“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?”
“Perfectly, Comrade Chairman,” she said.
“And you, Comrade Commissar of Foreign Relations —you get on a plane and get to the United Nations. Give them a speech, no holds barred, a real spellbinder. You might try banging your shoe on the desk. When Old Khrushchev did that, it worked like a charm!”
“I understand perfectly, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said.
“And you, Comrade Commissar of the Secret Police—you let it leak right away that we’re really angry, but willing to negotiate. Pass it through the Swedes. They’re always willing to cooperate.”
“I’ll get right on it, Comrade Chairman.”
“Then Old Walnut ...” the Chairman began.
“Excuse me, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Foreign Relations said, “that’s Old Peanut.”
“Peanut, Walnut—whatever. Anyway, he’ll ask you down to the White House to see what’s bothering us. Keep him dangling awhile, of course, and then tell him. He’ll be so relieved that he’ll let us have this What’s-his- name for as long as we like, and there will be none of this giving back the Bolshoi Theatre nonsense, either.”
“Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar of Feminine Affairs said, “you’re a genius!”
“I know, I know,” he said, smiling at all of them.
Chapter Three
The subject of the emergency conference of the Supreme Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, dressed in the costume in which he was about to sing the role of Don Carlo in a matinee magnifique* of Verdi’s La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) at the French National Opera House, set the telephone down in his dressing room and turned to his close companion, His Royal Highness Sheikh Hassan ad Kayam.
(* There are two interrelated differences between a matinee magnifique and a matinee ordinaire at the French National Opera, Paris. Whenever Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov sings, the production is considered to be a matinee magnifique. And whenever there is a matinee magnifique, there is a 100 percent matinee magnifique surcharge on ticket prices.)
“Say what you like about them, Hassan,” he said. “They’re tenacious! They never give up!”
“Perhaps, Maestro,” His Royal Highness said, “you should consider giving them the priceless gift of your art for just one performance.”
“I can see right through you, you oversexed camel jockey,” the maestro snapped. “You just want another crack at my rejects from the Corps de Ballet. Shame on
you!”The arrow struck home. His Royal Highness, who stood five-feet, two inches tall and four feet even around, lowered his head and blushed. Prince Hassan, heir apparent to the throne of the sheikhdom of Hussid and currently Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of His Most Islamic Majesty to the Fourth French Republic, had some years before become aware that the female discards of the maestro were of an infinitely higher quality, not to mention variety, than the females he could attract, even though it was common knowledge that his personal income ran to some $30,000 daily.
This is not to say this was the only reason His Royal Highness had become, as some called him, “First Among the Maestro’s Groupies,” although it had a good deal to do with it. His Royal Highness was, in fact, the maestro’s most devoted fan. His admiration of the maestro’s voice was both genuine and knowledgeable. He alone was permitted to criticize the maestro’s performances.*
(* The maestro, as he himself admitted, was incapable of actually singing badly. What HRH Prince Hassan was permitted to judge was whether a performance was up to the maestro’s usual perfection or merely superb.)
What, exactly, Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov saw in His Royal Highness, on the other hand, was rather puzzling. The singer’s detractors suggested, rather unkindly, that His Royal Highness’s insistence on not only picking up all the singer’s bills, but of placing him under the umbrella, so to speak, of his diplomatic privilege, had a good deal to do with it.
Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov’s admirers, which group included perhaps 98.5 percent of the female population of France between the ages of fourteen and ninety-four and perhaps as much as 1.3 percent of French men of all ages, countered that there was nothing in La Belle France that the maestro would have to pay for, if only his desires came to the attention of any woman with a checking account, and that so far as taking advantage of Prince Hassan’s diplomatic status, this was pure nonsense with a heavy layer of sour grapes.
It was common knowledge that the maestro possessed dual citizenship as a result of his close friendship with Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug, hereditary Sheikh of Sheikhs of the Islamic Kingdom of Abzug, 15,000 square miles of granite mountains, sandy desert, and subterranean oil and gas deposits in Northern Africa. Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov had not only been granted honorary Abzugian citizenship, but had also been ennobled (as Sheikh El Noil Snoil the Magnificent) and (possibly so that he would have equal status in the Arab social world with Prince Hassan) granted Abzugian Diplomatic Passport Number One, identifying him as Sheikh Abdullah’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the World.*
(* The details of how Sheikh Abdullah and Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov became close friends have been recorded, for students of Arabian Affairs in particular, and for those with prurient interests generally, in M*A*S*H Goes to Morocco (Pocket Books, New York).)
The simple truth was that Boris liked Hassan. It was, as he often pointed out, a sad and lonely life he had as the world’s greatest (and highest paid) opera singer.
“Like anyone else,” he said, “I need a friend who selflessly loves me for myself. Furthermore, for every dollar I have made, enriching the world with my incomparable art, there have been two sneaky sons of [expletive deleted]s trying to con me out of it.”
Prince Hassan (and, practically, Prince Hassan’s fourteen-man personal bodyguard) spared no effort to, as Boris thought of it, “keep the riffraff out of my boudoir.” And Hassan was always on hand to sustain the maestro through the strain which came to him before a performance, to lead the applause during the performance, and to be on hand in the dressing room afterward with effusive praise and what they thought of as a “bird and a bottle.”
The bottle (more often, bottles) was a jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck ’69 champagne and the birds, generally speaking, were the Baroness d’Iberville and Esmerelda Hoffenburg, the ballerina, either singly or, so to speak, in tandem. There were, the ladies knew, two ways to a man’s heart, and between them the Baroness (who made, the maestro said, the world’s best blini, Russian blintzes) and Esmerelda (who was something of a contortionist) knew both of them. They had been wise enough to work out between them a sort of roster system and never competed, between themselves, for the maestro’s affections. Not only was there generally enough of what Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug thought of as El Noil Snoil’s “other art” for both of them, but they had learned that if there was one thing the maestro couldn’t stand, it was women fighting over his attention.
This system generally worked out well, although there had once been a rather noisy incident when the maestro had sung the title role in the II moro di Venezia at the Sydney, Australia, opera house. The very efficient opera house security force had taken literally the instruction that no one would be admitted to the singer’s dressing room following the performance until he had had an opportunity to avail himself of the traditional bird and bottle.
The maestro had gone to his dressing room to find only a roast turkey* and a bottle of Manischewitz’ finest Concord, both sent Air Express, cost be damned, from New York, in a sincere if misguided attempt to give him what he wanted. Before he got what he really wanted, Australian opera aficionados received not only confirmation of the most fascinating stories they had heard whispered around about the maestro, but were treated to the spectacle of their general manager being thrown fifty feet into the harbor.
(* Turkeys are not indigenous to Australia. On the other hand, kangaroos are not very common in Upper New York State either, proving once again Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov’s oft-stated theorem that the world is a strange place indeed, no matter how you look at it.)
A respectful knock came at the Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov’s door.
“Maestro,” the general manager of the Paris Opera called. “May I have your permission to begin Act Two?”
“You may,” the maestro graciously replied. He walked to the full-length mirror and examined himself carefully. He stood six feet, five inches tall and weighed 280 pounds. Confounding dieticians, who generally frown on large amounts of alcohol and even larger amounts of food, there was not an ounce of fat on him. His dark, rich beard was all his. His teeth were large, healthy, and pearly white.
“Magnificent,” the maestro said, evaluating his appearance. “That’s the only word that fits—magnificent!” He turned and spoke to His Royal Highness. “Have everything in readiness, Hassan. You know how little I get in return for enriching the drab lives of all those people out there.”
“Everything will be in readiness, Maestro,” His Royal Highness replied.
“And you know how seldom I get a chance to really enjoy myself in the company of those I love.”
“I know, Maestro,” His Royal Highness said.
Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov was not, on this occasion, speaking of a bird and bottle.
“I’m ready, Hassan,” he said, and strode purposefully to the door. Hassan opened it for him. The two gendarmes stationed outside his door came to attention.* The maestro nodded graciously to them and marched toward the stage.
(* Maestro Korsky-Rimsakov was in 1972 declared “A National Treasure of La Belle France” by the French Chamber of Deputies, partly because the revenue from matinees magnifiques is acknowledged to be the sole reason the French National Opera Company has not gone bankrupt, and partly because the wife of the presiding officer of the Chamber of Deputies threatened to shut off husbandly privilege unless “some suitable honor” was paid to her “Cher Boris.” In any event, his status as a National Treasure was made official, and as such, like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and the Folies Bergfcres, he was placed under the twenty-four-hour protection of the Gendarmerie Nationale.)
Act Two of La forza del destino, as the highbrow readers of a cultural tome such as this are fully aware, takes place in an inn in the village of Homachuelos. The script calls for Don Carlo, disguised as a student, to enter and take his place among the mule drivers and other peasants at dinner.
A hush fell over the audience as the curtain rose to show the peasants milling around.
Then there was a sound like a vacuum cleaner gone mad as every female in the audience drew in a lungful of breath and turned her eyes to stage right, where Don Carlo would appear.
He appeared. Every female in the house exhaled. There was a faint smattering of applause, which quickly turned into a thunderous roar.
Don Carlo—that is to say, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov—turned to face the audience. He raised his arms wide, high above his head.
“Mes enfants!” he said, which wasn’t in the script.
Here and there women dropped to the floor in a semi-catatonic state. Those who hadn’t swooned rose to their feet, cheering, whistling, screaming his name. From the box closest to the stage, two dozen long-stemmed roses floated downward. Moments later, the first hotel key came sailing through the air, immediately followed by others, and then a black lacy garment, size 38-C, floated onto the stage, immediately followed by a pair of shocking pink panties and a rather formidable foundation garment.
The maestro shook his finger.
“Control yourself, girls,” he called.
Ushers rushed down aisles, restoring order. Boris waited patiently until this had been done and then stepped away from the footlights and began to sing.
Approximately two hours later, Boris (that is to say, in his role as Don Carlo) stabbed his sister. Normally this sad and tragic event takes place, as they say, offstage. Since this was a matinee magnifique it took place on stage. It also took place to accompaniment from the audience.
“Sock it to her, Cher Boris!”
“Off with her head!”
“Slit her throat!” _
“It’s all her fault!”
Boris raised his hand to acknowledge the cheers and applause. The curtain fell.
MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow Page 3