“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 130
where they slept on the chill metal floor of the plane and turned and tossed in groaning
torment until the truck drivers blasted up less than two hours later with their crates of
artichokes and chased them out onto the ground while they filled up the plane. A heavy
rain began falling. Yossarian and Orr were dripping wet by the time the trucks drove
away and had no choice but to squeeze themselves back into the plane and roll
themselves up like shivering anchovies between the jolting corners of the crates of
artichokes that Milo flew up to Naples at dawn and exchanged for the cinnamon sticks,
cloves, vanilla beans and pepper pods that he rushed right back down south with that
same day to Malta, where, it turned out, he was Assistant Governor-General. There was
no room for Yossarian and Orr in Malta either. Milo was Major Sir Milo Minderbinder in
Malta and had a gigantic office in the governor-general’s building. His mahogany desk
was immense. In a panel of the oak wall, between crossed British flags, hung a dramatic
arresting photograph of Major Sir Milo Minderbinder in the dress uniform of the Royal
Welsh Fusiliers. His mustache in the photograph was clipped and narrow, his chin was
chiseled, and his eyes were sharp as thorns. Milo had been knighted, commissioned a
major in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and named Assistant Governor-General of Malta
because he had brought the egg trade there. He gave Yossarian and Orr generous
permission to spend the night on the thick carpet in his office, but shortly after he left a
sentry in battle dress appeared and drove them from the building at the tip of his
bayonet, and they rode out exhaustedly to the airport with a surly cab driver, who
overcharged them, and went to sleep inside the plane again, which was filled now with
leaking gunny sacks of cocoa and freshly ground coffee and reeking with an odor so rich
that they were both outside retching violently against the landing gear when Milo was
chauffeured up the first thing the next morning, looking fit as a fiddle, and took right off
for Oran, where there was again no room at the hotel for Yossarian and Orr, and where
Milo was Vice-Shah. Milo had at his disposal sumptuous quarters inside a salmon-pink
palace, but Yossarian and Orr were not allowed to accompany him inside because they
were Christian infidels. They were stopped at the gates by gargantuan Berber guards
with scimitars and chased away. Orr was snuffling and sneezing with a crippling head
cold. Yossarian’s broad back was bent and aching. He was ready to break Milo’s neck,
but Milo was Vice-Shah of Oran and his person was sacred. Milo was not only the Vice-
Shah of Oran, as it turned out, but also the Caliph of Baghdad, the Imam of Damascus,
and the Sheik of Araby. Milo was the corn god, the rain god and the rice god in
backward regions where such crude gods were still worshiped by ignorant and
superstitious people, and deep inside the jungles of Africa, he intimated with becoming
modesty, large graven images of his mustached face could be found overlooking
primitive stone altars red with human blood. Everywhere they touched he was acclaimed
with honor, and it was one triumphal ovation after another for him in city after city until
they finally doubled back through the Middle East and reached Cairo, where Milo
cornered the market on cotton that no one else in the world wanted and brought himself
promptly to the brink of ruin. In Cairo there was at last room at the hotel for Yossarian
and Orr. There were soft beds for them with fat fluffed-up pillows and clean, crisp
sheets. There were closets with hangers for their clothes. There was water to wash with.
Yossarian and Orr soaked their rancid, unfriendly bodies pink in a steaming-hot tub and
then went from the hotel with Milo to eat shrimp cocktails and filet mignon in a very fine
restaurant with a stock ticker in the lobby that happened to be clicking out the latest
quotation for Egyptian cotton when Milo inquired of the captain of waiters what kind of
machine it was. Milo had never imagined a machine so beautiful as a stock ticker
before.
‘Really?’ he exclaimed when the captain of waiters had finished his explanation. ‘And
how much is Egyptian cotton selling for?’ The captain of waiters told him, and Milo
bought the whole crop.
But Yossarian was not nearly so frightened by the Egyptian cotton Milo bought as he
was by the bunches of green red bananas Milo had spotted in the native market place
as they drove into the city, and his fears proved justified, for Milo shook him awake out