Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph [193]
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.
‘Tu sei pazzo!’ she shot back at him, after he had left, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Idiota! Tu sei un pazzo imbecille!’
‘Tu sei pazzo,’ said her thin kid sister, starting out after her in the same haughty walk.
‘You come back here,’ Nately ordered her. ‘I forbid you to go out that way, too!’
‘Idiota!’ the kid sister called back at him with dignity after she had flounced past. ‘Tu sei un pazzo imbecille.’ Nately fumed in circles of distracted helplessness for several seconds and then sprinted out into the sitting room to forbid his friends to look at his girl friend while she complained about him in only her panties.
‘Why not?’ asked Dunbar.
‘Why not?’ exclaimed Nately. ‘Because she’s my girl now, and it isn’t right for you to see her unless she’s fully dressed.’
‘Why not?’ asked Dunbar.
‘You see?’ said his girl with a shrug. ‘Lui è pazzo!’
‘Si, è molto pazzo,’ echoed her kid sister.
‘Then make her keep her clothes on if you don’t want us to see her,’ argued Hungry Joe. ‘What the hell do you want from us?’
‘She won’t listen to me,’ Nately confessed sheepishly. ‘So from now on you’ll all have to shut your eyes or look in the other direction when she comes in that way. Okay?’
‘Madonn’!’ cried his girl in exasperation, and stamped out of the room.
‘Madonn’!’ cried her kid sister, and stamped out behind her.
‘Lui è pazzo,’ Yossarian observed good-naturedly. ‘I certainly have to admit it.’
‘Hey, you crazy or something?’ Hungry Joe demanded of Nately. ‘The next thing you know you’ll be trying to make her give up hustling.’
‘From now on,’ Nately said to his girl, ‘I forbid you to go out hustling.’
‘Perchè?’ she inquired curiously.
‘Perchè?’ he screamed with amazement. ‘Because it’s not nice, that’s why!’
‘Perchè no?’
‘Because it just isn’t!’ Nately