MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow Read Online Free Page A

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.”
    “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 ,”