“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 230
Yossarian was aghast. ‘But you killed her, Aarfy! You killed her!’
‘Oh, I had to do that after I raped her,’ Aarfy replied in his most condescending
manner. ‘I couldn’t very well let her go around saying bad things about us, could I?’
‘But why did you have to touch her at all, you dumb bastard?’ Yossarian shouted.
‘Why couldn’t you get yourself a girl off the street if you wanted one? The city is full of
prostitutes.’
‘Oh, no, not me,’ Aarfy bragged. ‘I never paid for it in my life.’
‘Aarfy, are you insane?’ Yossarian was almost speechless. ‘You killed a girl. They’re
going to put you in jail!’
‘Oh, no,’ Aarfy answered with a forced smile. ‘Not me. They aren’t going to put good
old Aarfy in jail. Not for killing her.’
‘But you threw her out the window. She’s lying dead in the street.’
‘She has no right to be there,’ Aarfy answered. ‘It’s after curfew.’
‘Stupid! Don’t you realize what you’ve done?’ Yossarian wanted to grab Aarfy by his
well-fed, caterpillar-soft shoulders and shake some sense into him. ‘You’ve murdered a
human being. They are going to put you in jail. They might even hang you!’
‘Oh, I hardly think they’ll do that,’ Aarfy replied with a jovial chuckle, although his
symptoms of nervousness increased. He spilled tobacco crumbs unconsciously as his
short fingers fumbled with the bowl of his pipe. ‘No, sirree. Not to good old Aarfy.’ He
chortled again. ‘She was only a servant girl. I hardly think they’re going to make too
much of a fuss over one poor Italian servant girl when so many thousands of lives are
being lost every day. Do you?’
‘Listen!’ Yossarian cried, almost in joy. He pricked up his ears and watched the blood
drain from Aarfy’s face as sirens mourned far away, police sirens, and then ascended
almost instantaneously to a howling, strident, onrushing cacophony of overwhelming
sound that seemed to crash into the room around them from every side. ‘Aarfy, they’re
coming for you,’ he said in a flood of compassion, shouting to be heard above the noise.
‘They’re coming to arrest you. Aarfy, don’t you understand? You can’t take the life of
another human being and get away with it, even if she is just a poor servant girl. Don’t
you see? Can’t you understand?’
‘Oh, no,’ Aarfy insisted with a lame laugh and a weak smile. ‘They’re not coming to
arrest me. Not good old Aarfy.’ All at once he looked sick. He sank down on a chair in a
trembling stupor, his stumpy, lax hands quaking in his lap. Cars skidded to a stop
outside. Spotlights hit the windows immediately. Car doors slammed and police whistles
screeched. Voices rose harshly. Aarfy was green. He kept shaking his head
mechanically with a queer, numb smile and repeating in a weak, hollow monotone that
they were not coming for him, not for good old Aarfy, no sirree, striving to convince
himself that this was so even as heavy footsteps raced up the stairs and pounded
across the landing, even as fists beat on the door four times with a deafening,
inexorable force. Then the door to the apartment flew open, and two large, tough,
brawny M.P.s with icy eyes and firm, sinewy, unsmiling jaws entered quickly, strode
across the room, and arrested Yossarian.
They arrested Yossarian for being in Rome without a pass.
They apologized to Aarfy for intruding and led Yossarian away between them, gripping
him under each arm with fingers as hard as steel manacles. They said nothing at all to
him on the way down. Two more tall M.P.s with clubs and hard white helmets were
waiting outside at a closed car. They marched Yossarian into the back seat, and the car
roared away and weaved through the rain and muddy fog to a police station. The M.P.s
locked him up for the night in a cell with four stone walls. At dawn they gave him a pail
for a latrine and drove him to the airport, where two more giant M.P.s with clubs and
white helmets were waiting at a transport plane whose engines were already warming
up when they arrived, the cylindrical green cowlings oozing quivering beads of
condensation. None of the M.P.s said anything to each other either. They did not even
nod. Yossarian had never seen such granite faces. The plane flew to Pianosa. Two
more silent M.P.s were waiting at the landing strip. There were now eight, and they filed