MASH 11 MASH Goes To San Francisco
Page 9
“Maestro, may I present Dr. Pierre St. Pierre, chief of staff of the Paris Municipal Hospital?”
“Enchanté, Maestro,” Dr. St. Pierre said.
“And Dr. Francois de la Rougepied, professor of social diseases of the University of Paris.”
“There’s not a moment to be lost,” Boris said, grabbing the medical gentlemen by the arms and propelling them toward the bedroom.
“It is a great honor, Maestro, to be of service to you,” Dr. de la Rougepied said in French.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Doc,” Boris said. “But as I said, it’s not me. It’s my l’il buddy, Framingham.”
“And what seems to be wrong with him?” Omar asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Boris said. “That’s what the docs are here for.” He thrust open the door and gestured at the bed. “There he is, Doc.”
Matthew Q. Framingham was now fully awake, if still a little groggy. He attempted to sit up in the bed.
“Let me help you!” the young man in the towel said, and he did so, bending over the bed and lifting Matthew to a semierect position against the headboard.
Dr. Pierre St. Pierre and Dr. de la Rougepied both examined Mr. Framingham, and then exchanged glances, nods, and profound grunts.
“Maestro,” Dr. de la Rougepied began.
“Zair is no-zing wrong wiff your fren,” Dr. St. Pierre picked up.
“He has giff himself, what you zay, one hell of a crack on zee head,” Dr. de la Rougepied continued.
“And he has, of course, one hell of a hang-ovair,” Dr. St. Pierre went on.
“But no-zing zat requires zee services of a docteur,” Rougepied concluded.
“Thank God!” Boris said.
“On zee ozair hand,” Dr. Rougepied said.
“Zeez young man is, what you say, a horze of zee other color,” Dr. St. Pierre said, pointing at the young man in the towel.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Boris asked.
“I happened to look under his towel,” Dr. de la Rougepied said.
“God, your kind are all over!”
“An’ I call what I zee to zee attention of my colleague,” Rougepied went on.
“And I zee zee zame zing,” St. Pierre added.
“Couple of lousy voyeurs,” Boris said. “Thank God I have my pants on, otherwise you two would be uncontrollable.”
“And what we zee is obviously what you call an inguinal hernia,” Dr. de la Rougepied said.
“My God!” Boris said. “I must think of my public! Exactly how contagious is that, Doctor?”
“It is what you call zee rapture,” Dr. St. Pierre said.
“I believe the word you seek, sir,” Sheikh Abdullah said, “is rupture, not rapture.”
“Ruptured,” Dr. de la Rougepied said in French. “And recently, too. He has obviously picked up an enormous load within the past twelve hours.”
“I really don’t care, when you get right to it,” Boris said. “I don’t even know who the hell he is.”
“Boris, your conduct is unspeakable!” Matthew Q. Framingham said. “Have you no small shred of appreciation, much less gratitude, for what this young man has done for you?”
“Huh?”
“That enormous load to which the doctor refers?”
“What about it?”
“It was you,” Matthew said. “This splendid young chap carried you in here last night.”
“I never saw this guy in my life until he showed up in my bathroom and started making obscene gestures at my dog!” Boris said. He looked at the young man, who was again prodding his abdomen with his finger. “See, there he goes again!”
“When one is suffairing from zee inguinal hernia,” Dr. de la Rougepied said, “zee symptom one zees first is zee bulge in zee lower abdomen. Zat is what he is doing now. It is of no avail. Everytime he push it in, it will pop out again.”
“What has any of this to do with me?” Boris said. “I never saw this guy before!”
“But, Boris, you did!” Matthew said. “Don’t you remember being in the Casanova last night?”
“Of course I do,” Boris said. “I remember quite clearly giving you wise fatherly counsel about this stripteaser fetish of yours.”
“And you do recall the balalaika player?”
“Of course I do,” Boris said. “He was, as I recall, superb.”
“And do you remember asking him to join us?”
“Of course I do. What are you leading up to, Framingham?”
“And taking him with us, when we were asked to leave the Casanova, to the Ritz Bar?”
“How could I possibly forget something like that? The balalaika player was a great musical artist.”
“I’m glad you remember that,” Framingham said, “because you will then probably remember that after we were asked to leave the Ritz Bar—”
“We were asked to leave the Ritz Bar?” Boris asked incredulously.
“That was after you were challenged to a duel by that Argentinian chap who felt you were paying undue attention to his wife.”
“I offended someone’s wife?” Boris asked. “Impossible.”
“She wasn’t offended,” Matthew said.
“That’s better,” Boris said.
“But her husband objected when you suggested that the two of you get a room and, as you somewhat indelicately put it, give the ol’ springs a workout.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Boris said.
“He said he would send his seconds to see you this afternoon,” Matthew said, “but we digress. After we left the Ritz, we went to Harry’s Bar, and there you told the balalaika player that, being the greatest one of all, you recognized a musical genius whenever you saw one.”
“I recall something of that,” Boris said.
“And you told him that his problems—”
“What problems?”
“He is alone and penniless in Paris.”
“Oh.”
“Were over. That you would make him your protegé and get him a scholarship.”
“I said that, did I?” Boris said. “Well, if I said it, I must have meant it. Abdullah?”
“Yes, El Noil Snoil the Magnificent?”
“Get this young man’s name, and tell Hassan I said to give him a scholarship.”
“Of course, El Noil Snoil.”
“And once that was out of the way, we went to the American Legion,” Matthew Q. Framingham said. “Do you remember that?”
“Not too clearly,” Boris confessed. “It had been a trying day.”
“Well, we went to the American Legion,” Matthew Q. Framingham said. “There we met Imogene.”
“Imogene?” Boris asked. “Who the hell is Imogene?”
“Did I hear someone call me?” the chubby lady said, peeking around the door.
“Out! Out!” Boris cried. “Have you no decency? Can’t you see that this young man is virtually at death’s door?” He then turned to Matthew Q. Framingham. “Get out of the bed and let this guy he down, Matthew! That’s the trouble with you Harvard types. Always thinking about yourselves!”
“You suggested to Imogene and her friend—”
“My God, there’s more than one?”
“Two,” Matthew said. “They’re from Chillicothe, Ohio.”
“I am beginning to suspect, Matthew, that you took advantage of my innocent nature and got me drunk again,” Boris said. “You should really be ashamed of yourself, Matthew.”
“Well, when we got here, you were asleep.”
“No surprise. I was exhausted. Didn’t I tell you that I had come to Paris directly from a triumphal performance in Moscow? And that I had very nearly been starved to death in Moscow?”
“In any event, when we reached here, you were unconscious. And this splendid young man carried you upstairs, obviously rupturing himself in the process.”
“That simply goes to show what happens to people who butt in,” Boris said. “Carrying me upstairs is the responsib
ility of Hassan’s bodyguard. Where the hell were they?”
“They were protecting you from the brothers of the lady from Argentina,” Matthew said. “They had followed us all the way to the American Legion. We had to go out by the back door.”
“Well, at least they were meeting their responsibilities,” Boris said. “Which is more than I can say for you, Matthew. Why didn’t you carry me upstairs?”
“I was somewhat hors de combat myself,” Matthew confessed. “As a matter of fact it was necessary for Imogene and her friend to assist me.”
“And this little guy,” Boris said, examining, the young man closely, “actually carried me up three flights of stairs?”
“My pleasure, dear Boris,” the young man said.
“There is simply nothing beyond us musical geniuses, is there?” Boris said. “And never let it be said that Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov doesn’t pay his debts. First things first, however. Abdullah, where is the bodyguard?”
“They are outside, El Noil Snoil,” Abdullah replied.
“Have them escort the ladies to their hotel,” Boris said. “Or anywhere else they might wish to go. But get them out of here. Whatever will my neighbors think?”
“Your wish is my command, El Noil Snoil,” Abdullah replied.
“And don’t you forget it,” Boris said. He turned to Dr. de la Rougepied. “You say this fellow has a hernia?”
“Yes, Maestro,” the doctor replied in French.
“How does one treat a hernia?”
“With surgery, Maestro,” Dr. de la Rougepied replied. “He will require surgery. But have no fear, Maestro. I have a colleague who is professor of surgery at the University of Paris Medical School. He will, I am sure, consider it an honor to attend to any friend of our Cher Boris, the world’s greatest opera singer.”
“Well, I’m sure he would,” Boris replied. “But if you think I’m going to let some French chancre-mechanic put a knife to my benefactor and protegé, think again!”
“I beg pardon, Maestro?”
“Omar, you did bring an ambulance?”
“Two, Maestro,” the charge d’affaires replied. “Just in case.”
“Have this lad loaded aboard one,” Boris ordered. “Gentle, now, he gave his all for me. Greater love hath no man, so to speak, than to rupture himself helping Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov in his hour of need.”
“I’ll call the hospital and reserve a room,” Dr. de la Rougepied said.
“Nothing personal, Doc,” Boris said, “but nothing is too good for this young musical genius and protégé of mine.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” Dr. de la Rougepied said.
“There’s no such thing as second-best,” Boris replied. “And Pancho here gets the best.” He picked up the telephone. “Operator, connect me with Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce at the Spruce Harbor Medical Center in Maine.” He covered the phone with his hand. “Call the airport, Abdullah, and have the engines started!”
Chapter Seven
When it was three-thirty in the afternoon in Paris, it was half-past ten in the morning in Spruce Harbor, Maine. When the telephone rang in the office of the chief of surgery, that luminary, dressed in fresh surgical greens, was in his office taking a brief rest between what it is now chic to refer to as surgical procedures (formerly known as “operations,” which should, by all rules of logic, be known as “cutting, tying and sewing-ups”).
The previous surgical procedure had been one known to the layman and to Dr. Pierce as “jerking a gallbladder,” a fairly routine thing to occur under Dr. Pierce’s scalpel. The jerking in question, however, had been an unusual one, posing certain problems and requiring certain out-of-the-ordinary steps.
So, instead of spending his restbreak as it was his custom to—sipping on black coffee and keeping up with the latest anatomical developments (as published in Penthouse and such other magazines of the literary and cultural establishment)—Dr. Pierce was spending it sipping on black coffee and explaining what had happened in the operating room to Student Nurse Barbara Ann Miller.
It was not his custom to take student nurses under his wing, but Barbara Ann Miller was, in Dr. Pierce’s professional opinion (which was shared by Dr. McIntyre and chief of nursing services Esther Flanagan), that rara avis, a young woman with an obvious potential for becoming one hell of a good operating-room nurse.
Student Nurse Miller, who would graduate in June, had come to the Spruce Harbor Medical Center as a transfer student from the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing of New Orleans, La. Her transcript of grades had born a notation from the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A.C.S., chief of staff of the Gates of Heaven Hospital of New Orleans, to the effect that it was her personal judgement that Miss Miller showed the potential to become one hell of an operating-room nurse.
Student Nurse Miller had not begun her nursing education at Gates of Heaven, either, but rather at San Francisco’s Pacific General Hospital. The details of her transfer from San Francisco to New Orleans and then to Spruce Harbor were a carefully kept secret, known only to the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes; Doctors Pierce and McIntyre; Esther Flanagan, R.N.; and Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, R.N., chief of nursing instruction of the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing.
There was more to Margaret H. W. Wilson, R.N., the chief of nursing instruction at the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing, than her name implied. The nursing school occupied but half her time, professionally speaking. Like the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A. C.S., of Gates of Heaven, Nurse Wilson divided her professional life between medicine and the church.
It was not, however, the same church. Nurse Wilson was associated with the God Is Love In All Forms Christian Church, Inc., which had been founded in San Francisco, California, several years before by her late husband, the Reverend Buck Wilson, as a churchly refuge for those who, for one reason or another, did not feel quite at home, or comfortable, or even welcome, in any of the then-established persuasions.*
(* The Official History of the Cod Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc., for those interested in what is described as “the new theology,” is available from the Headquarters Temple, GILIAFCC, Inc., 209 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, La. 70007 for $49.95 (illustrated, with hymnal). Those either pressed for funds or interested in a somewhat more objective view of the organization will find it described with some skill and style in M*A*S*H Goes to New Orleans, M*A*S*H Goes to Paris, and Goes to Las Vegas (Pocket Books, New York) $1.50 each. The GILIAFCC, Inc., offers a thirty-five-percent discount to the clergy, divinity students, and bona fide theological scholars. Pocket Books does not.)
Shortly after Buck Wilson’s untimely and premature passing,* his widow was named by the founding disciples of the church to the newly created position of Reverend Mother Emeritus. Although her position as such was first thought of as purely ceremonial, the Widow Wilson quickly assumed a genuine role of leadership within the church hierarchy. Within a matter of months, it was generally conceded that she and she alone held the reins, and held them a good deal more firmly than her late husband ever had.**
(*The Reverend Buck Wilson expired of heart failure (said to be brought about by exhaustion) on the nuptial couch. While there is some controversy concerning this, the death mask (copies of which, in Durastone, are available from the Headquarters Temple, GILIAFCC, Inc., at $11.95— $15.95 in goldplate) made at the time show him to be smiling.)
(**The Reverend Wilson is reliably reported to have suffered from a limp wrist, and this possibly had some bearing on the problem.)
It was she, for example, who had flatly forbidden the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc., all-male a capella choir to wear eyeshadow and lipstick, and had made the prohibition stick.
In addition to her administrative skills and a hitherto repressed and unused maternal understanding and compassion for what she came to think of as “her boys
,” Margaret Houlihan Wachauf *** Wilson brought to GILIAFCC, Inc., a certain presence and image.
(*** Rev. Mother Emeritus Margaret Wilson was also the widow of the late Mr. Isadore Wachauf, founder and chairman of Wachauf Metal Recycling Corporation, International (formerly Izzy’s junkyard). He had come to an early, tragic, and somewhat messy end shortly after their marriage when the electric power failed as Mr. Wachauf was standing under and examining an electromagnetic hoist in one of his yards. The electromagnet had been holding twenty tons of crushed automobiles when the juice went off.)
The years had been kind to her, physically speaking. She was an imposing lady, made even more imposing by her churchly vestments. These had been designed for her as a joint effort by two of the founding disciples who happened to be designers of lady’s high-fashion clothing. Over a silver lame gown with a rather low-cut bodice, the official vestments consisted of a purple cape lined in red velvet and featuring an ermine collar. Across the back of the cape, in sequins, was a large cross, reaching from the area of the shoulder blades to the ground. The word “Reverend” was spelled out on the vertical member of the cross and the words “Mother” and Emeritus” on the horizontal members.
Her headgear was based on the cappa magna made popular by bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Mother Emeritus Wilson was a very close personal friend of His Eminence John Joseph Mulcahy, titular Archbishop of Swengchan, a member of what is somewhat irreverently referred to as “the Pope’s Kitchen Cabinet,” whom she had first met when both were assigned to the 4077th MASH during the Korean War. (His Eminence had then been but a lowly priest and Army chaplain.) While visiting the archbishop in his apartment in Rome, she had playfully donned his cappa magna, and had instantly seen what it could signify to her flock.
So as not to be confused with a cleric of the Roman persuasion, the Reverend Mother Emeritus’ cappa magna was chartreuse, rather than off-white, and—at no small expense—the flat surfaces, front and rear, had been cleverly wired so that the timeless truth “God Is Love” flashed on and off at five-second intervals, utilizing small red, white, and blue neon bulbs to spell out the letters.