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“Stay with me,” Yossarian said, lazily reaching for Milo as he began to dress with his back to him. Milo stopped, eyebrows arching up into his hairline in surprise. He sat back down on the bed, wouldn’t let Yossarian take his hand as he moved his eyes in the dark to study him.
“I’m very busy Yossarian,” he explained, not unkindly, and Yossarian wondered in that moment if Milo was married. He struggled to remember if he’d ever seen him wearing a wedding band, but the way he spoke conjured the image of a Mrs. Minderbinder across the Atlantic. Yossarian imagined her praying for her husband to fly safely, to be assigned only the best bombardiers and meet his mission quota easily so he could be sent home… or maybe she was praying for the opposite.
---
The two of them were in Sardinia so that Milo could buy olive oil for a new three-part plum tomato initiative.
“Come out with me for the weekend,” he’d invited, as though it were an exotic rendezvous straight out of one of McWatt’s romance pulps. Clevinger had used to ‘borrow’ them in secret and they’d never left his old hiding place; Yossarian would flip through them when he was bored.
“What do you need me for?” Yossarian asked.
Milo frowned, expecting more excitement on his end. “I need someone I can trust; this is going to be a delicate operation, a two-man job.”
“None of your jobs are two-man jobs; who are you buying oil from? The mayor?”
“That’s on a strictly need-to-know basis.”
“We’ll just end up in Sicily again.” He took a sip of coffee, incapable of ignoring him. “My luck I’ll get to see Marrakesh for a second time too.”
“Sardinia only. I couldn’t divert if I tried because I’m expected back for a shipment on Monday. You think I’d just leave our men to starve?”
“You’ll leave me.” He said bluntly, and Milo had the decency to look embarrassed.
“I left you once, because your mission then was watching Orr.” He sat down next to him. “This time your mission is with me.”
Yossarian squinted at him and wrapped both hands protectively around his coffee cup.
“I’ll call ahead for a room. I can get you anything you like while we’re there, I just need you to pose as a company associate for thirteen minutes, maybe a few hours- "
“People don’t-”
“-And a hot bath and a fancy dinner are all yours.”
“In Sardinia.” Said Yossarian, disbelieving.
“You’d be surprised how much progress we’ve made there.”
Yossarian wasn’t chastened by the collective ‘we,’ but did wonder if his skepticism was offensive to the Sardinians. Worse was finding himself on the receiving end of another of these conversations. The threat of Milo needling him had faded over the summer and Yossarian thought they would never find themselves here again, or that if they did Milo would be unrecognizable, but everything was right where they’d left it.
“An exchange rate,” he said finally.
Milo glowed at the comparison, "yes, if you like,” he said, examining his fingernails.
Yossarian stifled a laugh and he grinned back at him.
“I was just in Rome, with Nately and Dunbar,” he explained, now genuinely sorry. “No one’s going to let me go with you.”
“I’ll get you some time."
-
“What do you even want to hang around with him for?” Dunbar asked, not looking up from sewing a tenth button onto his sleeve. He’d spent the past week experimenting with how many he could add to his uniform without getting caught. “You’re not getting anything out of it.”
Yossarian was surprised. “I’m getting extra leave, that’s something.”
“The guy’s a jerk.”
“Yeah, so are we.”
“What’s so great about it then?” Dunbar kept his expression blank; a face like a jellyfish kept in a jar. Usually he trained this look on enlisted men or superiors and it made Yossarian laugh, but more and more he’d begun slipping into it when the two of them were alone together.
“I must really like him,” said Yossarian, considering the feel of the thought between his teeth.
Dunbar cringed away from the vulnerability in his voice.
“What?”
“Liking someone doesn’t mean you need to be running errands with them all the time.”
“It’s not errands.”
“What is it then? A date?”
-
Yossarian felt safer flying with Milo than he had with McWatt (that bar had been so low it was sinking postmortem), but still pressed himself to the back of the copilot’s seat until it was sticky with sweat, clutching at the panel behind him so hard the muscles in his arm began to ache. Milo had looked at him pointedly while he radioed to confirm their flight plan but hadn’t so much as glanced at him since, eyes fixed serenely ahead as he made the post-takeoff adjustments with all the adeptness of a switchboard operator.
“Have you ever actually flown in combat?” Yossarian asked, playing with his headset.
“Of course,” said Milo.
“Who with?”
“Nobody you know.”
Yossarian snorted in disbelief.
“I have flown, a couple of times, several really, but the syndicate always comes first.”
One of the propellors made a slight grinding noise as they ascended and Yossarian’s teeth responded in kind.
“Relax,” said Milo, turning to glance at him with something like concern if he squinted, “I’m not going to let anything happen to us.”
“At least not until you get your salad dressing,” Yossarian muttered darkly, fingernails going bone-white from tension.
“I have never once crashed a plane or had to divert, not even in training.” Milo had diverted a number of times, but none had been for safety reasons (instead landing where he shouldn’t out of distraction, malaise, and boredom in that order) so he reasoned that it wasn’t a lie. Yossarian had never thought to imagine Milo as a cadet but was picturing it; in that uniform with his hair slicked back the way he’d worn it when they first met.
“Why did you train as a pilot?”
“To serve our country, why else?”
“Avoiding the draft,” Yossarian offered.
“Is that what you did?”
“Maybe,” he said, trying to be coy and instead sounding carsick.
“After all, the States are a kind of syndicate too. It’s important that I use my talents for the good of everyone.” The sunrise caught in his hair and downcast eyes made him look positively votive. Milo had enlisted for access to a single plane in the Mediterranean theater and all of the North African airstrips it promised, nothing else.
“What made you want to be a lieutenant then?”
“What made you want to be a captain?” He countered. “You know as well as I do that these things happen Yossarian, we’re all just doing our part.”
Humbleness didn’t suit Milo, and he twitched even as he said it.
“But it didn’t just happen to you, you chose it. I've never seen an officer who wanted to be in charge of the mess before.”
“You must think I’m pretty special then.”
“I don’t think anyone is special.” It was something Yossarian had been taught to say from a young age, and had always come out a lie.
-
When they landed it was straight into a car manned by a tired-looking chauffeur of indeterminate rank and nationality, then straight into another with Milo driving away from Cagliari and into the countryside, glancing behind them occasionally.
"Who would be following us?" Argued Yossarian.
"Italians," Milo answered seriously. They pulled up to a long, low building that under different circumstances might have been charmingly quaint but instead looked like an unearthed munitions igloo.
“What am I doing here Milo?”
“Nothing you don’t want to be; just follow my lead.” They stepped into a barebones warehouse entryway, two men waiting for them with barely disguised wariness.
“Ah, the delegation from M&M Enterprises,” said the taller of the two, clapping his hands together and smiling thinly.
“So good to finally meet in person Segnore Milo,” said the shorter. He had a stronger native accent, while the taller spoke with studied British English. They were both wholly unremarkable-looking with weak jawlines and good hairlines, which was maybe the most remarkable thing about them.
“And this is the other ‘M’ I presume,” the taller one said with a smile, shaking Yossarian’s hand.
Milo smiled patiently, “this is Captain Yossarian, he’s not a full partner yet, but it’s what we’re aiming for,” he explained.
Yossarian ignored this; he’d expected a cellar, wondering if olive oil magnates kept their stock like wine or like beer, but there were the olives themselves. They sat piled haphazardly in rows of perfectly aligned containers, looking decadent and fresh with leaves still attached. He wandered behind Milo and the others as the they walked briskly down the length of the room, speaking in English but going over concepts so foreign they might as well have been in Italian. Labor laws, equipment costs, numbers corresponding either to bushels or pecks or stock prices.
“It’s no good,” Milo said, holding up a single olive and inspecting it like a jeweler.
Yossarian took an official-looking handful and glanced at them too, popping one into his mouth as if to give a second opinion.
“What do you mean, ‘no good?’” Asked the shorter man, smile faltering.
“Talk to me when you have a better offer.” Milo looked at each of them meaningfully, then strolled out without saying anything else.
All three of them stood in shock, watching the heavy door swing shut behind him.
“Reason with him,” the taller man said after a moment, “he can’t afford to miss the beginning of the season like this.”
“I think he can afford anything he wants to,” Yossarian admitted. “He’ll just replace it with something else. Go to another seller.”
The two men looked at one another, then back at him.
“If we get him new product, you can stop him from walking?”
“When?”
“Thursday.”
“He won’t wait. It has to be tomorrow.”
Another conference, this time carried out in speedy, muttered Italian Yossarian only caught in fragments and failed to translate.
“Done, but not before noon. Anything else?”
“That’s fine,” he said, relieved, pocketing his handful of olives as he went to collect Milo. He was leaning against the car door, not smoking or checking his watch but simply watching the road and waiting.
“They want you back,” Yossarian explained.
“They always do.” He smirked as they began walking together.
“Did you ask about the price change?”
“What? No, why would I- "
He stood on tiptoe in order to snap his fingers repeatedly in front of his face, “every day something changes! Come on Yossarian you’re smarter than this. Next you’ll be telling me they’re making us wait until next week.”
“I got them to agree to tomorrow.”
He kissed him delightedly and dropped back down to his heels, running ahead as if to burst into the room, then stopping to adjust his tie and saunter in instead.
“Gentlemen,” he greeted, as though nothing had happened. Yossarian stood next to him in stunned silence, glancing down at him as he haggled his way into dropping by tomorrow morning. The men looked as if they’d physically aged by the time Milo was done with them, delightedly shaking both of their hands in a criss-cross and complimenting them, their wives, their children. As he made to exit Yossarian lingered behind and nodded in silent apology.
“Eleven o’clock sharp,” Milo called on their way out, “you did great!” he laughed when they’d made their way onto the drive, attempting to give Yossarian a spin and succeeding in only a quarter turn with their boots skidding across stone, “come on, we’ve got another meeting.”
“That’s what you wanted me here for? What are you playing at?” Yossarian demanded, trying not to lose his balance.
“Relax,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What would I be playing, stick-and-carrot? You make for a good-looking carrot.”
“I told you I didn’t want to be business partners.”
“Think of this as a free trial, and besides,” he said conspiratorially, “aren’t you having fun?”
“No.”
“Are you having more fun than you would’ve back on Pianosa, or on one of your missions?” He pressed.
“…Two more meetings?”
“Yes.”
“The same as this one?”
“It’s for the rest of the process,” Milo explained, opening the car door for him. “I need to know about any additives and machines they’ll be using on my olives.”
“Like a factory tour.”
“Exactly.” Milo had bought olive oil once before in Spain and was displeased with the quality. He kept his fingers in enough pies to keep them permanently stained and wasn’t about to entrust a novel manufacturing process to a single entity that wasn’t himself, but no matter how many times he explained this (even after all the unpleasantness with that Egyptian cotton), Yossarian didn’t seem to understand.
Yossarian slumped back against the seat, shook two lone cigarettes out of the carton he’d begged off of the chauffeur and put one behind his ear while he chewed on the other.
“Do you think I should burn the olives?” Milo asked thoughtfully, sliding behind the wheel.
He choked once, twice, hawked his cigarette up onto the dash. “Burn them? You only just bought them.”
“The other olives I mean, to drive up the price,” said Milo, eyeing the spay of spit and tobacco distastefully.
“No Milo, I don’t think you should burn the olives,” said Yossarian.
“I’m not asking you to come with me,” he said, reflexively placing an arm behind Yossarian’s head as he shifted into reverse.
Yossarian didn’t say anything, fumbled for his other cigarette.
“But will you?” Asked Milo after a few long minutes.
“Will I what?”
“Come with me to burn the olives.”
“You said two meetings.”
“A slight detour, the bottling plant won’t be ready for us for another hour.”
“We’re already driving there, aren’t we?”
“It’s a small island,”
“It’s not.”
“It’s an island.”
“Won’t people notice you burning up their crops in the middle of the morning?”
“All part of the business transaction,” Milo explained, “they understand it’s for the syndicate, and that the syndicate will help them when their own number comes up. Besides, the higher-ups will all be in town making the week’s deals.”
Yossarian didn’t bother asking what else he might have transacted and they drove on in silence.
Milo left the engine running as they pulled up. “Do you want to wait in the car?” He asked sweetly.
Yossarian slammed the door behind him and marched ahead, glowering, while Milo parked and followed at a gait that was almost a scamper. Cresting the hill left Yossarian breathless, as he stood looking at rows upon rows of trees unlike any he’d seen before. They wore army-regulation green, and grew in carefully constructed patterns with gnarled limbs stretched so proudly they would put even Schiesskopf’s best parade to shame. Milo was admiring them too, doubled over with the effort of matching Yossarian’s stride.
“They’re beginning to use machines to harvest the olives in some places,” he explained as they picked their way downhill together into the grove, “but not here, not yet.”
“Where is everyone?” Yossarian wondered in a hushed voice, the trees putting to mind the city library at dusk.
"Lunch.” Milo hopped up to pluck a cluster from a low-hanging bow, passed it to Yossarian who ate without hesitation. They were better than the olives they’d had waiting at the warehouse, better than any olive he’d ever tasted.
“Why don’t you buy these?” He asked.
“Different families, different companies” said Milo, pulling a face, “my men have the better deal.”
“But you can’t seriously expect to burn this whole place to the ground,” said Yossarian, skeptical, looking at the trees as though they might agree with him. “There must be miles of olives here.”
“Hectares,” Milo corrected, “and you’d be surprised how quickly a forest burns. Even if it doesn’t catch it’ll make a dent in the production value, and that sends a message. All without anyone getting hurt.”
Yossarian placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him from walking any further and Milo looked up at him.
“Are you going to stop me?” He asked. Yossarian wanted him to sound angry, amused even, but it was a good question. “It’ll help the syndicate long-term; olive businesses will merge and grow. More varieties of trees and land for less work. Even if you don’t understand now, you will.”
He hesitated, let go. “Just promise we can get out of here.”
Milo pulled him close as if to kiss him again; adroitly fished the lighter out of his pocket instead.
“We’ll have to use this, I don’t smoke,” he apologized, digging through his own pockets and coming up with a handful of damp, chemical-smelling cotton. He tossed it at the base of the nearest tree, the lighter following a moment later and igniting the roots with a horribly loud snapping sound. Yossarian couldn’t bring himself to look and watched Milo instead, the contours of his face highlighted a soft and pretty orange, mismatched irises reflecting the blaze.
-
The meetings passed in a blur, Milo jamming himself into the gears of the operation as though he fit between every one of them, sampling from baskets and tapping on containers, talking all the while and shooting Yossarian meaningful looks that he failed to extract any meaning from. By five it had gone so quiet it seemed the whole island were hiding from them. Buildings stood hollowed out and crumbling like eggshells, and the early November sunlight managed to blind Yossarian no matter how many times he readjusted his shades. They stopped in front of a bakery window on the way back to the car, looking at everything lined up in parades of starch and sugar. The air had a humid smell to it and Yossarian leaned forward to study something that looked almost like sufganiyot with frosting, allowing his fingertips to press against the glass the way he’d done as a small child, though now his head nearly bumped against the awning.
“Should we go in?” Milo asked, admiring the shelves beyond the window display filled with bread wreaths and cookies.
“It’s closed,” Yossarian pointed out.
“I could make some calls.” They stepped back and Yossarian studied their reflections in the glass. He thought of newlyweds window-shopping downtown, and as though reading his mind Milo linked their arms together to make them into a lopsided wedding topper. Neither of them smiled.
Yossarian tried to imagine them doing this every day, walking the streets of foreign cities together, escaping Pianosa not in a body bag but on Milo’s arm like a debutante. The thought was a dizzying one, but it didn’t seem impossible the way his daydreams of reuniting with Clevinger had been, and that scared him all the more. How easy it would be to do it this way.
“I lied earlier,” Milo admitted, still looking straight ahead at their reflections, “when I said I would book you a hotel room.” He glanced up at him.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?”
“My suite has a divan. And a bed.” He looked cautious now, deeply human in the way someone was when they showed their hand without knowing where all the cards were.
“I want to sleep in a bed.” Yossarian said softly.
-
They had an early dinner together. Yossarian chose the smallest of their restaurant options hoping no one would bother them; Milo introduced himself to the entire wait staff and went to find the owner as well.
“No fish?” Milo asked, returning to their table and looking at the lamb dinner Yossarian had ordered them with interest. He tipped his head towards the ocean as a hint.
Yossarian shook his head, “I don’t like seafood,” he admitted.
Milo laughed, filing away this information as the best news he’d heard all day. They were brought drinks without having to ask, falling into dinner conversation as if made for it.
“Do you usually eat in restaurants like this?”
“On Sardinia? I fly somewhere else for the night and have dinner at one of my hotels. The structure for tourism isn’t here yet, though in a few years it will be.”
“No matter who’s in charge,” murmured Yossarian.
“No matter who’s in charge,” Milo agreed, “it is a wonderful view." He looked at the coast with admiration while Yossarian held a hand to the side of his face to block it out.
“How did you know,” he asked pensively, “that those olives were spoiled?”
“Anyone in my position on the chain should be able to tell good from bad, just by looking at it.”
“And you’re the only one who can do that?”
“I’m Pianosa’s chef de cuisine- "
“You’re not- "
“-I may not be cooking everything, but I still have to taste it before it goes out.”
“So what do you look for?”
“Rot, insect eggs, mold,” he shrugged, sighed. “It’s my job to know what I’m getting into.”
Yossarian sipped his wine, demurring.
“It’s a real skill,” he insisted, “it’s why I can’t outsource everything; my input is needed.”
“Why don’t you just buy less? M&M could concentrate on olives, or eggs.”
“Oh, and do you think that’s what Unilever’s friends say to him?”
“I didn’t think Unilever was a person.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Milo shook his head, exasperated. “M&M gives people what they need. Olives are a start, sure, but people can’t live on olives alone. It wouldn’t be patriotic.”
“Why don’t you go talk to your pal Unilever about it then, he’s so smart,” muttered Yossarian.
“Don’t be jealous. Besides, I have a new project I want to float by you” said Milo, coming back to himself.
“I’m not your partner.”
“What if I only needed to establish every product myself once? You’ve seen how many varieties of olives there are now, how many different sellers we could bring into the fold.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just an idea.” He said modestly, “maybe have numbers for everything M&M sells.”
“Be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
Yossarian rolled his eyes. “Be less ambitious then! A set number for everything, what are you, crazy?”
“You don’t think it’ll work?”
“I worry it will.” He admitted, suddenly very tired.
“Tiramisu?” Milo offered, snapping his fingers for their waiter without taking his eyes off him.
Yossarian nodded; to know that he was the only one who could hold Milo’s attention like this was intoxicating. He wasn’t handsome or pretty like some of the other men Yossarian had slept with, but fascinating-looking in a way that only strangers on movie posters and record sleeves and magazines could be, and worse, he knew it.
Yossarian brushed a hand gently against his and he recoiled in annoyance, then leaned into it, clasping their hands together on the table daring him to try something else. Their dessert arrived and Milo watched him eat impassively; Yossarian trying to be impassive as well and then devouring as though his life depended on it.
---
Milo hadn’t made to get up, was still sitting just out of reach looking down at Yossarian like a pedestaled statue in an art gallery. His ugly Venus.
“What are you busy with? You won’t have any orders until morning.”
“I need to make sure everything’s ready. Why do you need me to stay with you?”
“I don’t need anything from you,” said Yossarian, trying to make him understand, “I want you to stay.”
“What would we do?”
“Sleep?” He suggested.
Milo seemed thrown by this, calculating as though the sleeping aspect of sleeping with someone had never occurred to him. He took his pants back off, then sock garters, leaving his socks on. Yossarian watched all of this with interest until he climbed in beside him and lay with his head on the second pillow, eyes open.
Yossarian smiled to himself and turned onto his side.
“Do you think we should’ve gone to a third grove; burned more trees?” Milo asked.
“Mm,” he murmured, already half-asleep, “no, I don’t.”
He propped himself up on an elbow, “it would be good for the syndicate,” he explained.
“It wouldn’t be good for me.” Yossarian closed his eyes but could feel him looking at him, settling in a touch resentfully. He slipped into dreams he did not remember, not knowing if Milo slept at all.