Catch-22 (Catch-22 1)

'Of course you're dying. We're all dying. Where the devil else do you think you're heading?'

'They didn't come to see me,' Yossarian objected. 'They came to see their son.'

'They'll have to take what they can get. As far as we're concerned, one dying boy is just as good as any other, or just as bad. To a scientist, all dying boys are equal. I have a proposition for you. You let them come in and look you over for a few minutes and I won't tell anyone you've been lying about your liver symptoms.' Yossarian drew back from him farther. 'You know about that?'

'Of course I do. Give us some credit.' The doctor chuckled amiably and lit another cigarette. 'How do you expect anyone to believe you have a liver condition if you keep squeezing the nurses' tits every time you get a chance? You're going to have to give up sex if you want to convince people you've got an ailing liver.'

'That's a hell of a price to pay just to keep alive. Why didn't you turn me in if you knew I was faking?'

'Why the devil should I?' asked the doctor with a flicker of surprise. 'We're all in this business of illusion together. I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a fellow conspirator along the road to survival if he's willing to do the same for me. These people have come a long way, and I'd rather not disappoint them. I'm sentimental about old people.'

'But they came to see their son.'

'They came too late. Maybe they won't even notice the difference.'

'Suppose they start crying.'

'They probably will start crying. That's one of the reasons they came. I'll listen outside the door and break it up if it starts getting tacky.'

'It all sounds a bit crazy,' Yossarian reflected. 'What do they want to watch their son die for, anyway?'

'I've never been able to figure that one out,' the doctor admitted, 'but they always do. Well, what do you say? All you've got to do is lie there a few minutes and die a little. Is that asking so much?'

'All right,' Yossarian gave in. 'If it's just for a few minutes and you promise to wait right outside.' He warmed to his role. 'Say, why don't you wrap a bandage around me for effect?'

'That sounds like a splendid idea,' applauded the doctor.

They wrapped a batch of bandages around Yossarian. A team of medical orderlies installed tan shades on each of the two windows and lowered them to douse the room in depressing shadows. Yossarian suggested flowers and the doctor sent an orderly out to find two small bunches of fading ones with a strong and sickening smell. When everything was in place, they made Yossarian get back into bed and lie down. Then they admitted the visitors.

The visitors entered uncertainly as though they felt they were intruding, tiptoeing in with stares of meek apology, first the grieving mother and father, then the brother, a glowering heavy-set sailor with a deep chest. The man and woman stepped into the room stify side by side as though right out of a familiar, though esoteric, anniversary daguerreotype on a wall. They were both short, sere and proud. They seemed made of iron and old, dark clothing. The woman had a long, brooding oval face of burnt umber, with coarse graying black hair parted severely in the middle and combed back austerely behind her neck without curl, wave or ornamentation. Her mouth was sullen and sad, her lined lips compressed. The father stood very rigid and quaint in a double-breasted suit with padded shoulders that were much too tight for him. He was broad and muscular on a small scale and had a magnificently curled silver mustache on his crinkled face. His eyes were creased and rheumy, and he appeared tragically

ill at ease as he stood awkwardly with the brim of his black felt fedora held in his two brawny laborer's hands out in front of his wide lapels. Poverty and hard work had inflicted iniquitous damage on both. The brother was looking for a fight. His round white cap was cocked at an insolent tilt, his hands were clenched, and he glared at everything in the room with a scowl of injured truculence.

The three creaked forward timidly, holding themselves close to each other in a stealthy, funereal group and inching forward almost in step, until they arrived at the side of the bed and stood staring down at Yossarian. There was a gruesome and excruciating silence that threatened to endure forever. Finally Yossarian was unable to bear it any longer and cleared his throat. The old man spoke at last.

'He looks terrible,' he said.

'He's sick, Pa.'

'Giuseppe,' said the mother, who had seated herself in a chair with her veinous fingers clasped in her lap.

'My name is Yossarian,' Yossarian said.

'His name is Yossarian, Ma. Yossarian, don't you recognize me? I'm your brother John. Don't you know who I am?'

'Sure I do. You're my brother John.'

'He does recognize me! Pa, he knows who I am. Yossarian, here's Papa. Say hello to Papa.'

'Hello, Papa,' said Yossarian.

'Hello, Giuseppe.'

'His name is Yossarian, Pa.'

'I can't get over how terrible he looks,' the father said.

'He's very sick, Pa. The doctor says he's going to die.'