"You miss her."
"I miss her."
"I miss marriage. I'm not used to living alone."
"I can't get used to it either. I can't cook much."
"I don't cook either."
Sam Singer reflected. "No, I think I looked up to you first because you were an officer, and back then I had the kid's idea that all officers had something more on the ball than the rest of us. Or we would be officers too. You always seemed to know what you were doing, except when you were getting lost and taking us out across the Atlantic Ocean. Even when you were going around doing crazy things, it seemed to make more sense than a lot of the rest. Standing in formation naked to get that medal. We all got a big kick out of seeing you do that."
"I wasn't showing off, Sam. I was in panic most of the time. I'd wake up some mornings and try to guess where I was, and then try to figure out what the hell I was doing there. I sometimes wake up't lat way now."
"Baloney," said Singer, and grinned. "And you always seemed to be getting laid a lot, when the rest of us weren't."
"Not as much as you think," said Yossarian, laughing. "There was a lot more of just rubbing it around."
"But, Yossarian, when you said you wouldn't fly anymore, we kept our fingers crossed. We'd finished our seventy missions and were in the same boat."
"Why didn't you come out and walk with me?"
"We weren't that brave. They sent us home right after they caught you, so it worked out fine for us. I said no too, but by then they gave me a choice. What happened to you?"
"They sent me home too. They threatened to kill me, to put me in prison, they said they would ruin me. They promoted me to major and sent me home. They wanted no fuss."
"Most of us admired you. And you seem to know what you're doing now."
"Who says that? I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"Come on, Yo-Yo. On our floor, they're saying you've even got a good thing going with one of the nurses."
Yossarian came close to a blush of pride. "It's traveled that far?
"We even hear it from my friend's doctor," Singer went on, in a merry way. "Back in Pianosa, I remember, you were pretty friendly with a nurse too, weren't you?"
"For a little while. She dumped me as a poor risk. The problem with sweeping a girl off her feet, Sammy, is that you have to keep on sweeping. Love doesn't work that way."
"I know that too," said Singer. "But you and a couple of others were with her up the beach with your suits on that day Kid Sampson was killed by an airplane. You remember Kid Sampson, don't you?"
"Oh, shit, sure," said Yossarian. "Do you think I could ever forget Kid Sampson? Or McWatt, who was in the plane that smashed him apart. McWatt was my favorite pilot."
"Mine too. He was the pilot on the mission to Ferrara when we had to go around on a second bomb run, and Kraft was killed, and a bombardier named Pinkard too."
Were you in the plane with me on that one too?"
"I sure was. I was also in the plane with Hungry Joe when he forgot to use the emergency handle to put down his landing gear. And they gave him a medal."
"They gave me my medal for that mission to Ferrara."
"It's hard to believe it all really happened."
"I know that feeling," said Yossarian. "It's hare to believe I let myself be put through so much."
"I know that feeling. It's funny about Snowden." Singer hesitated. "I didn't know him that well."
"I'd never noticed him."
"But now I feel he was one of my closest friends."
"I have that feeling too."
"And I also feel," Sammy persevered, "he was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I almost hate to put it that way. It sounds immoral. But it gave me an episode, something dramatic to talk about, and something to make me remember that the war was really real. People won't believe much of it; my children and grandchildren aren't much interested in anything so old."
"Bring your friend around and I'll tell him it's true. What's he in here for?"
"Some kind of checkup."
"By Teemer?" Yossarian was shaking his head.
"They know each other," said Singer, "a long time."
"Yeah," said Yossarian, with a sarcastic doubt that left Singer knowing he was unconvinced. "Well, Sammy, where do we go from here? I never could navigate, but I seem to have more direction. I know many women. I may want to marry again."
"I know some too, but mostly old friends."
"Don't get married unless you feel you have to. Unless you need to, you won't be good at it."
"I may travel more," said Singer. "Friends tell me to take a trip around the world. I know people from my days in Time. I've got a good friend in Australia who was hit with a disease called Guillain-Barre a long time ago. He's not young either and doesn't get around too easily on his crutches anymore. I'd like to see him again. There's another in England, who's retired, and one in Hong Kong."
"I think I'd go if I were you. It's something to do. What about the one that's here? Teemer's patient."
"He'll probably be going home soon. He was a prisoner in Dresden with Kurt Vonnegut and another one nimed Schweik. Can you imagine?"
"I stood on line in Naples once with a soldier named Schweik and met a guy named Joseph Kaye. I never even heard about Dresden until I read about it in Vonnegut's novel. Send your friend up. I'd like to hear about Vonnegut."
"He doesn't know him."
"Ask him to drop by anyway if he wants to. I'll be here through the weekend. Well, Sammy, want to gamble? Do you think we might see each other again outside the hospital?"
Singer was taken by surprise. "Yossarian, that's up to you. I've got the time."
"I'll take your number if you're willing to give it. It may be worth a try. I'd like to talk to you again about William Saroyan. You used to try to write stories like his."
"So did you. What happened?"
"I stopped, after a while."
"I gave up too. Ever try The New Yorker?"
"I struck out there every time."
"So did I."
"Sammy tells me you saved his life," said the big-boned man in a dressing gown and his own pajamas, introducing himself as Rabinowitz in a lusty, lighthearted manner, with a hoarse, unfaltering voice. "Tell me how you did it."
"Let him give you the details. You were in Dresden?"
"He'll give you those details." Rabinowitz let his eyes linger again on Angela. "Young lady, you look like someone I met once and can't remember where. She was a knockout too. Did we ever meet? I used to look younger."
"I'm not sure I know. This is my friend Anthony."
"Hello, Anthony. Listen to me good, Anthony. I'm not joshing. Treat her real fine tonight, because if you don't treat her good I will find out about it, and I will start sending her flowers and you will be out in the cold. Right, darling? Good night, my dear. You'll have a good time. Anthony, my name is Lew. Go have some fun.
"I will, Lew," said Anthony.
"I'm retired now, do a little real estate, some building with my son-in-law. What about you?"
"I'm retired too," said Yossarian.
"You're with Milo Minderbinder."
"Part time."
"I've got a friend who'd like to meet him. I'll bring him around. I'm in here with a weight problem. I have to keep it low because of a minor heart condition, and sometimes I take off too much. I like to check that out."
"With Dennis Teemer?"
"I know Teemer long. That lovely blonde lady looks like something special. I know I've seen her."
"I think you'd remember."
"That's why I know."
"Hodgkin's disease," confided Dennis Teemer.
"Shit," said Yossarian. "He doesn't want me to know."
"He doesn't want anybody to know. Not even me. And I know him almost thirty years. He sets records."
"Was he always that way? He likes to flirt."
"So do you. With everybody. You want everybody here to be crazy about you. He's just more open. You're sly."
"You're cunning and know too much."
In Rabinowitz, Yossarian saw a tall, direct man with a large frame who had lost heavy amounts of flesh. He was almost bald on top and wore a gold and graying brush mustache, and he was aggressively attentive to Angela, with an indestructible sexual self-confidence that overrode and reduced her own. Yossarian was amused to see her bend herself forward to take down her bosom, lay her hands in her lap to hold down her skirt, tuck back her legs primly. She was faced with an excess of overbearing friskiness, of a kind she did not take to but could not defeat.