Milo turned livid with indignation, his slim long nose flickering spasmodically between his black eyebrows and his unbalanced orange-brown mustache like the pale, thin flame of a single candle.
‘Yossarian, remember your mission,’ he reminded reverently.
‘To hell with my mission,’ Yossarian responded indifferently.
‘And to hell with the syndicate too, even though I do have a share. I don’t want any eight-year-old virgins, even if they are half Spanish.’ ‘I don’t blame you. But these eight-year-old virgins are really only thirty-two. And they’re not really half Spanish but only one-third Estonian.’ ‘I don’t care for any virgins.’ ‘And they’re not even virgins,’ Milo continued persuasively. ‘The one I picked out for you was married for a short time to an elderly schoolteacher who slept with her only on Sundays, so she’s really almost as good as new.’
But Orr was sleepy, too, and Yossarian and Orr were both at Milo’s side when they rode into the city of Palermo from the airport and discovered that there was no room for the two of them at the hotel there either, and, more important, that Milo was mayor.
The weird, implausible reception for Milo began at the airfield, where civilian laborers who recognized him halted in their duties respectfully to gaze at him with full expressions of controlled exuberance and adulation.
News of his arrival preceded him into the city, and the outskirts were already crowded with cheering citizens as they sped by in their small uncovered truck.
Yossarian and Orr were mystified and mute and pressed close against Milo for security.
Inside the city, the welcome for Milo grew louder as the truck slowed and eased deeper toward the middle of town.
Small boys and girls had been released from school and were lining the sidewalks in new clothes, waving tiny flags.
Yossarian and Orr were absolutely speechless now.
The streets were jammed with joyous throngs, and strung overhead were huge banners bearing Milo’s picture.
Milo had posed for these pictures in a drab peasant’s blouse with a high collar, and his scrupulous, paternal countenance was tolerant, wise, critical and strong as he stared out at the populace omnisciently with his undisciplined mustache and disunited eyes.
Sinking invalids blew kisses to him from windows.
Aproned shopkeepers cheered ecstatically from the narrow doorways of their shops.
Tubas crumped.
Here and there a person fell and was trampled to death.
Sobbing old women swarmed through each other frantically around the slow-moving truck to touch Milo’s shoulder or press his hand.
Milo bore the tumultuous celebrations with benevolent grace.
He waved back to everyone in elegant reciprocation and showered generous handfuls of foilcovered Hershey kisses to the rejoicing multitudes.
Lines of lusty young boys and girls skipped along behind him with their arms linked, chanting in hoarse and glassy-eyed adoration, ‘ Milo!
Mi-lo!
Mi-lo!’
Now that his secret was out, Milo relaxed with Yossarian and Orr and inflated opulently with a vast, shy pride.
His cheeks turned flesh-colored.
Milo had been elected mayor of Palermo —and of nearby Carini, Monreale, Bagheria, Termini Imerese, Cefalu, Mistretta and Nicosia as well—because he had brought Scotch to Sicily.
Yossarian was amazed.
‘The people here like to drink Scotch that much?’
‘They don’t drink any of the Scotch,’ Milo explained.
‘Scotch is very expensive, and these people here are very poor.’
‘Then why do you import it to Sicily if nobody drinks any?’
‘To build up a price.
I move the Scotch here from Malta to make more room for profit when I sell it back to me for somebody else.
I created a whole new industry here.
Today Sicily is the third largest exporter of Scotch in the world, and that’s why they elected me mayor.’
‘How about getting us a hotel room if you’re such a hotshot?’ Orr grumbled impertinently in a voice slurred with fatigue.
Milo responded contritely. ‘That’s just what I’m going to do,’ he promised.
‘I’m really sorry about forgetting to radio ahead for hotel rooms for you two.
Come along to my office and I’ll speak to my deputy mayor about it right now.’
Milo’s office was a barbershop, and his deputy mayor was a pudgy barber from whose obsequious lips cordial greetings foamed as effusively as the lather he began whipping up in Milo’s shaving cup.
‘Well, Vittorio,’ said Milo, settling back lazily in one of Vittorio’s barber chairs, ‘how were things in my absence this time?’
‘Very sad, Signor Milo, very sad.
But now that you are back, the people are all happy again.’
‘I was wondering about the size of the crowds.
How come all the hotels are full?’
‘Because so many people from other cities are here to see you, Signor Milo.
And because we have all the buyers who have come into town for the artichoke auction.’
Milo’s hand soared up perpendicularly like an eagle and arrested Vittorio’s shaving brush.
‘What’s artichoke?’ he inquired.
‘Artichoke, Signor Milo?