Catch22 (excerpt)

by

Joseph Heller


The middle-aged big shots would not let Nately's whore leave until they made her say uncle.
"Say Uncle," they said to her.
"Uncle," she said.
"No, no. Say uncle."
"Uncle," she said.
"She still doesn't understand."
"You still don't understand, do you? We can't really make you say uncle unless you don't want to say uncle. Don't you see? Don't say uncle when I tell you to say uncle. Okay? Say uncle."
"Uncle," she said.
"No, don't say uncle. Say uncle."
She didn't say uncle.
"That's good!"
"That's very good."
"It's a start. Now say uncle."
"Uncle," she said.
"It's no good."
"No, it's no good that way either. She just isn't impressed with us. There's just no fun making her say uncle when she doesn't care whether we make her say uncle or not."
"No, she really doesn't care, doesn't 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 tot 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 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 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. And nude, ridiculous man with a blushing appendectomy scar appeared in the doorway suddenly and bellowed.
"What is 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.
"Your toes are dirty," Dunbar said to him.
The man covered his groin as the first had 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 trash you," Dunbar warned him coldly. "You're a German spy, and I'm going to have you shot."
"Germany 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 of him. Where's your uniform, if you're an American colonel?"
"You just threw it out the window."
"All right, men," Dunbar said, "Lock the silly bastard up. Take the silly bastard up. Take the silly bastard down to the station house and throw away the key."
The colonel blanched with alarm. "Are you all crazy? Where's your badge? Hey, you! Come back in here!"
But he whirled too late to stop Nately, who had glimpsed his girl sitting on the sofa in the other room and had darted through the doorway behind his back. The others poured through after him right into the midst of the other naked big shots. Hungry Joe laughed hysterically when he saw them, pointing in disbelief at one after the other and clasping his head and sides. Two with fleshy physiques advanced truculently until they spied the look of mean dislike and noticed that Dunbar was still swinging like a two-handed club the wrought-iron ash stand he had used to smash things in the sitting room. Nately was already at his girl's side. She stared at him without recognition for a few seconds. Then she smiled faintly and let her head sink to his shoulder with her eyes closed. Nately was in ecstasy; she had never smiled at him before.
"Filpo," said a calm, slender, jaded-looking man who had not even stirred from his armchair. "You don't obey order's. I told you to get them out, and you've gone and brought them in. Can't you see the difference?"
"They've thrown our things out the window, General."
"Good for them. Our uniforms too? That was clever. We'll never be able to convince anyone we're superior without our uniforms."
"Let's get their names, Lou, and-"
"Oh, Ned, relax," said the slender man with practiced weariness. "You may be pretty good at moving armored divisions into action, but you're almost useless in a social situation. Sooner or later we'll get our uniforms back, and then we'll be their superiors again. Did they really throw our uniforms out? That was a splendid tactic."
"They threw everything out."
"The ones in the closet, too?"
"They threw the closet out, General. That was that crash we heard when we though they were coming in to kill us."
"And I'll throw you out next," Dunbar threatened.
The general paled slightly. "What the devil is he so mad about?" he asked Yossarian.
"He means it, too," Yossarian said. "You'd better let the girl leave."
"Lord, take her," exclaimed the general with relief. "All she's done I make us feel insecure. At least she might have disliked or resented us for the hundred dollars we paid her. But she wouldn't even do that. Your handsome young friend there seems quite attached to her. Notice the way he lets his finger linger on the inside of her thighs as he pretends to roll up her stockings."
Nately, caught in the act, blushed guiltily and moved more quickly through the steps of dressing her. She was sound asleep and breathing so regularly that she seemed to be snoring softly.
"Let's charge her now, Lou!" urged other officer. "We've got more personnel, and we can encircle-"
"Oh, no, Bill," answered the general with a sign. "You may be a wizard at directing a pincer movement in good weather on level terrain against an enemy that already committed his reserves, but you don't always think so clearly anywhere else. Why should we want to keep her?"
"General, we're in a very bad strategic position. We haven't got a stitch of clothing, and it's going to be very degrading and embarrassing for the person who has to go downstairs through the lobby to get some."
"Yes, Filpo, you're quite right," said the general. "And that's exactly why you're the one to do it. Get going."
"Naked, sir?"
"Take your pillow with you if you want to. And get some cigarettes, too, while you're downstairs picking up my underwear and pants, will you?"
"I'll send everything up for you," Yossarian offered.
"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 wit 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.