“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 109
attention, as he cowered meekly before him, focused on Colonel Korn’s midriff, where
the shirttails bunching up from inside his sagging belt and ballooning down over his
waist gave him an appearance of slovenly girth and made him seem inches shorter than
his middle height. Colonel Korn was an untidy disdainful man with an oily skin and deep,
hard lines running almost straight down from his nose between his crepuscular jowls
and his square, clefted chin. His face was dour, and he glanced at the chaplain without
recognition as the two drew close on the staircase and prepared to pass.
‘Hiya, Father,’ he said tonelessly without looking at the chaplain. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good morning, sir,’ the chaplain replied, discerning wisely that Colonel Korn expected
nothing more in the way of a response.
Colonel Korn was proceeding up the stairs without slackening his pace, and the
chaplain resisted the temptation to remind him again that he was not a Catholic but an
Anabaptist, and that it was therefore neither necessary nor correct to address him as
Father. He was almost certain now that Colonel Korn remembered and that calling him
Father with a look of such bland innocence was just another one of Colonel Korn’s
methods of taunting him because he was only an Anabaptist.
Colonel Korn halted without warning when he was almost by and came whirling back
down upon the chaplain with a glare of infuriated suspicion. The chaplain was petrified.
‘What are you doing with that plum tomato, Chaplain?’ Colonel Korn demanded
roughly.
The chaplain looked down his arm with surprise at the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart
had invited him to take. ‘I got it in Colonel Cathcart’s office, sir,’ he managed to reply.
‘Does the colonel know you took it?’
‘Yes, sir. He gave it to me.’
‘Oh, in that case I guess it’s okay,’ Colonel Korn said, mollified. He smiled without
warmth, jabbing the crumpled folds of his shirt back down inside his trousers with his
thumbs. His eyes glinted keenly with a private and satisfying mischief. ‘What did Colonel
Cathcart want to see you about, Father?’ he asked suddenly.
The chaplain was tongue-tied with indecision for a moment. ‘I don’t think I ought—’
‘Saying prayers to the editors of The Saturday Evening Post?’ The chaplain almost
smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’ Colonel Korn was enchanted with his own intuition. He laughed
disparagingly. ‘You know, I was afraid he’d begin thinking about something so ridiculous
as soon as he saw this week’s Saturday Evening Post. I hope you succeeded in
showing him what an atrocious idea it is.’
‘He has decided against it, sir.’
‘That’s good. I’m glad you convinced him that the editors of The Saturday Evening
Post were not likely to run that same story twice just to give some publicity to some
obscure colonel. How are things in the wilderness, Father? Are you able to manage out
there?’
‘Yes, sir. Everything is working out.’
‘That’s good. I’m happy to hear you have nothing to complain about. Let us know if
you need anything to make you comfortable. We all want you to have a good time out
there.’
‘Thank you, sir. I will.’ Noise of a growing stir rose from the lobby below. It was almost
lunchtime, and the earliest arrivals were drifting into the headquarters mess halls, the
enlisted men and officers separating into different dining halls on facing sides of the
archaic rotunda. Colonel Korn stopped smiling.
‘You had lunch with us here just a day or so ago, didn’t you, Father?’ he asked
meaningfully.
‘Yes, sir. The day before yesterday.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Colonel Korn said, and paused to let his point sink in. ‘Well,
take it easy, Father. I’ll see you around when it’s time for you to eat here again.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The chaplain was not certain at which of the five officers’ and five
enlisted men’s mess halls he was scheduled to have lunch that day, for the system of
rotation worked out for him by Colonel Korn was complicated, and he had forgotten his