MASH 11 MASH Goes To San Francisco Read online

  “Take me to the guitar player,” the assistant undermanager cried, leaping into the taxi.

  They crossed the Seine onto what is known as the Left Bank, and, after negotiating a number of narrow picturesque streets, stopped before an establishment from which came the sounds of Spanish flamenco music.

  For the purpose of the Casanova, Spanish flamenco music was about as useful as a trumpet player playing the overture to William Tell or the opening bars of the triumphal march from Aida—that is to say, it was not the sort of music in which either seductor or seductee would really be much interested—but, with no other alternative, the assistant undermanager went into the establishment, which was identified by a neon sign as El Gaucho.

  Immediately inside the door he came across a young, black-haired man who had a guitar with him and was drinking from a glass of water.

  “I seek a musician,” the assistant undermanage said to him.

  “I regret, sir, inasmuch as I am quite without funds and desperately need employment, that I am probably not your man. I am here to listen to these flamenco guitarists in the hope that I can learn that form of music and one day find a job.”

  “You talk funny, you know that?” the assistant undermanager said.

  “I regret, sir, that while my French is more or less fluent, it is not the French of the common man. I learned my French in a monastery, where the good brothers were Russian exiles, not Frenchmen.”

  “Russian? You’re putting me on!”

  “No, sir. I was educated at the monastery of St. Igor in my native San Sebastian.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, sir. Unfortunately, the music they taught me was the music of Russia, and I find to my distress that this is not a very saleable commodity in Paris, France.”

  “I don’t suppose you can play the balalaika?”

  “Oh, yes,” the young man said. “But I do not despair. I am presently conducting negotiations with an interior decorator. If good fortune smiles on me, he will exchange a Spanish guitar for my poor old balalaika.” He held up the case to show the assistant undermanager his instrument. From its shape, the assistant undermanager of the Casanova recognized that it was a balalaika case (the bottom of a balalaika is generally round, rather than flat, as a guitar’s is).

  Within ten seconds, the young man and his balalaika were out of the El Gaucho and inside the taxicab.

  En route to the Casanova, the assistant undermanager learned some of the young man’s background. He had been sent to Paris to attend the Sorbonne, but there had been a revolution in San Sebastian, and, as a result of that revolution, his father had been jailed, and there was no money for his education.

  He had given up hope of going to the Sorbonne, and all he hoped for now was to be able to find a job that would permit him to eat. He had not eaten in three days, he said.

  At the Casanova, he was hurriedly dressed in a Russian peasant costume, hurriedly fed a ham sandwich, and literally pushed out onto the floor.

  To the profound relief of the manager (who immediately kissed the assistant undermanager on both cheeks and then ordered him to throw “the other bum” out), the young man was just what they were looking for. He immediately began to play a continuous medley of Russian songs that caused the patrons to cling affectionately to each other and not pay much attention to how much champagne was left in the champagne bottles when the waiters removed them and brought fresh ones.

  After seeing how well he had been received by his patrons, after hearing his sad tale of his impoverished friendless condition, and after determining that he was alone in an alien country, the manager immediately prepared a contract that guaranteed the young balalaika player a place to sleep, his choice of left-overs from customers’ dinners, and a salary in francs that came to about $23.50 per week in dollars. In return he agreed to play for six hours a night, seven nights a week, starting at midnight.

  Thus Pancho Hermanez came to the Casanova and began his new life.

  Chapter Four

  At about the time that Dr. Grogarty placed his call to Dr. Pierce, a dozen singers, dressed in the costumes of the eighteenth century, faced the audience of the Bolshoi Theatre of Grand Opera and Ballet in Moscow, took deep breaths, and belted out together, or ensemble, as they say in grand opera, the final lines of the current production, “This is the evildoer’s end—sinners finally meet their just reward and always will.”

  As the conductor’s baton guided the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra through the final bars of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the curtain descended. There was a moment’s silence as the music died, and the curtain’s rustling was the only sound to be heard in the enormous theater. And then the applause began, accompanied by screams and moans of ecstasy. Someone cried out a name: “Boris!” This was picked up immediately by others, until the fine crystal chandeliers and the heavy red curtain itself shook with the vibrations of the name. “Boris! Boris! Boris! Boris!”

  Down each aisle, dressed in their very best parade uniforms, sixty officers of the Guards Regiment came at a trot to form a semicircle before the orchestra pit. Once they were in place, lines of ushers started down the aisle; each usher bore an enormous basket of cut flowers.

  The huge curtain parted just enough to permit one man to step before the footlights. Dressed in the costume in which he had just sung the title role, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov bounded gracefully onto the stage and up to the footlights, his arms raised high in acknowledgement of the audience’s appreciation.

  He stood six feet five inches tall. The full, jet-black beard that accented his dark Slavic eyes was his own. As he raised his arms again and again, his forty-six-inch chest strained against his lace shirt.

  One by one the baskets of cut flowers were laid at his feet as he continued to acknowledge the tumultuous, almost hysterical applause of the audience. From time to time, his eyes dropped to the front rows of the theater, where the sixty officers, chosen for their size, barely managed to restrain three dozen women of all sizes and shapes (but tending toward the middle-aged and well-nourished) who, screaming his name, were attempting to force their way onto the stage.

  Finally, he raised his voice. “My children!” he said, his basso profundo nearly overwhelmed by the waves of applause. He repeated the phrase again, this time calling forth what had often been described as his “incredible vocal power.”

  He raised his hands once again, very high over his head, and then lowered them, palms downward. The noise, the tumult, died as he did so. By the time his hands reached the level of his waist, the enormous theater was silent—except for the sobbing of some women who had been forced to conclude they could not force their way past the Guards Regiment officers.

  “My children,” he said softly. His voice nevertheless filled the room. “I, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, thank you for coming to hear me sing.” This occasioned another burst of applause from the left. Boris frowned, raised his left hand, and let it fall again. Silence returned.

  “And now I must leave you,” Boris continued. “Forget me not!”

  The applause swelled up again, this time mingled with cries of “Don’t leave us! Stay forever!” and other sentiments of this nature.

  He bowed deeply and turned to the curtain to make his departure. A microphone on a long cable descended from the proscenium arch in time to pick up and transmit throughout the theater the singer’s inquiry, in English, “Now, where the hell is the goddamn flap?” From stage right, a portly gentleman attired in the dress uniform of a commissar of the Soviet Union marched onstage, trailed by sixteen members of his official entourage, also in their dress uniforms.

  “Maestro,” this Soviet luminary cried, “you are magnificent!”

  “Yes, I know,” Boris replied, in fluent Russian. “How the hell do I get out of here?”

  “I come as an official delegate of the Supreme Soviet,” the official said.

  “Good for you,” the singer replied, tugging at the curtain an
d looking for the flap.

  “It is my great honor, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,” the official replied, “to inform you that you have been awarded the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Arts.” He turned over his shoulder and one of his aides handed him a small box, from which he took a star knotted to a red ribbon.

  “Maestro,” he said, “dear Boris Alexandrovich . . .”

  “Are you going to show me how to get out of here or not?” Boris demanded.

  “We want to give you your medal!”

  “I already have one,” Boris said. “The damned things aren’t even gold, just polished brass. I loathe polished brass. The U.S. Army has a polished brass fetish.”

  “. . . And to once again offer you, dear Boris Alexandrovich, on behalf of the Supreme Soviet, a warm welcome plus status as a Premiere Artist of the Russian People, if you will only stay here in the home of your ancestors.”

  “I’ve been over all this before,” Boris replied impatiently. “The only reason I come here once a year is to take a look at Uncle Sergei’s theater for him.”

  “Uncle Sergei?”

  “The Grand Duke Sergei Korsky-Rimsakov,” Boris replied. “He owns this theater.”

  “An artist such as yourself,” the commissar of the Soviet Union said, flushing, “should not trouble his genius with politics.”

  “Politics? Politics? Who’s talking about politics? I’m talking about money. Uncle Sergei hasn’t gotten a dime out of this place since 1917. Money’s what I’m talking about.”

  “This is the People’s Opera House!”

  “The hell it is,” Boris said. “It’s my Uncle Sergei’s. He bought it from the czar, and I’ve got the bill of sale to prove it.”

  “About the medal,” the commissar of the Soviet Union said.

  “If I take the damned thing, will you show me how to get off the stage?”

  “Of course, dear Boris Alexandrovich,” the commissar said.

  “O.K., then,” Boris replied. “But make it quick.” He turned to face the commissar, who stood on his tiptoes and pinned the medal to Boris’ massive chest.

  “Congratulations, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, Soviet Hero of the Arts!” the commissar said.

  “If this gets back to my chapter of the John Birch Society,” Boris said, “I’ll get thrown out on my ass, that’s what’ll happen.”

  “The President of the Supreme Soviet hopes that your schedule will permit you to join him, the other commissars, and their wives for a little reception,” the commissar said.

  “Like hell,” Boris said. “I’ve been here three days, and I haven’t had a decent meal or a decent drink the whole time. While I am prepared to make nearly any sacrifice for my art, I stop short of dying of starvation and thirst. It’s off to the airport for me.” Finally, without assistance from the commissar, he found where the curtain halves overlapped, spread them apart, and disappeared backstage.

  Thirty minutes later, a Zis limousine rolled up beside an ungainly droop-nosed jet aircraft at Moscow International Airport. The aircraft bore the legend AIR HUSSID on the fuselage and the Royal Hussidic coat of arms on the tail.*

  (* Of the eight Le Discorde supersonic jet transports sold so far, two each have been sold to the Air France and British Airways, and four to Air Hussid, which is owned by the sheikh of Hussid. Only the sheikh, whose petroleum income is estimated at $1.2 million per day, is in a position to absorb the $1.35 per-mile-per-seat expense of operating the pièce de résistance of Anglo-French aviation technology. The heir apparent to the throne of Hussid, His Royal Highness Sheikh Hassan ad Kayam, Boris' buddy, had been given the aircraft Boris boarded in Moscow to facilitate his diplomatic duties.)

  Boris erupted from the back seat of the car and bounded up the stairs into the plane. A white-jacketed steward took his coat from him and then followed him into the royal cabin. As Boris settled himself into a goatskin upholstered chair, the steward slid a footrest under his feet.

  “May I bring you something, Maestro?” he asked.

  “A little snack,” the singer replied. “Couple of bottles of bubbly, a steak, a couple of baked potatoes, and maybe a couple of dozen oysters to get started.”

  “Immediately, Maestro,” the steward said.

  “And tell his nibs to get this show on the road,” Boris said. “Where is he, anyway? Why wasn’t he waiting for me backstage?”

  His Royal Highness Prince Hassan ad Kayam had, several years before, attached himself to the world’s greatest opera singer—that is, Boris. It wasn’t that His Royal Highness particularly liked grand opera, but rather that he had noticed that Boris’ female discards were of greater variety and higher quality than he had been able to get on the open market, despite the facts that it was generally known that his income ran to some $35,000 per day and that he had no objection to paying for quality.

  Boris had come to tolerate, even accept, His Royal Highness’ faithful presence. There was the airplane, for one thing, which beat standing in line to be insulted by airline ticket personnel, and Hassan considered it a privilege to be accorded the honor of picking up all Boris’ bills, thus sparing Boris to devote his full attention to his art. (The art to which His Royal Highness made reference had nothing to do with grand opera.)

  “His Royal Highness, Maestro,” the steward said, “is not on board.”

  “Well, find him, and tell him to get his ass on board,” Boris replied. “I don’t like to be kept waiting. Besides, he’s wasting his time. With the exception of the corps de ballet, none of the game around here is worthy of the chase. Unless you happen to be a fat freak.”

  “Prince Hassan, Maestro,” the steward said, as he skillfully popped the cork of a jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck ’48, “is in San Francisco.”

  “What is he doing in San Francisco? 1 didn’t give him permission to go to San Francisco.”

  “He said to tell you that he would be sure to pay his respects to your sister, Maestro.”

  “He’d damned well better,” Boris said. “She was, after all, good enough to invite him to her wedding.” He drained a twelve-ounce crystal chalice of the Piper Heidsieck ’48 and held it out to be refilled. “Esmerelda and the baroness are aboard, I take it?” he asked. “I will see them now.”

  He referred to Esmerelda Hoffenburg, the ballerina, and the Baroness d’Iberville, who were members of what was known as the cercle intime, those privileged to spend a good deal of time close—in the case of the baroness and Esmerelda, very close—to the man widely proclaimed as the world’s greatest opera singer.

  “No, Maestro,” the steward said nervously. “The baroness and Esmerelda are with His Royal Highness in San Francisco.”

  “You’re telling me that I’ve been deserted in my hour of need? That I am alone on this airplane? What the hell are the baroness and Esmerelda doing in San Francisco?”

  “It would seem, Maestro, that His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug wished to go to San Francisco.”

  “Abdullah, too? What the hell is going on in San Francisco that I don’t know about?”

  “His Royal Highness, you will recall, Maestro, was disconsolate when you told him he couldn’t accompany you to Moscow.”

  “You know what happened the last time!” Boris said. “He tried to buy Lenin’s tomb. He said he needed a little man with a beard for his wax museum. All they had to say was no, for God’s sake, but you know these Bolsheviks, always overreacting. I told him there was nothing shameful in being declared persona non grata in Moscow. My own Uncle Sergei—and he’s a grand duke—is persona non grata.”

  “Yes, yes, Maestro. In any event, when His Royal Highness couldn’t go with you, he grew lonely. So he telephoned Mr. J. Robespierre O’Reilly, and Mr. O’Reilly apparently asked His Royal Highness* to come and visit and play a little poker.”

  (* Mr. O’Reilly and His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug became friends when the latter was more or less an uninvited guest at the former’s wedding. The full details have been made publ
ic in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas (Pocket Books, New York), popularly priced at a low, low buck and a half.)

  “So what’s that got to do with Hassan and the girls?”

  “Well, Maestro, you know that sometimes when His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug gets off by himself, he is, what shall I say, misunderstood?”

  “And?”

  “Since he is also more or less persona non grata in Moscow, Prince Hassan thought it might be a good idea to go after His Royal Highness.”

  “Abdullah’s not going to get into trouble in San Francisco,” Boris announced. “Radar O’Reilly is a real square.”

  “And since Prince Hassan was going, Maestro, the ladies thought they might as well go along, too.”

  “What you’re telling me, then, is that I really have been left alone on this dangerous airplane.”

  “Well, there’s the pilot, Maestro, and the copilot. And the flight engineer. And the chef. And the wine steward. And myself. And His Royal Highness has placed the airplane at your complete disposal,” the steward said. “On our arrival in Paris, His Royal Highness’ limousine and His Royal Highness’ bodyguards will of course be waiting for you, Maestro.”

  “You’re admitting it, then,” Boris said. “I have been deserted by that sawed-off camel jockey.”

  The conversation was cut off at that moment. The pilot had started the engines. When Le Discorde engines started, the resulting noise and vibration was such that even the pilot and copilot had to communicate with each other by means of handheld blackboards. In the passenger compartment the vibration made even that impossible.

  It was only after the aircraft had taken off and reached cruising altitude that the noise level dropped to a point where conversation was again possible. By that time, the steward, who had previous experience dealing with the maestro, had had the foresight to absent himself from the royal cabin.

  Boris was thus forced to console himself with what few creature comforts he could find at hand. After putting away the little snack, he opened a second jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck ’48, put a tape recording of himself on the tape player, and then pushed a series of buttons that first caused a motion picture screen to appear on the forward cabin wall, and then a motion picture projector to start rolling. Singing along with himself, he devoted the rest of the trip to what he thought of as scientific research, his contribution to the betterment of mankind.