“He’s French, I understand?”
“No, he’s an American.”
“But he normally sings at the Paris Opera,” the Chairman said. “And how can anybody with a name like Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov be an American?”
“He was born there, Comrade Chairman.”
“Let that pass for a minute, Vladimir,” the Chairman said. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then reached for the bottle of Old White Stagg. He raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.
“Comrade Vladimirovich,” he began. “Vladimir. We have let our hair down this far, so let us continue to speak frankly. What we say here will stay here, if you get my meaning.”
“Of course, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar said. “For reasons I don’t really understand, my wife is very anxious to hear this singer sing Boris Godnuov.”
“I see,” the Commissar of Culture said.
“And Comrade Katherine wants to hear him sing Boris Godnuov,” the Chairman said.
“I was afraid it might be something like that,” the Commissar of Culture said.
“My peace of mind, comrade, is of great importance to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, you agree?”
“Of course, Comrade Chairman.”
“I mean, how am I going to have time to think about the Chinese problem, and the Cuban problem, and the rest of it if my peace of mind has been disturbed?”
“You’re absolutely right, Comrade Chairman.”
“Then maybe you can explain this, Vladimir Vladimirovich?” the Chairman said, slipping a sheet of yellow paper, Kremlin Form 344-A, Inter-Commissar Memoranda, across the table to the Commissar of Culture. The Commissar picked it up, although he knew its contents by heart, and read it.
“What does it say, Vladimir Vladimirovich?” the Chairman said, his voice soft but menacing. “Read it to me.”
The Commissar of Culture cleared his voice. “It says,” he said, “ ‘Regarding the Chairman’s Kremlin Form 344-A, subject: Opera Singer’s Singing, that the Commissar of Culture regrets to inform the Chairman that the singer in question, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, will not be available to sing in the Soviet Union at any time in the foreseeable future.’ ” He paused, swallowed, and went on. “It is signed, ‘Respectfully submitted, V. I. Vladimirovich, Commissar of Culture.’ ”
“So it is,” the Chairman said. “Commissar of Culture. Maybe you’re in the wrong job, Vladimir. How does Deputy Assistant Junior Commissar in charge of cutting fishing holes through the ice in Lake Baikal sound to you, Vladimir?”
“Comrade Chairman ...” Vladimir began.
“I’m not an unreasonable man, Vladimir Ivanovich Vladimirovich,” the Chairman said. “I regard myself as just one of the workers and peasants, and the last thing I expect in the world is special privilege just because I happen to be Supreme Chairman of the Party. You understand that, don’t you, Vladimir?”
“Yes, of course, Comrade Chairman.”
“On the other hand, Vladimir,” the Chairman went on. “Let’s face it, I’m not what you can call one of your ordinary run-of-the-mill workers and peasants. Right?”
“Absolutely, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Culture replied.
“And when I ask a teensy-weensy little favor from one of my commissars, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to expect to get what I ask for, do you, Comrade?”
“Not unreasonable at all, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar said.
“And I don’t think that asking the Commissar of Culture to arrange for two performances of Boris Godnuov at the Bolshoi is too much to ask of a Commissar of Culture, do you, Comrade Commissar of Culture? I mean, after all, that’s what you’re for, when you get right down to it, isn’t it, Comrade?”
“Absolutely, Comrade Chairman.”
“Then why did you send me this Form 344-A saying you won’t do it?”
“I didn’t say I won’t do it, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Culture said. “I said Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov said he won’t do it.”
“Perhaps Tovarisch Korsky-Rimsakov wasn’t aware that I, personally, was interested,” the Chairman said. “Let’s face it, Vladimir, you’re the kind of commissar people like saying no to. Personality-wise, comrade, you’re a zero.”
“I personally told him, Comrade Chairman, that you were personally interested,” the Commissar of Culture said.
“And he still refused? What did he say?” the Chairman asked, incredulously.
The Commissar of Culture was visibly embarrassed.
“What did he say, comrade?” the Chairman asked, sternly.
“I hesitate to say it out loud,” the Commissar of Culture said.
“Well, then,” the Chairman said, “whisper it in my ear.”
The Commissar of Culture rose, walked behind the Chairman’s desk, bent over, and whispered Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov’s reply in the Chairman’s ear. The Chairman blanched.
“Not only,” he said, “is that not the sort of language one should use in the same sentence as my name, but, physiologically and anatomically speaking, it’s impossible.”
Chapter Two
The Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. listened intently and took notes as the Commissar of Culture explained what, precisely, was the problem vis-à-vis having Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov give two performances of Boris Godnuov at the Bolshoi Theatre.
When the Commissar of Culture had concluded his explanation, the Chairman looked thoughtful a moment and then said, “Well, Comrade Commissar, that’s it. So far as I’m concerned, you’ve done all that could be expected of someone with your rather limited mental ability. And, comrade, just between you and me, it will be a cold day in hell when someone who would say that about me will sing in one of my workers’ and peasants’ opera houses. He needs his mouth washed out with soap, that’s what should happen.”
“I very much appreciate your understanding, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Culture said. “Will there be anything else?”
“Thanks for stopping in, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” the Chairman said.
“About the Mustang for my private personal executive secretary?” the Commissar of Culture said.
“Don’t press your luck, comrade,” the Chairman said. “Auf Wiedersehen!”
As soon as the Commissar of Culture had closed the door behind him, the Chairman flicked the switch on his intercom. Then he said a naughty word and walked to the door.
“Katherine,” he said. “My little cabbage. Would you get my wife on the phone, please?”
“Poopsie,” Comrade Katherine Popowski asked. “What did he say?”
“You weren’t eavesdropping?” the Chairman asked.
“I had to go down the hall a minute,” Katherine replied. “Anyway, the intercom’s not working.”
“Speaking of which, what did the Commissar of Communications say about getting it fixed?”
Comrade Popowski snapped her fingers, a gesture of frustration. “I just knew there was something I was supposed to do.”
“Well, do it just as soon as you finish getting my wife on the line.”
“You don’t have to snap at me, Poopsie,” Comrade Katherine said. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Eavesdrop when I talk to my wife,” the Chairman said.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, poopsie,” Katherine said.
The Chairman walked back into his office and sat down at his desk, waiting for the telephone to ring. When it did, he grabbed it on the first ring.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything, darling,” he cooed. There was a reply, and then he snapped, “This is your beloved Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, that’s who it is. Who the hell are you?”
There was another pause.
“Who was that man, Olga? And what’s he doing answering the telephone in my bedroom? All right, our bedroom. Who is he?”
“Anatol the Hairdresser,” Mrs. Chairman replied.
“Anat
ol the Hairdresser?”
“Anatol says that Cher Boris would just love me if I wore a traditional pompadour,” Mrs. Chairman said.
“Cher Boris?” the Chairman asked. “Who the hell is Cher Boris?”
“Oh, my God, Sergei, your ignorance is showing again! Cher Boris is what we opera lovers call Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov. I should think that even you would know that much.”
“Of course I do. It just slipped my mind for the moment.”
“I suppose you’re calling me to tell me there’s good news,” she said, somewhat coyly.
“Well, the truth of the matter is, Olga,” the Chairman said, “I have just had a long talk with the Commissar of Culture.”
“And?” Mrs. Chairman replied, suspicion and menace mingling in her voice.
“There are, I’m afraid, certain problems I didn’t know about,” the Chairman said.
“Sergei,” Mrs. Chairman said. “You are not trying to lead up to telling me that Cher Boris is not coming back?”
“Olga,” the Chairman said. “My little cabbage.”
“Don’t start with that little cabbage business, Sergei,” Mrs. Chairman said. “Just tell me when he’s coming so that Anatol will have all the time he needs to do my hair.”
“There are some small problems, Olga, to tell you the truth.”
“But you’re the Chairman, stupid,” Olga replied. “What kind of problems could there possibly be?”
“Well, for one thing, the Bolshoi Theatre used to belong to his Uncle Sergei,” the Chairman said.
“Cher Boris’s Uncle Sergei?”
“Yes, my little cabbage. He was the Grand Duke Sergei Korsky-Rimsakov.”
“Cher Boris,” Mrs. Chairman said, rather dreamily, “does have a certain aristocratic air about him, now that I think about it.”
“And he wants it back,” the Chairman said.
“Who wants what back?”
“This singer wants the Bolshoi Theatre back. He says it was stolen from his family during the revolution, and now he wants it back.”
“Well, give it to him,” she said. “It’s little enough to ask, seems to me.”
“Olga, how would it look if it got out that the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, guardian of the property of the workers and peasants, had given away the Bolshoi Theatre?”
“Keep it quiet,” she said. “Who has to know?”
“It’s not only that,” the Chairman said. “He wants fifty years’ back rent, with interest.”
“That sounds fair,” Olga said.
“It’s absolutely out of the question,” the Chairman said. “I can’t do it.”
“I’ve given you the best years of my life, Sergei,” Olga said. “God alone knows what I’ve put up with you. And when I ask for one little teensy-weensy thing, all I get is excuses.”
“Olga, what do you expect me to do?” the Chairman asked, desperately. “You wouldn’t believe what this singer of yours told the Commissar of Culture to tell me.”
“I’d love to know!” Olga said, and the Chairman was momentarily so angry and frustrated that he told her.
Mrs. Chairman giggled. “Oh, isn’t that naughty!” she said. “I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone ever said that to you, isn’t it, Sergei?”
“The first and the last time,” the Chairman said firmly.
“Let me put it this way, Sergei,” Mrs. Chairman said. “You’re always telling me how important you are, that you’re Numero Uno around here. This is your chance to prove it.”
“Olga, there is no way I can give him the Bolshoi Theatre and fifty years’ back rent!”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something else, then,” Mrs. Chairman said. “I’ve got my heart set on this, Sergei, and you know what that means!”
The telephone went dead in his ear. The Chairman said another naughty word and was somewhat startled when there was a reply.
“Excuse me, Comrade Chairman?” said a rather plump gentleman in a gray suit, bearing seven identical medals, each in the shape of a red star.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Comrade Alexis Alexovich Posnopowitz, Comrade Chairman.”
“And what the hell do you mean, busting into my office?”
“I am here to fix the intercom, Comrade Chairman.”
“To hell with that,” the Chairman said. “Get me the Paris Opera on the phone.”
“The Paris Opera? The Paris in France—that opera?”
“You got it, comrade, now get it.”
“Excuse me, Comrade Chairman, but you need permission to make an international long-distance call.”
“Permission? From whom do I need permission?”
“From your supervisor.”
“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 sh
ut 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.”
MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow Page 2