MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow Read Online Free

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