “Once via the Commissar of Culture and once, just now, in person.” He then told them what Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov had told him.

“Who said that?” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs asked, blushing rather prettily for someone of her bulk and formidable appearance. “That’s not only disgusting, but so far as I know a physiological impossibility.”

“Cher Boris said it,” Comrade
Popowski
said.

“Cher Boris?” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said, her blush replaced by something like an adoring glow. “Isn’t he the little cut-up?”

“And you should have heard his voice,” Comrade
Popowski
said. “The timbre, the bell-like tones, the exquisite diction.”

“You heard it, comrade?” the Commissar of the Feminine Affairs said.

“Every sibilant syllable,” Comrade
Popowski
replied. “Every thrilling vowel and consonant. I’ll remember it to my dying day.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you taped it?” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said.

“Cher Boris who?” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff demanded.

“What can you expect from a man?” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said acidly. “Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, the world’s greatest opera singer, you cultureless oaf, that’s who!”

The Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff took on a startled look. “I thought I’d heard that name somewhere,” he said. He took a leather notebook from his pocket and consulted it. “That’s it,” he said. “Comrade Chairman, this may not be exactly the right moment to bring this up, but before I came to work this morning the little woman
…”

The Commissar of Secret Police snickered.

“Watch it,
Dimitri
,” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff snapped. “Your Sonya isn’t exactly what you could call a wood nymph either. Anyway, my wife said I was to make a point of seeing you, Comrade Chairman, to make sure she had a box for any performance of this guy, what’s-his-name, singing.”

“What’s-his-name! What’s-his-name!”
the Commissar of Feminine Affairs shrieked. That’s going too far!”

“What’s-his-name isn’t going to sing,” the Chairman said.

“What do you mean he’s not going to sing?” the Commissar of Secret Police said.

“What’s it to you, Four Eyes,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs asked, “whether or not he sings?”

“As a matter of fact,” the Commissar of Secret Police said, somewhat lamely, “just before I left for the office this morning, my wife, my sister-in-law, and all four daughters made me promise that I would have a word with Comrade Chairman here to make double sure they would have seats in the front row for any and all performances.”

“That’s nice,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said. “That way they can sit with my wife and mother-in-law.”

“Didn’t you guys hear what I said? What I said he said?” the Chairman shouted. “Don’t tell me you’re standing there telling me that you would permit someone who told your beloved Chairman what What’s-his-name told me … ”

“There he goes again!” Comrade
Popowski
shouted. “We’re through, tubby! The only little cabbage you’re going to get from now on will be in
cole
slaw!”

“To sing in the Bolshoi Theatre?” the Chairman concluded.

If he had expected a ringing reply, he was to be disappointed. Not only was there not a ringing denunciation of someone who would suggest (to his face) that the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet attempt a biologically impossible act of self-reproduction, but from the look on the Commissar of Foreign Relations’ face, he knew he was about to be defied.

“Now, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said, “let’s not make too hasty a judgment…”

“We all know,” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff chimed in, “that we all say things we really don’t mean from time to time.”

“Forgive and forget, as I always say,” the Commissar of Secret Police said. “None of us is perfect.”

“I, for one,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs cooed, “am sure that if
Cher Boris
really said something like that, you must have said something that annoyed him.”

“The reason he’s annoyed,” the Chairman said, “is because the Commissar of Culture told him he couldn’t have the Bolshoi Theatre and fifty years’ back rent—that’s why he’s mad.”

“Leave it to Old
Blubberbelly
to put his foot in his mouth,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said.
“I
say that if Cher Boris wants that old theater, give it to him!”

“After all, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said, “it’s only money. We can probably borrow it from the Americans.”

“Let’s consider this philosophically,” the Commissar of Secret Police said. “What one word would describe a man who displays such a callous indifference to the happy home lives of the members of the Supreme Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet?”

“The one thing we need now, Four Eyes,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said, “is action, not philosophy.”

“Let him talk, comrade,” the Chairman said. “You tell me, comrade, what word comes to your mind?”

“Scoundrel,” the Commissar of Secret Police said smugly.

“O.K.,” the Chairman said. “He’s a scoundrel.”

“Bite your tongue!” Comrade Katherine
Popowski
said. “Well, perhaps a
delightful
scoundrel,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said.

“Scoundrel,
schmoundrel
,” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff said. “Get to the point, comrade.”

“And what is the last refuge of a scoundrel?” the Commissar of Secret Police asked, just as smugly.

“Beats me,” the Chairman said! “Will you get to the bottom line?”

“I think my distinguished colleague is on to something,” the Commissar of Foreign Affairs said.

“The last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism,” the Commissar of Secret Police said. “We’ll get to him through his patriotism.”

“His
patriotism?’’
the Chairman barked. “I
told
you what he said to me! How can you be patriotic and say something like that to your beloved Chairman?”

“I believe, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said, “that what my distinguished colleague is suggesting is that we appeal to What’s-his-name’s patriotism to the United States.”

“You’ve got it, Oscar,” the Commissar of Secret Police said. “We get to him through Washington.”

There was a moment’s silence as the idea was considered by all present. Finally, the Chairman spoke.

“Why not?” he said. “God knows, the Americans believe anything we tell them. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You, Comrade Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff—you start moving some divisions around in East Germany and Poland. Make sure you make a lot of noise.”

“Immediately, Comrade Chairman,” the Chairman of the Soviet Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

“And you, Comrade Commissar of Feminine Affairs, you mobilize some East German women and have them start throwing rocks over the Berlin Wall.”

“Every time we do that, let the East German women get close to the Berlin Wall, Comrade Chairman, we lose some,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said. “They—excuse the expression—defect.”

“Well, make sure they don’t!” the Chairman snapped. “Put some tanks between them and the wall. Do what you have to, but make some noise at the wall. You understand me?”