“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 194
making her say uncle when she doesn’t care whether we make her say uncle or not.’
‘No, she really doesn’t care, does she? Say "foot." ‘
‘Foot.’
‘You see? She doesn’t care about anything we do. She doesn’t care about us. We
don’t mean a thing to you, do we?’
‘Uncle,’ she said.
She didn’t care about them a bit, and it upset them terribly. They shook her roughly
each time she yawned. She did not seem to care about anything, not even when they
threatened to throw her out the window. They were utterly demoralized men of
distinction. She was bored and indifferent and wanted very much to sleep. She had
been on the job for twenty-two hours, and she was sorry that these men had not
permitted her to leave with the other two girls with whom the orgy had begun. She
wondered vaguely why they wanted her to laugh when they laughed, and why they
wanted her to enjoy it when they made love to her. It was all very mysterious to her, and
very uninteresting.
She was not sure what they wanted from her. Each time she slumped over with her
eyes closed they shook her awake and made her say ‘uncle’ again. Each time she said
‘uncle,’ they were disappointed. She wondered what ‘uncle’ meant. She sat on the sofa
in a passive, phlegmatic stupor, her mouth open and all her clothing crumpled in a
corner on the floor, and wondered how much longer they would sit around naked with
her and make her say uncle in the elegant hotel suite to which Orr’s old girl friend,
giggling uncontrollably at Yossarian’s and Dunbar’s drunken antics, guided Nately and
the other members of the motley rescue party.
Dunbar squeezed Orr’s old girl friend’s fanny gratefully and passed her back to
Yossarian, who propped her against the door jamb with both hands on her hips and
wormed himself against her lasciviously until Nately seized him by the arm and pulled
him away from her into the blue sitting room, where Dunbar was already hurling
everything in sight out the window into the court. Dobbs was smashing furniture with an
ash stand. A nude, ridiculous man with a blushing appendectomy scar appeared in the
doorway suddenly and bellowed.
‘What’s going on here?’
‘Your toes are dirty,’ Dunbar said.
The man covered his groin with both hands and shrank from view. Dunbar, Dobbs and
Hungry Joe just kept dumping everything they could lift out the window with great,
howling whoops of happy abandon. They soon finished with the clothing on the couches
and the luggage on the floor, and they were ransacking a cedar closet when the door to
the inner room opened again and a man who was very distinguished-looking from the
neck up padded into view imperiously on bare feet.
‘Here, you, stop that,’ he barked. ‘Just what do you men think you’re doing?’
‘Your toes are dirty,’ Dunbar said to him.
The man covered his groin as the first one had done and disappeared. Nately charged
after him, but was blocked by the first officer, who plodded back in holding a pillow in
front of him, like a bubble dancer.
‘Hey, you men!’ he roared angrily. ‘Stop it!’
‘Stop it,’ Dunbar replied.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Dunbar said.
The officer stamped his foot petulantly, turning weak with frustration. ‘Are you
deliberately repeating everything I say?’
‘Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?’
‘I’ll thrash you.’ The man raised a fist.
‘I’ll thrash you,’ Dunbar warned him coldly. ‘You’re a German spy, and I’m going to
have you shot.’
‘German spy? I’m an American colonel.’
‘You don’t look like an American colonel. You look like a fat man with a pillow in front