“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 196
‘There, General,’ said Filpo with relief. ‘Now I won’t have to go.’
‘Filpo, you nitwit. Can’t you see he’s lying?’
‘Are you lying?’ Yossarian nodded, and Filpo’s faith was shattered. Yossarian laughed
and helped Nately walk his girl out into the corridor and into the elevator. Her face was
smiling as though with a lovely dream as she slept with her head still resting on Nately’s
shoulder. Dobbs and Dunbar ran out into the street to stop a cab.
Nately’s whore looked up when they left the car. She swallowed dryly several times
during the arduous trek up the stairs to her apartment, but she was sleeping soundly
again by the time Nately undressed her and put her to bed. She slept for eighteen
hours, while Nately dashed about the apartment all the next morning shushing
everybody in sight, and when she woke up she was deeply in love with him. In the last
analysis, that was all it took to win her heart—a good night’s sleep.
The girl smiled with contentment when she opened her eyes and saw him, and then,
stretching her long legs languorously beneath the rustling sheets, beckoned him into
bed beside her with that look of simpering idiocy of a woman in heat. Nately moved to
her in a happy daze, so overcome with rapture that he hardly minded when her kid sister
interrupted him again by flying into the room and flinging herself down onto the bed
between them. Nately’s whore slapped and cursed her, but this time with laughter and
generous affection, and Nately settled back smugly with an arm about each, feeling
strong and protective. They made a wonderful family group, he decided. The little girl
would go to college when she was old enough, to Smith or Radcliffe or Bryn Mawr—he
would see to that. Nately bounded out of bed after a few minutes to announce his good
fortune to his friends at the top of his voice. He called to them jubilantly to come to the
room and slammed the door in their startled faces as soon as they arrived. He had
remembered just in time that his girl had no clothes on.
‘Get dressed,’ he ordered her, congratulating himself on his alertness.
‘Perchè?’ she asked curiously.
‘Perchè?’ he repeated with an indulgent chuckle. ‘Because I don’t want them
to see you without any clothes on.’
‘Perchè no?’ she inquired.
‘Perchè no?’ He looked at her with astonishment. ‘Because it isn’t right for
other men to see you naked, that’s why.’
‘Perchè no?’
‘Because I say no!’ Nately exploded in frustration. ‘Now don’t argue with me. I’m the
man and you have to do whatever I say. From now on, I forbid you ever to go out of this
room unless you have all your clothes on. Is that clear?’ Nately’s whore looked at him as
though he were insane. ‘Are you crazy? Che succede?’
‘I mean every word I say.’
‘Tu sei pazzo!’ she shouted at him with incredulous indignation, and sprang out of bed.
Snarling unintelligibly, she snapped on panties and strode toward the door.
Nately drew himself up with full manly authority. ‘I forbid you to leave this room that
way,’ he informed her.
‘Tu sei pazzo!’ she shot back at him, after he had left, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘Idiota! Tu sei un pazzo imbecille!’
‘Tu sei pazzo,’ said her thin kid sister, starting out after her in the same haughty walk.
‘You come back here,’ Nately ordered her. ‘I forbid you to go out that way, too!’
‘Idiota!’ the kid sister called back at him with dignity after she had flounced past. ‘Tu
sei un pazzo imbecille.’ Nately fumed in circles of distracted helplessness for several
seconds and then sprinted out into the sitting room to forbid his friends to look at his girl
friend while she complained about him in only her panties.
‘Why not?’ asked Dunbar.
‘Why not?’ exclaimed Nately. ‘Because she’s my girl now, and it isn’t right for you to
see her unless she’s fully dressed.’
‘Why not?’ asked Dunbar.
‘You see?’ said his girl with a shrug. ‘Lui è pazzo!’