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 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 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 hostility on Dobbs and Dunbar and noticed that Dobbs 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 orders. 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 thought 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 is 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 fingers 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 breathed so regularly that she seemed to be snoring softly.
‘Let’s charge her now, Lou!’ urged another officer. ‘We’ve got more personnel, and we can encircle—’
‘Oh, no, Bill,’ answered the general with a sigh. ‘You may be a wizard at directing a pincer movement in good weather on level terrain against an enemy that has 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 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.
