“With my delicate pipes, dear lady,” Boris said, “one cannot be too careful.”
“I understand, Maestro. I may call you Maestro, mayn’t I?”
“The customary form of address is ‘Dear Maestro,’ ” Boris replied, “but what the hell, you’re the Painless Pole’s wife, so I’ll make an exception in your case.”
“I had no idea you knew my husband, Dear Maestro,” she said.
“One of the great men of the world,” Boris replied. Then the world’s greatest opera singer glanced out the limousine window and proceeded to let a yell escape from his magnificent throat. “I’ll be goddamned!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It couldn’t be,” Boris said. “If he were in Paris, he would have called me. He knows how much I love him. But, on the other hand, I’m never wrong.” He picked up the microphone and spoke to the chauffeur.
“Turn around!” he ordered.
“Turn around? Cher Maestro, that’s impossible!” the chauffeur protested.
It was a reasonable protest. The limousine, preceded and trailed by motorcycle policemen, was moving slowly through hordes of people—those who had left the opera after witnessing the performance as well as those not fortunate enough to have been able to get tickets who had nevertheless come to the Place de l’Opera in hopes of seeing Cher Boris, and, frankly, to gawk at the hoi-polloi.
Making a U-turn would have been quite impossible. Boris sat forward on the finely tooled Moroccan leather seat, peered out the window, and saw this for himself.
“Stop the car!” he ordered. The limousine slid to a halt. Boris leaned further forward, flipped a conveniently located switch on the partition that separated them from the chauffeur, and waited impatiently while a purring electric motor slid a panel in the roof open. The moment there was room for his massive shoulders to pass through the opening, he stood up on the seat and rose through the roof.
“I knew it was him!” he said. “I have the eyes of an eagle.”
He popped back into the car.
“Hassan,” he ordered, “have someone go to Harry’s New York Bar to pick up the doctors. Have them carried to Maxim’s. It’s reunion time!”
As Hassan reached for the car telephone, Boris came back through the roof. He took in a deep breath, put his fingers between his teeth, and emitted a piercing whistle that could be heard from the Tuileries Gardens to the American Express Building.
The huge crowd, somewhat stunned, was immediately hushed. Ten thousand pairs of eyes turned to the singer.
He stood with his fist clenched, his arm over his head, making pumping motions. As any ex-U.S. Army infantryman well knows, this is the standard signal for “Form on me.” As there were only a few ex-U.S. Army infantrymen in the throng, however, most people formed the impression that Cher Boris was making threatening gestures at the Opera House, and naturally wondered what the Opera had done to pique Cher Boris.
“Dago Red!” Boris bellowed. “Dago Red! Over here, Dago Red!”
Chapter Nine
Far back in the crowd, the Very Reverend Pancho de Malaga y de Villa turned to the Archbishop of Swengchan.
“I believe Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov is trying to attract your attention, Your Eminence.”
The archbishop, a little smile on his face, raised his clenched fist above his head and moved it up and down in a pumping motion. As every former chaplain who has seen combat with the United States Army well knows, this is the officially prescribed signal for “Your signal understood, am forming on you.”
The Bishop of Greater Miami and the Florida Keys, however, had not been privileged to serve as a chaplain in ground combat. Thus deprived of the information upon which to base a proper analysis of what was going on, he based his analysis on what he saw. The opera singer, for reasons he couldn’t imagine, was shaking his fist at a clergyman, and the clergyman, by shaking his fist, was accepting the challenge to battle.
“Make way for Dago Red!” Boris bellowed, gesturing with his hands. “Make way for Dago Red!” The crowd parted like the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille’s rather well-known Biblical epic.
The Bishop of Greater Miami and the Florida Keys, after a moment’s hesitation (this sort of thing was, after all, the function of younger priests fresh from the seminary, not of a bishop—particularly one who had, since he was to ride in the Cardinal-Archbishop’s car and use his box, seen fit to attend the opera in ecclesiastical uniform), rushed forward to do his duty as he saw that duty.
He would, he decided, since he was unmistakably a bishop, order the priest who was willing to engage in fisticuffs on the street in front of Van Cleef & Arpels to cease and desist. Obedience, he reminded himself, was one of the vows taken by all priests.
But the moment he pushed his way through the crowd and found himself standing in the passage Boris had ordered formed, his hand raised, like a traffic policeman’s, in the gesture to stop, he saw that two men were coming down the passageway through the crowd. The second one he recognized. It was the man he had encountered in the Diamond Circle, the one who had made the preposterous (not to say irreverent and possibly blasphemous) allegation that he was a monsignor.
There came another piercing whistle, so loud that the Bishop of Greater Miami and the Florida Keys involuntarily hunched his shoulders against the sound. It was, after a very brief pause, repeated. Almost involuntarily, the bishop turned to look at the source of the awful noise. When he turned, he saw that the bearded man sticking out of the roof of the Cadillac limousine was pointing at him. He looked not unlike Uncle Sam in the recruiting posters.
“I knew you weren’t to be trusted when I heard you sing,” Boris called to him in a voice nearly as piercing as his whistle. “And now I catch you compounding the sin of being drunk on stage and singing off-key with the sin of making off with the bishop’s costume.” He paused, located a sergeant of the Gendarmerie Nationale, and called to him.
“Sergeant,” he ordered, “throw that fat, off-key scoundrel in the Bastille. After, of course, making sure he returns his costume to wardrobe.”
Almost instantly, the crowd began to make menacing noises, the Bishop of Greater Miami and the Florida Keys felt strong hands on his arms. He was lifted off his feet, and, carried between two enormous gendarmes, rushed toward the Paris equivalent of a paddy wagon. The last thing he heard before the doors slammed shut on him was the bearded man’s final shout:
“Dago Red, you and Pancho get in the car with the broads. We’re all filled up in here.”
The Archbishop of Swengchan opened the door to the second limousine.
“Why,” he said, “if it isn’t the Baroness d’Iberville and Miss Hoffenburg! * What a pleasant surprise. You remember Monsignor de Malaga y de Villa, of course, ladies?”
(* His Eminence had previously met the ladies in an official capacity. He had married J. Robespierre O’Reilly and Madame Christina Korsky-Rimsakov, the singer’s sister, in ceremonies in Las Vegas, Nevada. Accounts of the affair may be found both in the Innkeeper's Journal (“Biggest Vegas Wedding Blast Ever Is Boffo for Nero’s Villa Cash Box”) and, in a more scholarly treatment of what transpired, in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas.)
The smile on the monsignor’s face appeared a bit strained. He sat, looking a bit uncomfortable, on the jump seat; the archbishop sat between the ladies.
Esmeralda Hoffenburg, the ballerina, looked at the monsignor.
“Quelle pitie,” she said. “Quel perdu!”*
(* For that one half of one percent of the readers of this volume who are not absolutely fluent in French: “What a pity. What a loss.” Monsignor de Malaga y de Villa had been, before taking Holy Orders, both a champion skier and a five-goal polo player. He stood six-foot-two and weighed one hundred ninety-five pounds.)
“Will you have a little bubbly, Your Eminence?” the Baroness d’lberville asked, handing him a champagne glass.
“Why, that’s very kind of you, Baroness,” the archbishop said. “And why not? This is a very happy occasion
for me.”
In the limousine immediately in front of the Hoffenburg-d’Iberville vehicle, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, having seen his friends safely inside the trailing limousine, slipping back into his seat.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Take us to Maxim’s. As I said before, it’s reunion time!”
Mrs. Waldowski, who had of course heard of Maxim’s Restaurant, had had it on her list of PLACES TO EAT IN PARIS. She had heard, of course, that it was one of the world’s most famous, and certainly most elegant (and therefore expensive), restaurants. “But what the hell,” she had thought in her heart of hearts, “you only live once, so why not?”
Her first attempt to eat at Maxim’s had met with failure. She had been stopped two feet inside the door by a cold-eyed Frenchman in a dinner jacket. The dinner jacket, to be sure, had seen better days, and in her housewifely professional opinion, the boiled shirt sorely needed the attention of a Magic Detergent, but the wearer of same didn’t let this faze him.
“Without reservations, madame,” he icily informed, her, “seating you is absolutely out of zee question.” Undaunted, she had returned to her hotel, telephoned for reservations, and been informed that they were booked solidly through 1982. One of Dr. Waldowski’s little philosophical observations (“Money talks”) had then come to her mind, and she had a little chat with the concierge at the Ritz. At first he too had made it plain that she couldn’t hope to get inside, but as she had continued to stuff his breast pocket with the odd-looking pieces of paper the French used for money; he had changed his mind.
“No promises, mind you,” he had said, straightening out the paper money before stuffing it in his sock, “but as a special favor, I will see what I can do.” Reservations had finally been obtained for four-thirty in the afternoon. Mrs. Waldowski and Wanda had been led through four outer dining rooms and up a dark stairway and installed in a chamber separee not a foot wider than a phone booth. After a long delay, a haughty waiter (who had made it quite plain to both of them that he was serving them only as a penance for some unspeakable sin) presented them with a slice of liverwurst, a badly singed pork chop, some cold and lumpy potatoes, and a decanter of red wine so sour Mrs. Waldowski had made the terrible gaffe of believing it was vinegar and had poured it over the one-eighth of a tomato and two limp pieces of lettuce served as the salad.
The bill for pate de la maison, cotelette de pore Louis XIV, pommes des terres Bourbonnaise, salade Richelieu, and Burgundy Haute Criomble ’52 had come to $106.50 on the bill presented by the waiter, who had hovered over their table while they were eating doing everything but lifting their elbows for them in order to get them out of the place as quickly as possible.
Mrs. Waldowski was, then, more than a little surprised when the limousine rolled up before Maxim’s and she saw a dozen waiters lined up in two ranks by the door and the maitre d’hotel himself bowing as he opened the limousine door.
Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov exited the limousine first. The sommelier, with the badge of his office (the key to the wine cellar) hanging around his neck, emerged from the restaurant at a half trot, bearing a single glass on a silver tray.
“Maxim’s is honored,” the maitre d’hotel said to the singer.
“We all make mistakes, I’m told,” Boris replied. “I have decided to give you another chance—out of the goodness of my heart, and against my better judgment.”
“Our Cher Boris is as kind and gracious as he is a great singer.”
“I know,” Boris replied. He picked the martini glass off the tray and took a generous sip. He rolled it around in his mouth, looked thoughtful, and then spit it out.
“Too warm by at least eight degrees,” he said. “And far, far too much vermouth. But an improvement over your last attempt.”
“Oh, thank you, Cher Maestro,” the maitre d’hotel said, “there will, of course, be no bill tonight.”
“Was there ever any question that there would be?” Boris asked. “If I were to pay for my supper, I would certainly go somewhere where they at least know how to make a simple martini.”
“If you will be so good as to follow me, Maestro,’ the maitre d’hotel said.
“You have no foul little plot in mind to put me or display so that my presence here will lend a little class to your joint, do you?”
“I thought perhaps the maestro would be happy in the Imperial Hall.”
“Get rid of the fiddle players and put up screens so that my friends and I won’t be gawked at, and it will suffice,” Boris said.
“Your wish, Maestro, is our command,” the maître d’hotel said, as he bowed Boris into the restaurant between the rows of bowing waiters.
“Yes, I know. Have some phones brought in,’ Boris said. “I have some calls to make.”
A table in the shape of a U had been set up ii the Imperial Hall. The crystal and silver gleamed in the light from the chandelier. At the center of the U a large chair had been set up, and, as the party moved inside, two wine stewards and two waiters rushed forward with champagne bottles and glasses, oysters on the half shell, and cold salmon.
“Something to whet your appetite, Cher Maestro, the maitre d’hotel said. “I hope you won’t think I’m presumptuous.”
“I won’t unless you’re trying to slip us some of your lousy Frog oysters,” Cher Boris said.
“These were flown in this morning from Maine Cher Maestro.”
Boris turned and spoke with Mrs. Waldowski “These are safe to eat, Madame Waldowski,” he said. “Presuming he’s not prevaricating again. They come from the Finest Kind Fish Market and Medical Clinic.
“Oh, really?” Mrs. Waldowski said.
“Hassan, get Hawkeye on the phone,” Boris said to His Royal Highness. He turned to Mrs. Waldowsk “Sit down. Madame, and have a little bubbly,” he said, “while we await your distinguished husband, the great tooth mechanic.”
“Oh, Cher Maestro!” Mrs. Waldowski said, as a waiter held a chair for her with the utmost deference. “I’m simply overwhelmed.”
“That’s the general idea,” Boris replied. “Nothing is too good for the good lady of the Painless Polack.” He looked back at Hassan, snatched the telephone from his hands, and spoke. “Hawkeye! Boris, here.” There was a pause. “What do you mean, you’re the Paris overseas operator? We’ve been trying for hours to place this call and we’re no further than the local operator? Are you aware that this is your Cher Maestro speaking?” Another pause. Boris took a deep breath. “Cee-les-tial Ai—eeeee-da!” he sang at full volume. Another pause, this one with an aside to those at the table: “I guess that’ll prove it.” Then again speaking to the telephone: “Might I have the great privilege of speaking with Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce? This is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov speaking.” Charm oozed from every syllable.
He covered the phone with his hand. “Have to treat his old lady with kid gloves. She’s got a temper you wouldn’t believe,” he said to the others. He uncovered the phone. “What do you mean, he’s clamming? You mean he’s out there on the Spruce Harbor mud flats again, grubbing around on his hands and knees?” Another aside to those at the table; this time he forgot to cover the phone with his hand: “A brilliant surgeon, certainly. But more than a little strange. Odd. Weird.” His face assumed a pained look.
“Dear lady, whatever gave you the impression I was talking about your husband?”
Shrill sounds suggesting outrage came from the receiver, filling the room. Boris held the telephone six inches from his ear. His eye fell on Mrs. Waldowski. He thrust the telephone at her. “Here, my dear, you speak with her,” he said. “You have a good deal in common. See if you can’t get her to summon her husband to the telephone.”
That problem out of the way, he turned back to Hassan and again snatched away the phone the prince had to his ear.
“This is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov speaking. With whom am I speaking?” Pause. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Brother, using the term loosely, de Wild
e. Where is the Reverend Mother?” Pause. “Hot Lips, this is Boris,” he said. “You’ll never guess whom I’m having dinner with this very moment.” Pause. “How could I ever forget that you’re the Reverend Mother Emeritus? It’s nothing like that.” He looked over the table, stood up, and handed the telephone to His Eminence John Patrick Mulcahy, Archbishop of Swengchan.
“Talk to her, Dago Red,” Boris said. “For reasons I can’t imagine, Hot Lips thinks I’m drunk and calling from a borde—not from here.”
The archbishop took the telephone. “Margaret? Father Mulcahy. How are you, my dear?”
Monsignor de Malaga y de Villa looked pained.
Boris, smiling a smile of contentment, searched the sea of faces at and surrounding the table, found that of the maitre d’hotel, gestured to him, and ordered, “Bring on the booze! What are you waiting for?”
The world’s greatest opera singer, both in fact and according to the legend that had been embroidered in golden thread on the back of his silk pajamas by an adoring fan, lay groaning piteously on silken sheets, his head buried beneath a silken pillow.
He finally pushed the pillow off his head, opened one eye, and peered out the window.
“Oh my God!” he said in absolute shock and horror
“Somehow, I don’t think that was said in prayer,’ the Archbishop of Swengchan said. Boris rolled over and looked at him. The archbishop was sitting up in the second of the two beds in the room, wearing a cotton nightshirt and drinking a cup of tea.
“Thank God you’re here, Dago Red,” Boris said “You know me. You can tell Him I always meant well, He’ll believe you. You must have some influence.”
The archbishop said nothing for a moment. “Would you like some tea, Boris?” he asked.
“That proves it,” he said. “Hell isn’t hellfire and brimstone. It’s ice and snow from horizon to horizon and your best friend offering someone in my condition a cup of tea.”
MASH 10 MASH goes to Miami Page 10
