Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph [131]
‘But,’ Nately cried out in disbelief, ‘you’re a turncoat! A time-server! A shameful, unscrupulous opportunist!’
‘I am a hundred and seven years old,’ the old man reminded him suavely.
‘Don’t you have any principles?’
‘Of course not.’
‘No morality?’
‘Oh, I am a very moral man,’ the villainous old man assured him with satiric seriousness, stroking the bare hip of a buxom black-haired girl with pretty dimples who had stretched herself out seductively on the other arm of his chair. He grinned at Nately sarcastically as he sat between both naked girls in smug and threadbare splendor, with a sovereign hand on each.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Nately remarked grudgingly, trying stubbornly not to watch him in relationship to the girls. ‘I simply can’t believe it.’
‘But it’s perfectly true. When the Germans marched into the city, I danced in the streets like a youthful ballerina and shouted, “Heil Hitler!” until my lungs were hoarse. I even waved a small Nazi flag that I snatched away from a beautiful little girl while her mother was looking the other way. When the Germans left the city, I rushed out to welcome the Americans with a bottle of excellent brandy and a basket of flowers. The brandy was for myself, of course, and the flowers were to sprinkle upon our liberators. There was a very stiff and stuffy old major riding in the first car, and I hit him squarely in the eye with a red rose. A marvelous shot! You should have seen him wince.’ Nately gasped and was on his feet with amazement, the blood draining from his cheeks. ‘Major—de Coverley!’ he cried.
‘Do you know him?’ inquired the old man with delight. ‘What a charming coincidence!’ Nately was too astounded even to hear him. ‘So you’re the one who wounded Major – de Coverley!’ he exclaimed in horrified indignation. ‘How could you do such a thing?’ The fiendish old man was unperturbed. ‘How could I resist, you mean. You should have seen the arrogant old bore, sitting there so sternly in that car like the Almighty Himself, with his big, rigid head and his foolish, solemn face. What a tempting target he made! I got him in the eye with an American Beauty rose. I thought that was most appropriate. Don’t you?’
‘That was a terrible thing to do!’ Nately shouted at him reproachfully. ‘A vicious and criminal thing! Major—de Coverley is our squadron executive officer!’
‘Is he?’ teased the unregenerate old man, pinching his pointy jaw gravely in a parody of repentance. ‘In that case, you must give me credit for being impartial. When the Germans rode in, I almost stabbed a robust young Oberleutnant to death with a sprig of edelweiss.’ Nately was appalled and bewildered by the abominable old man’s inability to perceive the enormity of his offence. ‘Don’t you realize what you’ve done?’ he scolded vehemently. ‘Major—de Coverley is a noble and wonderful person, and everyone admires him.’
‘He’s a silly old fool who really has no right acting like a silly young fool. Where is he today? Dead?’ Nately answered softly with somber awe. ‘Nobody knows. He seems to have disappeared.’
‘You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country.’ Nately was instantly up in arms again. ‘There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!’ he declared.
‘Isn’t there?’ asked the old man. ‘What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can’t all be worth dying for.’
‘Anything worth living for,’ said Nately, ‘is worth dying for.’
‘And anything worth dying for,’ answered the sacrilegious old man, ‘is certainly worth living for. You know, you’re such a pure and naive young man that I almost feel sorry for you. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?’
‘Nineteen,’ said Nately. ‘I’ll be twenty in January.’
‘If you live.’ The