“I’m cold,” Snowden whimpered. “I’m cold.”
“There, there,” Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. “There, there.”
Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.
“I’m cold,” Snowden said. “I’m cold.”
“There, there,” said Yossarian. “There, there.” He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.
“I’m cold.”
“There, there.”
• • 42 • •
Yossarian
“Colonel Korn says,” said Major Danby to Yossarian with a prissy, gratified smile, “that the deal is still on. Everything is working out fine.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Major Danby insisted benevolently. “In fact, everything is much better. It was really a stroke of luck that you were almost murdered by that girl. Now the deal can go through perfectly.”
“I’m not making any deals with Colonel Korn.”
Major Danby’s effervescent optimism vanished instantly, and he broke out all at once into a bubbling sweat. “But you do have a deal with him, don’t you?” he asked in anguished puzzlement. “Don’t you have an agreement?”
“I’m breaking the agreement.”
“But you shook hands on it, didn’t you? You gave him your word as a gentleman.”
“I’m breaking my word.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Major Danby, and began dabbing ineffectually at his careworn brow with a folded white handkerchief. “But why, Yossarian? It’s a very good deal they’re offering you.”
“It’s a lousy deal, Danby. It’s an odious deal.”
“Oh, dear,” Major Danby fretted, running his bare hand over his dark, wiry hair, which was already soaked with perspiration to the tops of the thick, close-cropped waves. “Oh, dear.”
“Danby, don’t you think it’s odious?”
Major Danby pondered a moment. “Yes, I suppose it is odious,” he conceded with reluctance. His globular, exophthalmic eyes were quite distraught. “But why did you make such a deal if you didn’t like it?”
“I did it in a moment of weakness,” Yossarian wisecracked with glum irony. “I was trying to save my life.”
“Don’t you want to save your life now?”
“That’s why I won’t let them make me fly more missions.”
“Then let them send you home and you’ll be in no more danger.”
“Let them send me home because I flew more than fifty missions,” Yossarian said, “and not because I was stabbed by that girl, or because I’ve turned into such a stubborn son of a bitch.”
Major Danby shook his head emphatically in sincere and bespectacled vexation. “They’d have to send nearly every man home if they did that. Most of the men have more than fifty missions. Colonel Cathcart couldn’t possibly requisition so many inexperienced replacement crews at one time without causing an investigation. He’s caught in his own trap.”
“That’s his problem.”
“No, no, no, Yossarian,” Major Danby disagreed solicitously. “It’s your problem. Because if you don’t go through with the deal, they’re going to institute court-martial proceedings as soon as you sign out of the hospital.”
Yossarian thumbed his nose at Major Danby and laughed with smug elation. “The hell they will! Don’t lie to me, Danby. They wouldn’t even try.”
“But why wouldn’t they?” inquired Major Danby, blinking with astonishment.
“Because I’ve really got them over a barrel now. There’s an official report that says I was stabbed by a Nazi assassin trying to kill them. They’d certainly look silly trying to court-martial me after that.”
“But, Yossarian!” Major Danby exclaimed. “There’s another official report that says you were stabbed by an innocent girl in the course of extensive black-market operations involving acts of sabotage and the sale of military secrets to the enemy.”
Yossarian was taken back severely with surprise and disappointment. “Another official report?”