MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow Read online

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  M*A*S*H Goes to Texas (V2)

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  THE CHAIRMAN:

  “This is your beloved Chairman) of the Supreme Soviet.... Who the hell, are you?”

  JIM-BOY:

  “Come on in, Mr. Ambassador, Sit down and have a boiled peanut.”

  SHUR-LEE:

  “Hi, there. I’m Shur-lee Strydent, and I’m here to make you adore me.”

  DIRTY GERTY RUMPLEMAYER:

  “I’ll tell that fat cop over there that you offered me a Hershey Bar and a dime to play show-and-tell.”

  SEAN O’CASEY O’MULLIGAN:

  “Gadzooks, Birdwell. Get our friend down from the chandelier.”

  They'll all be hanging from the Kremlin chandeliers—before Moscow gets used to M*A*S*H

  M*A*S*H Goes to Moscow

  Further misadventures of M*A*S*H

  Richard Hooker

  And

  William E. Butterworth

  Pocket Book edition published September, 1977

  M*A*S*H GOES TO MOSCOW

  POCKET BOOK edition published September, 1977

  This original POCKET BOOK edition is printed from brand-new

  plates made from newly set, clear, easy-to-read type.

  POCKET BOOK editions are published by

  POCKET BOOKS,

  & division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.,

  A gulf+western company

  630 Fifth Avenue,

  New York, N.Y. 10020.

  Trademarks registered in the United States

  and other countries.

  Standard Book Numbers 671-80911-3.

  Copyright, ©, 1977, by Richard Hornberger and William E. Butterworth, All rights reserved. Published by POCKET BOOKS, New York, and on the same day in Canada by Simon & Schuster of Canada, Ltd., Markham, Ontario.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Books in the MASH Series

  MASH

  MASH Goes to Maine

  MASH Goes to New Orleans, January, 1975

  MASH Goes to Paris, January, 1975

  MASH Goes to London, June, 1975

  MASH Goes to Las Vegas, January, 1976

  MASH Goes to Morocco, January, 1976

  MASH Goes to Hollywood, April 1976

  MASH Goes to Vienna, June, 1976

  MASH Goes to Miami, September, 1976

  MASH Goes to San Francisco, November, 1976

  MASH Goes to Texas, February 1977

  MASH Goes to Montreal, June, 1977

  MASH Goes to Moscow, September, 1977

  MASH Mania, February, 1979

  In fond memory of Malcolm Reiss, gentleman literary agent

  June 3, 1905—December 17, 1975

  —Richard Hooker and W. E. Butterworth

  Chapter One

  The Commissar of Culture of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Comrade Vladimir Ivanovich Vladimirovich, who, after all, had been around a long time, knew that he was in trouble from the moment the red telephone on his desk had rung.

  The red telephone was restricted to communications of the highest importance between officials of the highest authority. He had been Commissar of Culture for three full years before he had dared to even hint that he would like to have a red telephone, and it had been three more years before one had finally been installed on his desk. In the two years that it had been on his desk, a symbol of his importance to the Supreme Soviet, it had rung but twice, and both times it had been a wrong number.

  Ten minutes before, it had rung for the third time. He had grabbed it on the first ring.

  “Office of the Commissar of Culture, Commissar V. I. Vladimirovich speaking,” he had said.

  “Comrade, this is Comrade Katherine Popowski,” his caller had said.

  “Who?”

  “Comrade Popowski. Personal Private Executive Secretary to the Chairman.”

  “What can I do for you, Comrade Personal Private Executive Secretary Popowski?”

  “The Chairman has asked me to give you a message, comrade,” Comrade Popowski said. “He said to tell you that he would be ever so grateful if you could tear yourself away from whatever important affairs of culture you’re working on to give him a few minutes of your valuable time.”

  “I see,” Comrade Vladimirovich said. “Well, let me check my schedule.”

  “And he said if you’re not here in ten minutes, he will look forward to your postcards from Umguuluk and other points of interest in Siberia,” Comrade Popowski said. “May I tell the Chairman that he may expect you?”

  “Comrade, I’m on my way,” Comrade Vladimirovich replied, reaching for his shoes even as he replaced the red telephone in its cradle.

  “Tanya!” he screamed (the intercom was, again, not working). “Have my car brought around immediately! The Chairman himself wishes to confer with me on important matters of state.”

  “But,” Comrade Tanya, the Commissar’s private personal executive secretary replied, somewhat petulantly, “you said we were going to the Japanese embassy. You know how I love sukiyaki, and you promised, you know you did!”

  “Tanya, baby,” the Commissar replied, “it’s out of my hands!”

  “That’s all I ever hear—‘It’s out of my hands,’ ” Tanya snapped. “Sometimes I wish I were still back at the tractor factory.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, my little cabbage,” Commissar Vladimirovich said. “A little present...”

  “Huh!” Tanya snorted.

  “Maybe a little trip to the Black Sea?” he offered.

  “If you really loved me,” Tanya said, “you’d get me a Ford. Lots of the other private personal executive secretaries have got Fords. Natasha Goldfarb’s commissar got her a Buick. And all I have is a lousy little workers’ and peasants’ model Fiat.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Tanya,” the Commissar said. “Now wish me luck.”

  “What’s the Chairman want, anyway?” she said, petulantly averting her face as the Commissar tried to give her a comradely little kiss.

  “I wish I knew,” the Commissar said.

  Fifty seconds before the ten-minute deadline had expired, Commissar Vladimirovich, somewhat out of breath after a 500-yard dash down the marble halls of the Kremlin, stood wheezing in front of Comrade Popowski’s desk.

  “Comrade Popowski, I presume?” he said. “Commissar Vladimirovich to see the Chairman.”

  “Boy, are you going to get it!” Comrade Popowski said. “Go right in!”

  Commissar Vladimirovich pushed open half of the double door leading to the Chairman’s office.

  “You wanted to see me, Comrade Chairman?” he asked, sticking his head in the door.

  “Come in, comrade,” the Chairman said, fixing a smile on his face, getting to his feet, waving Comrade Vladimirovich into a chair.

  “Nice to see you,” the Chairman said. “I don’t get to see very much of you, do I?”

  “Not very much, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar agreed.

  The Chairman pushed a switch on his intercom. “No calls, Katherine,” he said. There was no response. “No calls, Katherine,” he repeated, and then, “Katherine? Katherine? Testing, one two three four.” Then he said a naughty word, got to his feet, and marched to the door. He opened it. “No calls, Katherine,” he said. “And call the Commissar of Communications and tell him if he can’t fix this damned intercom once and for all, I’ll send him back to Ulan Bator!”

  Then he turned around, putting the smile back on hi
s face.

  “Little problem with the intercom,” he explained.

  “I have the same problem, comrade,” the Commissar said, delighted that they had something in common.

  “But you’re just the lousy Commissar of Culture, and I’m the Chairman,” the Chairman said. “There’s a difference, comrade, and don’t you ever forget it!”

  “I agree completely, Comrade Chairman.”

  “How about a little belt, comrade?” the Chairman asked. “To chase the chill?”

  “That’s very kind of you, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar said.

  “I can offer you a little workers’ and peasants’ vodka,” the Chairman said, opening a cabinet. “A little People’s Democratic Republic of Hungary Slivovitz, or—and I wouldn’t want this to get around, of course—some very nice Old White Stagg Kentucky bourbon whiskey. I have the ambassador in Washington send me a couple of bottles in the diplomatic pouch every once in a while.”

  “I’ll have the Old White Stagg, please, Comrade Chairman.”

  “Say what you like about those lousy Americans,” the Chairman said, pouring three inches of Old White Stagg into water glasses, “they really know how to make booze.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar said.

  “Of course I am, that’s why I’m the Chairman,” the Chairman said. “Well, Vladimir Ivanovich, here’s mud in your eye!” He tipped up the glass and drank deeply.

  “Mud in your eye,” Commissar Vladimirovich said.

  “Watch it, comrade!” the Chairman said. “You’re talking to your Chairman, you know!”

  “No offense, Comrade Chairman.”

  “Tell me, Vladimir Ivanovich, you like your job?” the Chairman asked.

  “Oh, yes, Comrade Chairman. I take great pride in the service I am permitted to render to the Soviet people in my duty.”

  “Aside from that, you like it? I mean, is your car all right?”

  “I’m perfectly happy with my Cadillac, Comrade Chairman. I realize fully that we have to conserve our hard currency for important affairs of state, and that only you, Comrade Chairman, really need a Rolls-Royce.”

  “Just between you and me, Vladimir Ivanovich, I’m not so sure the Rolls was such a good idea. You have any idea how hard it is to find parts for a Rolls in Moscow? And don’t you ever believe they don’t break down. I could tell you stories ... but I’m getting off the subject.”

  “Yes, Comrade Chairman?”

  “You like your apartment? Your dacha in the country?”

  “Oh, yes, Comrade Chairman.”

  “And, just between you and me and the lamp pole, Vladimir Ivanovich, you get along all right with your private personal executive secretary?”

  “To tell you the truth, Comrade Chairman, she’s been after me to get her a Ford,” the Commissar replied. “She says all the other girls have Fords, and that Commissar Smersk got his ... you know who I mean, Natasha Goldfarb, the one with the big ...”

  “I know the comrade,” the Chairman said. He winked.

  “Well, Natasha’s got a Buick.”

  “Comrade Smersk came to me personally about that,” the Chairman said. “Man to Chairman, so to speak. I listened to his problem, I sympathized with him, I told him to go ahead, get her a Buick. If that’s what it took to keep her happy, which meant that he would be happy, and could do a good job, the U.S.S.R. could afford it.”

  “That was very understanding of you, Comrade Chairman.”

  “I know,” the Chairman said. “And I’m preparing to do that same thing for you, Vladimir Ivanovich.”

  “I was thinking along the lines of a Mustang,” the Commissar said. “I mean, she really doesn’t need a Thunderbird ...”

  “You’re not listening to me, comrade,” the Chairman said, with just a touch of menace in his voice. “At least not carefully. You didn’t hear what I said about Smersk doing a good job. The way it works is first you do a good job, and then you can get your Tanya a Mustang. Maybe, in your case, a Pinto would be more appropriate, but in any event, first you do a good job. Am I getting through to you, Vladimir Ivanovich?”

  “Am I to infer, Comrade Chairman, that ... uh ... there is ... uh ... some question about how well I am performing my duties?”

  “You got it, Vladimir,” the Chairman said.

  “I don’t suppose I could have another little belt of that capitalistic booze, could I?”

  “Why not?” the Chairman said. “Just don’t make a pig of yourself.”

  Commissar Vladimirovich took a moment to gather his thoughts.

  “What exactly have I done wrong, Comrade Chairman?” he asked, finally.

  “Let me put it to you this way, comrade,” the Chairman said. “I’m a busy man, you agree?”

  “Oh, yes, Comrade Chairman, I agree.”

  “And a busy man like me, an important man like me, should be devoting his time and effort to important things, right?”

  “Oh, yes, Comrade Chairman.”

  “Like the Chinese problem and things like that, right?”

  “Absolutely, Comrade Chairman.”

  “I mean, Vladimir, if I’m worrying about other things, who’s to mind the store? You get my meaning?”

  “I get your meaning, Comrade.”

  “A man in a position like mine, Vladimir—he just can’t afford complaints from home, you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “And the situation really gets out of control when I get it not only at home, but from Comrade Katherine. I mean, what’s the point in having a private personal executive Chairman’s secretary if all you get from her is bitch, bitch, bitch, just like you get at home? You know what I mean?”

  “I think so. Am I correct in inferring that you, Comrade Chairman, are hearing complaints about me, something I have done, from both your charming wife, Mrs. Comrade Chairman, and from Comrade Popowski, too?”

  “That’s the bottom line, Vladimir Ivanovich,” the Chairman said. “That’s why I asked you in here for this little chat.”

  “May I ask what the complaints are specifically, Comrade Chairman?”

  “I wondered when you would,” the Chairman said. “I’ll give it to you in three-little words: Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov.”

  “Oh,” the Commissar of Culture said.

  “Is that all you’ve got to say? I tell you that my wife and Comrade Popowski between them are driving me crazy twenty-four hours a day, that I have hardly thirty seconds a week to worry about the Chinese problem and the Cubans and everything else, and all you’ve got to say is ‘oh’?”

  “The problem of Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov is a delicate one, Comrade Chairman.”

  “Delicate, schmelicate,” the Chairman said. “With all the cultural resources of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at your disposal, you’re telling me that you’ve got a delicate problem with this singer?”

  “Forgive me, Comrade Chairman,” the Commissar said. “But one cannot really accurately describe Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov as ‘this singer.’ ”

  “Why not?” the Chairman asked. “What’s so special about him?”

  “I believe you are aware, Comrade Chairman, that on his first visit to the Bolshoi Theatre Opera, several years ago, he was given a medal?”

  “Which one?”

  “Hero of Soviet Labor, First Class,” the Commissar said.

  “For singing?” the Chairman asked, incredulously.

  “Not exactly,” the Commissar said, blushing.

  “Far be it from someone in my position, Vladimir Ivanovich, to listen to nasty rumors,” the Chairman said. “Especially nasty rumors concerning those beautiful young women of the Bolshoi Theatre Corps de Ballet—fantastic rumors, actually, ones which stagger the imagination. I’m sure you can put them to rest for me.”

  The Commissar of Culture lowered his head and said nothing.

  “I’m a man of the world, Vladimir Ivariovich,” the Chairman said,
after a long moment. “You don’t get to be Chairman—or, more important, to stay Chairman—unless you’re a man of the world. I am—reluctantly, of course—willing to accept it, as one of those things that happen from time to time, that this ‘singer,’ shall we say, came to know rather well one of the ballerinas ...” He looked at the Commissar of Culture.

  The Commissar of Culture, not able to meet the Chairman’s gaze, shook his head slowly and sadly from side to side.

  “Then two ballerinas,” the Chairman said. “I’m a sophisticated man. I’m willing to accept that. In my youth, as a matter of fact ... well, there’s no need to get into that. That’s it. Two ballerinas who put aside their high Soviet moral principles in a moment of uncontrolled passion?”

  The Commissar of Culture continued to shake his head slowly and sadly from side to side.

  “You tell me, then, Vladimir Ivanovich,” the Chairman said. “Three ballerinas? Four ballerinas?” The Commissar’s head continued to shake.

  “Five ballerinas? Six ballerinas? Twenty ballerinas? The entire Corps de Ballet? All of them?” the Chairman finally asked.

  “All of the females over sixteen,” the Commissar finally said.

  “All of them?” the Chairman asked. “All thirty-six?”

  The Commissar’s head, which had been shaking from side to side, now started nodding up and down.

  “How long did it take him?”

  “He was here ten days,” the Commissar said. “Five days here and five days in Leningrad. By the time he left Leningrad, he was working his way around again. The girls drew lots to see who would get seconds.”

  “And for this we gave him a medal?” the Chairman asked.

  “The girls insisted,” the Commissar said. “They didn’t want him to leave. They threatened to go on strike unless we offered him his citizenship back and an appointment as an Honored Artist of the Soviet Union.”