Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph [93]
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.’
‘I didn’t know whether to believe the doctor or not,’ the father said. ‘You know how crooked those guys are.’
‘Giuseppe,’ the mother said again, in a soft, broken chord of muted anguish.
‘His name is Yossarian, Ma. She don’t remember things too good any more. How’re they treating you in here, kid? They treating you pretty good?’
‘Pretty good,’ Yossarian told him.
‘That’s good. Just don’t let anybody in here push you around. You’re just as good as anybody else in here even though you are Italian. You’ve got rights, too.’ Yossarian winced and closed his eyes so that he would not have to look at his brother John. He began to feel sick.
‘Now see how terrible he looks,’ the father observed.
‘Giuseppe,’ the mother said.
‘Ma, his name is Yossarian,’ the brother interrupted her impatiently. ‘Can’t you remember?’
‘It’s all right,’ Yossarian interrupted him. ‘She can call me Giuseppe if she wants to.’
‘Giuseppe,’ she said to him.
‘Don’t worry, Yossarian,’ the brother said. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
‘Don’t worry, Ma,’ Yossarian said. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
‘Did you have a priest?’ the brother wanted to know.
‘Yes,’ Yossarian lied, wincing again.
‘That’s good,