‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’ Yossarian asked sharply, staring into her eyes to see if she were not speaking to him from a coma.
He raised his voice. ‘What happened to the kid sister, to the little girl?’
‘Gone, gone,’ the old woman replied with a crabby shrug, irritated by his persistence, her low wail growing louder.
‘Chased away with the rest, chased away into the street.
They would not even let her take her coat.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘Who will take care of her?’
‘Who will take care of me?’
‘She doesn’t know anybody else, does she?’
‘Who will take care of me?’
Yossarian left money in the old woman’s lap—it was odd how many wrongs leaving money seemed to right—and strode out of the apartment, cursing Catch-22 vehemently as he descended the stairs, even though he knew there was no such thing. Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference.
What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.
It was cold outside, and dark, and a leaky, insipid mist lay swollen in the air and trickled down the large, unpolished stone blocks of the houses and the pedestals of monuments.
Yossarian hurried back to Milo and recanted.
He said he was sorry and, knowing he was lying, promised to fly as many more missions as Colonel Cathcart wanted if Milo would only use all his influence in Rome to help him locate Nately’s whore’s kid sister.
‘She’s just a twelve-year-old virgin, Milo,’ he explained anxiously, ‘and I want to find her before it’s too late.’
Milo responded to his request with a benign smile.
‘I’ve got just the twelve-year-old virgin you’re looking for,’ he announced jubilantly.
‘This twelve-year-old virgin is really only thirty-four, but she was brought up on a low-protein diet by very strict parents and didn’t start sleeping with men until—’ ‘ Milo, I’m talking about a little girl!’ Yossarian interrupted him with desperate impatience.
‘Don’t you understand?
I don’t want to sleep with her. I want to help her.
You’ve got daughters.
She’s just a little kid, and she’s all alone in this city with no one to take care of her.
I want to protect her from harm.
Don’t you know what I’m talking about?’
Milo did understand and was deeply touched.
‘Yossarian, I’m proud of you,’ he exclaimed with profound emotion.
‘I really am.
You don’t know how glad I am to see that everything isn’t always just sex with you.
You’ve got principles.
Certainly I’ve got daughters, and I know exactly what you’re talking about.
We’ll find that girl if we have to turn this whole city upside down.
Come along.’
Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder’s speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.
‘Ah, Marchese Milo,’ he declared with effusive pleasure, pushing the fat, disgruntled woman out the door without even looking toward her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?
I would have a big party for you.
Come in, come in, Marchese.
You almost never visit us any more.’
Milo knew that there was not one moment to waste.
‘Hello, Luigi,’ he said, nodding so briskly that he almost seemed rude.
‘Luigi, I need your help.
My friend here wants to find a girl.’
‘A girl, Marchese?’ said Luigi, scratching his face pensively.
‘There are lots of girls in Rome.
For an American officer, a girl should not be too difficult.’
‘No, Luigi, you don’t understand.
This is a twelve-year-old virgin that he has to find right away.’
‘Ah, yes, now I understand,’ Luigi said sagaciously.