Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“ Si .”

“ Tu sei pazz’! ” he told her loudly.

“ Perchè? ” she shouted back at him indignantly, her unavoidable round breasts rising and falling in a saucy huff beneath the pink chemise as she sat up in bed indignantly. “Why am I crazy?”

“Because you won’t marry me.”

“ Stupido! ” she shouted back at him, and smacked him loudly and flamboyantly on the chest with the back of her hand. “ Non posso sposarti! Non capisci? Non posso sposarti. ”

“Oh, sure, I understand. And why can’t you marry me?”

“ Perchè sei pazzo! ”

“And why am I crazy?”

“ Perchè vuoi sposarmi .”

“Because I want to marry you. Carina, ti amo ,” he explained, and he drew her gently back down to the pillow. “ Ti amo molto .”

“ Tu sei pazzo ,” she murmured in reply, flattered.

“ Perchè? ”

“Because you say you love me. How can you love a girl who is not a virgin?”

“Because I can’t marry you.”

She bolted right up again in a threatening rage. “Why can’t you marry me?” she demanded, ready to clout him again if he gave an uncomplimentary reply. “Just because I am not a virgin?”

“No, no, darling. Because you’re crazy.”

She stared at him in blank resentment for a moment and then tossed her head back and roared appreciatively with hearty laughter. She gazed at him with new approval when she stopped, the lush, responsive tissues of her dark face turning darker still and blooming somnolently with a swelling and beautifying infusion of blood. Her eyes grew dim. He crushed out both their cigarettes, and they turned into each other wordlessly in an engrossing kiss just as Hungry Joe came meandering into the room without knocking to ask if Yossarian wanted to go out with him to look for girls. Hungry Joe stopped on a dime when he saw them and shot out of the room. Yossarian shot out of bed even faster and began shouting at Luciana to get dressed. The girl was dumbfounded. He pulled her roughly out of bed by her arm and flung her away toward her clothing, then raced for the door in time to slam it shut as Hungry Joe was running back in with his camera. Hungry Joe had his leg wedged in the door and would not pull it out.

“Let me in!” he begged urgently, wriggling and squirming maniacally. “Let me in!” He stopped struggling for a moment to gaze up into Yossarian’s face through the crack in the door with what he must have supposed was a beguiling smile. “Me no Hungry Joe,” he explained earnestly. “Me heap big photographer from Life magazine. Heap big picture on heap big cover. I make you big Hollywood star, Yossarian. Multi dinero . Multi divorces. Multi ficky-fic all day long. Si, si, si! ”

Yossarian slammed the door shut when Hungry Joe stepped back a bit to try to shoot a picture of Luciana dressing. Hungry Joe attacked the stout wooden barrier fanatically, fell back to reorganize his energies and hurled himself forward fanatically again. Yossarian slithered into his own clothes between assaults. Luciana had her green-and-white summer dress on and was holding the skirt bunched up above her waist. A wave of misery broke over him as he saw her about to vanish inside her panties forever. He reached out to grasp her and drew her to him by the raised calf of her leg. She hopped forward and molded herself against him. Yossarian kissed her ears and her closed eyes romantically and rubbed the backs of her thighs. She began to hum sensually a moment before Hungry Joe hurled his frail body against the door in still one more desperate attack and almost knocked them both down. Yossarian pushed her away.

“ Vite! Vite! ” he scolded her. “Get your things on!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she wanted to know.

“Fast! Fast! Can’t you understand English? Get your clothes on fast!”

“ Stupido! ” she snarled back at him. “ Vite is French, not Italian. Subito, subito! That’s what you mean. Subito! ”

“ Si, si . That’s what I mean. Subito, subito! ”

“ Si, si ,” she responded co-operatively, and ran for her shoes and earrings.

Hungry Joe had paused in his attack to shoot pictures through the closed door. Yossarian could hear the camera shutter clicking. When both he and Luciana were ready, Yossarian waited for Hungry Joe’s next charge and yanked the door open on him unexpectedly. Hungry Joe spilled forward into the room like a floundering frog. Yossarian skipped nimbly around him, guiding Luciana along behind him through the apartment and out into the hallway. They bounced down the stairs with a great roistering clatter, laughing out loud breathlessly and knocking their hilarious heads together each time they paused to rest. Near the bottom they met Nately coming up and stopped laughing. Nately was drawn, dirty and unhappy. His tie was twisted and his shirt was rumpled, and he walked with his hands in his pockets. He wore a hangdog, hopeless look.

“What’s the matter, kid?” Yossarian inquired compassionately.

“I’m flat broke again,” Nately replied with a lame and distracted smile. “What am I going to do?”

Yossarian didn’t know. Nately had spent the last thirty-two hours at twenty dollars an hour with the apathetic whore he adored, and he had nothing left of his pay or of the lucrative allowance he received every month from his wealthy and generous father. That meant he could not spend time with her any more. She would not allow him to walk beside her as she strolled the pavements soliciting other servicemen, and she was infuriated when she spied him trailing her from a distance. He was free to hang around her apartment if he cared to, but there was no certainty that she would be there. And she would give him nothing unless he could pay. She found sex uninteresting. Nately wanted the assurance that she was not going to bed with anyone unsavory or with someone he knew. Captain Black always made it a point to buy her each time he came to Rome, just so he could torment Nately with the news that he had thrown his sweetheart another hump and watch Nately eat his liver as he related the atrocious indignities to which he had forced her to submit.

Luciana was touched by Nately’s forlorn air, but broke loudly into robust laughter again the moment she stepped outside into the sunny street with Yossarian and heard Hungry Joe beseeching them from the window to come back and take their clothes off, because he really was a photographer from Life magazine. Luciana fled mirthfully along the sidewalk in her high white wedgies, pulling Yossarian along in tow with the same lusty and ingenuous zeal she had displayed in the dance hall the night before and at every moment since. Yossarian caught up and walked with his arm around her waist until they came to the corner and she stepped away from him. She straightened her hair in a mirror from her pocketbook and put lipstick on.

“Why don’t you ask me to let you write my name and address on a piece of paper so that you will be able to find me again when you come to Rome?” she suggested.

“Why don’t you let me write your name and address down on a piece of paper?” he agreed.

“Why?” she demanded belligerently, her mouth curling suddenly into a vehement sneer and her eyes flashing with anger. “So you can tear it up into little pieces as soon as I leave?”

“Who’s going to tear it up?” Yossarian protested in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You will,” she insisted. “You’ll tear it up into little pieces the minute I’m gone and go walking away like a big shot because a tall, young, beautiful girl like me, Luciana, let you sleep with her and did not ask you for money.”