Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

home. Consult the best lawyers on criminal law. I'll give you the names of some judges

who will give you a private audience. Until that time we have to guard against all

treacheries."

Hagen said, "Like you, I'm not worried so much about the real evidence as the

evidence they will manufacture. Also some police friend may kill Michael after he's

arrested. They may kill him in his cell or have one of the prisoners do it. As I see it, we

can't even afford to have him arrested or accused."

Don Corleone sighed. "I know, I know. That's the difficulty. But we can't take too long.

There are troubles in Sicily. The young fellows over there don't listen to their elders

anymore and a lot of the men deported from America are just too much for the old-

fashioned Dons to handle. Michael could get caught in between. I've taken some

precautions against that and he's still got a good cover but that cover won't last forever.

That's one of the reasons I had to make the peace. Barzini has friends in Sicily and they

were beginning to sniff Michael's trail. That gives you one of the answers to your riddle.

I had to make the peace to insure my son's safety. There was nothing else to do."

Hagen didn't bother asking the Don how he had gotten this information. He was not

even surprised, and it was true that this solved part of the riddle. "When I meet with

Tattaglia's people to firm up the details, should I insist that all his drug middlemen

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(посредники) be clean? The judges will be a little skittish (норовистый или пугливый

/о лошади/; капризный) about giving light sentences to a man with a record."

Don Corleone shrugged. "They should be smart enough to figure that out themselves.

Mention it, don't insist. We'll do our best but if they use a real snowbird (дрозд-

рябинник; кокаинист) and he gets caught, we won't lift a finger. We'll just tell them

nothing can be done. But Barzini is a man who will know that without being told. You

notice how he never committed himself in this affair. One might never have known he

was in any way concerned. That is a man who doesn't get caught on the losing side."

Hagen was startled. "You mean he was behind Sollozzo and Tattaglia all the time?"

Don Corleone sighed. "Tattaglia is a pimp. He could never have outfought Santino.

That's why I don't have to know about what happened. It's enough to know that Barzini

had a hand in it."

Hagen let this sink in. The Don was giving him clues but there was something very

important left out. Hagen knew what it was but he knew it was not his place to ask. He

said good night and turned to go. The Don had a last word for him.

"Remember, use all your wits for a plan to bring Michael home," the Don said. "And

one other thing. Arrange with the telephone man so that every month I get a list of all

the telephone calls, made and received, by Clemenza and Tessio. I suspect them of

nothing. I would swear they would never betray me. But there's no harm in knowing any

little thing that may help us before the event."

Hagen nodded and went out. He wondered if the Don was keeping a check on him

also in some way and then was ashamed of his suspicion. But now he was sure that in

the subtle and complex mind of the Godfather a far-ranging plan of action was being

initiated that made the day's happenings no more than a tactical retreat. And there was

that one dark fact that no one mentioned, that he himself had not dared to ask, that Don

Corleone ignored. All pointed to a day of reckoning (to reckon – считать, подсчитывать;

сводить счеты, рассчитываться) in the future.

Chapter 21

But it was to be nearly another year before Don Corleone could arrange for his son

Michael to be smuggled back into the United States. During that time the whole Family

racked their brains (ломали голову; to rack – пытать, мучить; заставлять работать

изо всех сил, изнурять) for suitable schemes. Even Carlo Rizzi was listened to now

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that he was living in the mall with Connie. (During that time they had a second child, a

boy.) But none of the schemes met with the Don's approval.

Finally it was the Bocchicchio Family who through a misfortune of its own solved the

problem. There was one Bocchicchio, a young cousin of no more than twenty-five years

of age, named Felix, who was born in America and with more brains than anyone in the

clan had ever had before. He had refused to be drawn into the Family garbage hauling

business and married a nice American girl of English stock to further his split from the

clan. He went to school at night, to become a lawyer, and worked during the day as a

civil service post office clerk. During that time he had three children but his wife was a

prudent manager and they lived on his salary until he got his law degree.

Now Felix Bocchicchio, like many young men, thought that having struggled to

complete his education and master the tools of his profession, his virtue would

automatically be rewarded and he would earn a decent living. This proved not to be the

case. Still proud, he refused all help from his clan. But a lawyer friend of his, a young

man well connected and with a budding (подающий надежды, многообещающий)

career in a big law firm, talked Felix into doing him a little favor. It was very complicated,

seemingly legal, and had to do with a bankruptcy fraud. It was a million-to-one shot

against its being found out. Felix Bocchicchio took the chance. Since the fraud involved

using the legal skills he had learned in a university, it seemed not so reprehensible

(предосудительный; to reprehend – делать выговор, порицать), and, in an odd way,

not even criminal.

To make a foolish story short, the fraud was discovered. The lawyer friend refused to

help Felix in any manner, refused to even answer his telephone calls. The two principals

(главные виновники) in the fraud, shrewd middle-aged businessmen who furiously

blamed Felix Bocchicchio's legal clumsiness (неуклюжесть, неловкость; clumsy –

неуклюжий, неловкий) for the plan going awry (окончился неудачей; awry [∂ ‘raı] –

кривой; косо, набок), pleaded guilty (признали себя виновными) and cooperated with

the state, naming Felix Bocchicchio as the ringleader (зачинщик) of the fraud and

claiming he had used threats of violence to control their business and force them to

cooperate with him in his fraudulent schemes. Testimony was given that linked Felix

with uncles and cousins in the Bocchicchio clan who had criminal records for strong-arm,

and this evidence was damning. The two businessmen got off with suspended

sentences. Felix Bocchicchio was given a sentence of one to five years and served

three of them. The clan did not ask help from any of the Families or Don Corleone

because Felix had refused to ask their help and had to be taught a lesson: that mercy

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comes only from the Family, that the Family is more loyal and more to be trusted than

society.

In any case, Felix Bocchicchio was released from prison after serving three years,

went home and kissed his wife and three children and lived peacefully for a year, and

then showed that he was of the Bocchicchio clan after all. Without any attempt to

conceal his guilt, he procured a weapon, a pistol, and shot his lawyer friend to death. He

then searched out the two businessmen and calmly shot them both through the head as

they came out of a luncheonette (закусочная, буфет ['lΛnt∫∂’net]). He left the bodies

lying in the street and went into the luncheonette and ordered a cup of coffee which he

drank while he waited for the police to come and arrest him.

His trial was swift and his judgment merciless. A member of the criminal underworld

had cold-bloodedly murdered state witnesses who had sent him to the prison he richly

deserved. It was a flagrant flouting (вопиющее глумление, выказывание презрения;

flagrant [‘fleıgr∂nt] – ужасающий, вопиющий; to flout – презирать, попирать,

глумиться) of society and for once the public, the press, the structure of society and

even soft-headed and soft-hearted humanitarians (гуманисты) were united in their

desire to see Felix Bocchicchio in the electric chair. The governor of the state would no

more grant him clemency (милость, помилование) than the officials of the pound

(загон /для скота/) spare a mad dog, which was the phrase of one of the governor's

closest political aides. The Bocchicchio clan of course would spend whatever money

was needed for appeals to higher courts, they were proud of him now, but the

conclusion was certain. After the legal folderol (= folderal – бессмысленная болтовня),

which might take a little time, Felix Bocchicchio would die in the electric chair.

It was Hagen who brought this case to the attention of the Don at the request of one

of the Bocchicchios who hoped that something could be done for the young man. Don

Corleone curtly refused. He was not a magician. People asked him the impossible. But

the next day the Don called Hagen into his office and had him go over the case in the

most intimate detail. When Hagen was finished, Don Corleone told him to summon the

head of the Bocchicchio clan to the mall for a meeting.

What happened next had the simplicity of genius. Don Corleone guaranteed to the

head of the Bocchicchio clan that the wife and children of Felix Bocchicchio would be

rewarded with a handsome pension. The money for this would be handed over to the

Bocchicchio clan immediately. In turn, Felix must confess to the murder of Sollozzo and

the police captain McCluskey.

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There were many details to be arranged. Felix Bocchicchio would have to confess

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convincingly, that is, he would have to know some of the true details to confess to. Also

he must implicate (вовлекать, впутывать) the police captain in narcotics. Then the

waiter at the Luna Restaurant must be persuaded to identify Felix Bocchicchio as the

murderer. This would take some courage, as the description would change radically,

Felix Bocchicchio being much shorter and heavier. But Don Corleone would attend to

that. Also since the condemned man had been a great believer in higher education and

a college graduate, he would want his children to go to college. And so a sum of money

would have to be paid by Don Corleone that would take care of the children's college.

Then the Bocchicchio clan had to be reassured that there was no hope for clemency on

the original murders. The new confession of course would seal the man's already

almost certain doom (рок, судьба; осуждение, приговор).

Everything was arranged, the money paid and suitable contact made with the

condemned man so that he could be instructed and advised. Finally the plan was

sprung and the confession made headlines in all the newspapers. The whole thing was

a huge success. But Don Corleone, cautious as always, waited until Felix Bocchicchio

was actually executed four months later before finally giving the command that Michael

Corleone could return home.

Сhapter 22

Lucy Mancini, a year after Sonny's death, still missed him terribly, grieved for him

more fiercely than any lover in any romance. And her dreams were not the insipid

(безвкусный, пресный; вялый, неинтересный [ın'sıpıd]) dreams of a schoolgirl, her

longings (сильные, страстные желания, стремления; to long – страстно желать,

стремиться) not the longing of a devoted wife. She was not rendered desolate by the

loss of her "life's companion," or miss him because of his stalwart (стойкий, верный,

решительный ['sto:lw∂t]) character. She held no fond remembrances of sentimental

gifts, of girlish hero worship, his smile, the amused glint of his eyes when she said

something endearing (to endear [ın’dı∂] – заставить полюбить, внушить любовь) or

witty.

No. She missed him for the more important reason that he had been the only man in

the world who could make her body achieve the act of love. And, in her youth and

innocence, she still believed that he was the only man who could possibly do so.

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Now a year later she sunned herself in the balmy Nevada air. At her feet the slender,

blond young man was playing with her toes. They were at the side of the hotel pool for

the Sunday afternoon and despite the people all around them his hand was sliding up

her bare thigh.

"Oh, Jules, stop," Lucy said. "I thought doctors at least weren't as silly as other men."

Jules grinned at her. "I'm a Las Vegas doctor." He tickled the inside of her thigh and

was amazed how just a little thing like that could excite her so powerfully. It showed on

her face though she tried to hide it. She was really a very primitive, innocent girl. Then

why couldn't he make her come across (признаться, все выложить)? He had to figure

that one out and never mind the crap about a lost love that could never be replaced.

This was living tissue here under his hand and living tissue required other living tissue.

Dr. Jules Segal decided he would make the big push tonight at his apartment. He'd

wanted to make her come across without any trickery but if trickery there had to be, he

was the man for it. All in the interests of science of course. And, besides, this poor kid

was dying for it.

"Jules, stop, please stop," Lucy said. Her voice was trembling.

Jules was immediately contrite (сокрушающийся, кающийся ['kontraıt]). "OK, honey,"

he said. He put his head in her lap and using her soft thighs as a pillow, he took a little

nap. He was amused at her squirming (to squirm – извиваться, корчиться;

чувствовать неловкость, смущение), the heat that registered from her loins and when

she put her hand on his head to smooth his hair, he grasped her wrist playfully and held

it loverlike but really to feel her pulse. It was galloping. He'd get her tonight and he'd

solve the mystery, what the hell ever it was. Fully confident, Dr. Jules Segal fell asleep.

Lucy watched the people around the pool. She could never have imagined her life

would change so in less than two years. She never regretted her "foolishness" at

Connie Corleone's wedding. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to

her and she lived it over and over again in her dreams. As she lived over and over again

the months that followed.

Sonny had visited her once a week, sometimes more, never less. The days before

she saw him again her body was in torment (мука ['to:m∂nt]). Their passion for each

other was of the most elementary kind, undiluted (to dilute [‘daılju:t] – разжижать,

разбавлять) by poetry or any form of intellectualism. It was love of the coarsest nature,

a fleshly love, a love of tissue for opposing tissue.

When Sonny called to her he was coming she made certain there was enough liquor

in the apartment and enough food for supper and breakfast because usually he would

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not leave until late the next morning. He wanted his fill (хотел насытиться) of her as

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she wanted her fill of him. He had his own key and when he came in the door she would

fly into his massive arms. They would both be brutally direct, brutally primitive. During

their first kiss they would be fumbling at each other's clothing and he would be lifting her

in the air, and she would be wrapping her legs around his huge thighs. They would be

making love standing up in the foyer of her apartment as if they had to repeat their first

act of love together, and then he would carry her so to the bedroom.

They would lie in bed making love. They would live together in the apartment for

sixteen hours, completely naked. She would cook for him, enormous meals. Somtimes

he would get phone calls obviously about business but she never even listened to the

words. She would be too busy toying with his body, fondling it, kissing it, burying her

mouth in it. Sometimes when he got up to get a drink and he walked by her, she

couldn't help reaching out to touch his naked body, hold him, make love to him as if

those special parts of his body were a plaything, a specially constructed, intricate

(запутанный, замысловатый, сложный ['ıntrıkıt]) but innocent toy revealing its known,

but still surprising ecstasies. At first she had been ashamed of these excesses on her

part but soon saw that they pleased her lover, that her complete sensual enslavement

to his body flattered him. In all this there was an animal innocence. They were happy

together.

When Sonny's father was gunned down in the street, she understood for the first time

that her lover might be in danger. Alone in her apartment, she did not weep, she wailed

aloud, an animal wailing (to wail – вопить, выть). When Sonny did not come to see her

for almost three weeks she subsisted on sleeping pills, liquor and her own anguish

(мука, боль, острая тоска). The pain she felt was physical pain, her body ached. When

he finally did come she held on to his body at almost every moment. After that he came

at least once a week until he was killed.

She learned of his death through the newspaper accounts and that very same night

she took a massive overdose of sleeping pills. For some reason, instead of killing, the

pills made her so ill that she staggered out into the hall of her apartment and collapsed

in front of the elevator door where she was found and taken to the hospital. Her

relationship to Sonny was not generally known so her case received only a few inches

in the tabloid (малоформатная газета со сжатым текстом; бульварная газета)

newspapers.

It was while she was in the hospital that Tom Hagen came to see her and console her.

It was Tom Hagen who arranged a job for her in Las Vegas working in the hotel run by

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Sonny's brother Freddie. It was Tom Hagen who told her that she would receive an

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annuity (ежегодная рента [∂'nju:ıtı]) from the Corleone Family, that Sonny had made

provisions for her. He had asked her if she was pregnant, as if that were the reason for

her taking the pills and she had told him no. He asked her if Sonny had come to see her

that fatal night or had called that he would come to see her and she told him no, that

Sonny had not called. That she was always home waiting for him when she finished

working. And she had told Hagen the truth. "He's the only man I could ever love," she

said. "I can't love anybody else." She saw him smile a little but he also looked surprised.

"Do you find that so unbelievable?" she asked. "Wasn't he the one who brought you

home when you were a kid?"

"He was a different person," Hagen said, "he grew up to be a different kind of man."

"Not to me," Lucy said. "Maybe to everybody else, but not to me." She was still too

weak to explain how Sonny had never been anything but gentle with her. He'd never

been angry with her, never even irritable or nervous.

Hagen made all the arrangements for her to move to Las Vegas. A rented apartment

was waiting, he took her to the airport himself and he made her promise that if she ever

felt lonely or if things didn't go right, she would call him and he would help her in any

way he could.

Before she got on the plane she asked him hesitantly, "Does Sonny's father know

what you're doing?"

Hagen smiled, "I'm acting for him as well as myself. He's old-fashioned in these things

and he would never go against the legal wife of his son. But he feels that you were just

a young girl and Sonny should have known better. And your taking all those pills shook

everybody up." He didn't explain how incredible it was to a man like the Don that any

person should try suicide.

Now, after nearly eighteen months in Las Vegas, she was surprised to find herself

almost happy. Some nights she dreamed about Sonny and lying awake before dawn

continued her dream with her own caresses until she could sleep again. She had not

had a man since. But the life in Vegas agreed with her. She went swimming in the hotel

pools, sailed on Lake Mead and drove through the desert on her day off. She became

thinner and this improved her figure. She was still voluptuous but more in the American

than the old Italian style. She worked in the public relations section of the hotel as a

receptionist and had nothing to do with Freddie though when he saw her he would stop

and chat a little. She was surprised at the change in Freddie. He had become a ladies'

man, dressed beautifully, and seemed to have a real flair (чутье) for running a gambling

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resort. He controlled the hotel side, something not usually done by casino owners. With

the long, very hot summer seasons, or perhaps his more active sex life, he too had

become thinner and Hollywood tailoring made him look almost debonair

(жизнерадостный, веселый [deb∂’nε∂]) in a deadly sort of way.

It was after six months that Tom Hagen came out to see how she was doing. She had

been receiving a check for six hundred dollars a month, every month, in addition to her

salary. Hagen explained that this money had to be shown as coming from some place

and asked her to sign complete powers of attorney so that he could channel the money

properly. He also told her that as a matter of form she would be listed as owner of five

"points" in the hotel in which she worked. She would have to go through all the legal

formalities required by the Nevada laws but everything would be taken care of for her

and her own personal inconvenience would be at a minimum. However she was not to

discuss this arrangement with anyone without his consent. She would be protected

legally in every way and her money every month would be assured. If the authorities or

any law-enforcement (enforcement – давление, принуждение; принудительный)

agencies ever questioned her, she was to simply refer them to her lawyer and she

would not be bothered any further.

Lucy agreed. She understood what was happening but had no objections to how she

was being used. It seemed a reasonable favor. But when Hagen asked her to keep her

eyes open around the hotel, keep an eye on Freddie and on Freddie's boss, the man

who owned and operated the hotel, as a major stockholder (акционер), she said to him,

"Oh, Tom, you don't want me to spy on Freddie?"

Hagen smiled. "His father worries about Freddie. He's in fast company with Moe

Greene and we just want to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble." He didn't bother

to explain to her that the Don had backed the building of this hotel in the desert of Las

Vegas not only to supply a haven for his son, but to get a foot in the door for bigger

operations.

It was shortly after this interview that Dr. Jules Segal came to work as the hotel

physician. He was very thin, very handsome and charming and seemed very young to

be a doctor, at least to Lucy. She met him when a lump (опухоль, шишка) grew above

her wrist on her forearm. She worried about it for a few days, then one morning went to

the doctor's suite of offices in the hotel. Two of the show girls from the chorus line were

in the waiting room, gossiping with each other. They had the blond peach-colored

prettiness Lucy always envied. They looked angelic. But one of the girls was saying, "I

swear if I have another dose I'm giving up dancing."

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When Dr. Jules Segal opened his office door to motion one of the show girls inside,

Lucy was tempted to leave, and if it had been something more personal and serious she

would have. Dr. Segal was wearing slacks (широкие брюки) and an open shirt. The

horn-rimmed glasses helped and his quiet reserved manner, but the impression he gave

was an informal one, and like many basically old-fashioned people, Lucy didn't believe

that medicine and informality mixed.

When she finally got into his office there was something so reassuring in his manner

that all her misgivings fled. He spoke hardly at all and yet he was not brusque, and he

took his time. When she asked him what the lump was he patiently explained that it was

a quite common fibrous (волокнистый, фиброзный ['faıbr∂s]) growth that could in no

way be malignant (злокачественный [m∂’lıgn∂nt]) or a cause for serious concern. He

picked up a heavy medical book and said, "Hold out your arm."

She held out her arm tentatively (неуверенно; tentative ['tent∂tıv] – пробный,

опытный). He smiled at her for the first time. "I'm going to cheat myself out of a surgical

fee," he said. "I'll just smash it with this book and it will flatten out. It may pop up again

but if I remove it surgically, you'll be out of money and have to wear bandages and all

that. OK?"

She smiled at him. For some reason she had an absolute trust in him. "OK," she said.

In the next instant she let out a yell as he brought down the heavy medical volume on

her forearm. The lump had flattened out, almost.

"Did it hurt that much?" he asked.

"No," she said. She watched him completing her case history card. "Is that all?"

He nodded, not paying any more attention to her. She left.

A week later he saw her in the coffee shop and sat next to her at the counter. "How's

the arm?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "Fine," she said. "You're pretty unorthodox but you're pretty good."

He grinned at her. "You don't know how unorthodox I am. And I didn't know how rich

you were. The Vegas Sun just published the list of point owners in the hotel and Lucy

Mancini has a big ten points. I could have made a fortune on that little bump (опухоль,

шишка)."

She didn't answer him, suddenly reminded of Hagen's warnings. He grinned again.

"Don't worry, I know the score (я прекрасно понимаю ситуацию; score – зарубка,

метка), you're just one of the dummies (одна из дурочек; dummy – кукла, чучело;

манекен; марионетка; дурачок, дурочка), Vegas is full of them. How about seeing one

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of the shows with me tonight and I'll buy you dinner. I'll even buy you some roulette

chips."

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She was a little doubtful. He urged her. Finally she said, "I'd like to come but I'm afraid

you might be disappointed by how the night ends. I'm not really a swinger like most of

the girls here in Vegas."

"That's why I asked you," Jules said cheerfully. "I've prescribed a night's rest for

myself."

Lucy smiled at him and said a little sadly, "Is it that obvious?" He shook his head and

she said, "OK, supper then, but I'll buy my own roulette chips."

They went to the supper show and Jules kept her amused by describing different

types of bare thighs and breasts in medical terms; but without sneering, all in good

humor. Afterward they played roulette together at the same wheel and won over a

hundred dollars. Still later they drove up to Boulder Dam in the moonlight and he tried to

make love to her but when she resisted after a few kisses he knew that she really meant

no and stopped. Again he took his defeat with great good humor. "I told you I wouldn't,"

Lucy said with half-guilty reproach.

"You would have been awfully insulted if I didn't even try," Jules said. And she had to

laugh because it was true.

The next few months they became best friends. It wasn't love because they didn't

make love, Lucy wouldn't let him. She could see he was puzzled by her refusal but not

hurt the way most men would be and that made her trust him even more. She found out

that beneath his professional doctor's exterior he was wildly fun-loving and reckless. On

weekends he drove a souped-up MG (to soup up – увеличивать мощность

/двигателя/ [su:p]) in the California races. When he took a vacation he went down into

the interior of Mexico, the real wild country, he told her, where strangers were murdered

for their shoes and life was as primitive as a thousand years ago. Quite accidentally she

learned that he was a surgeon and had been connected with a famous hospital in New

York.

All this made her more puzzled than ever at his having taken the job at the hotel.

When she asked him about it, Jules said, "You tell me your dark secret and I'll tell you

mine."

She blushed and let the matter drop. Jules didn't pursue it either and their relationship

continued, a warm friendship that she counted on more than she realized.

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Now, sitting at the side of the pool with Jules' blond head in her lap, she felt an

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overwhelming tenderness for him. Her loins ached and without realizing it her fingers

sensuously stroked the skin of his neck. He seemed to be sleeping, not noticing, and

she became excited just by the feel of him against her. Suddenly he raised his head

from her lap and stood up. He took her by the hand and led her over the grass on to the

cement walk. She followed him dutifully even when he led her into one of the cottages

that held his private apartment. When they were inside he

fixed them both big drinks. After the blazing sun and her own sensuous thoughts the

drink went to her head and made her dizzy. Then Jules had his arms around her and

their bodies, naked except for scanty bathing suits, were pressed against each other.

Lucy was murmuring, "Don't," but there was no conviction in her voice and Jules paid no

attention to her. He quickly stripped her bathing bra off so that he could fondle her

heavy breasts, kissed them and then stripped off her bathing trunks and as he did so

kept kissing her body, her rounded belly and the insides of her thighs. He stood up,

struggling out of his own bathing shorts and embracing her, and then, naked in each

other's arms, they were lying on his bed and she could feel him entering her and it was

enough, just the slight touch, for her to reach her climax and then in the second

afterward she could read in the motions of his body, his surprise. She felt the

overwhelming shame she had felt before she knew Sonny, but Jules was twisting her

body over the edge of the bed, positioning her legs a certain way and she let him control

her limbs and her body, and then he was entering her again and kissing her and this

time she could feel him but more important she could tell that he was feeling something

too and coming to his climax.

When he rolled off her body, Lucy huddled into one corner of the bed and began to

cry. She felt so ashamed. And then she was shockingly surprised to hear Jules laugh

softly and say, "You poor benighted (застигнутый ночью; погруженный во мрак

/невежества/) Eye-talian girl, so that's why you kept refusing me all these months? You

dope (дурочка)." He said "you dope" with such friendly affection that she turned toward

him and he took her naked body against his saying, "You are medieval, you are

positively medieval." But the voice was soothingly comforting as she continued to weep.

Jules lit a cigarette and put it in her mouth so that she choked on the smoke and had

to stop crying. "Now listen to me," he said, "if you had had a decent modern raising with

a family culture that was part of the twentieth century your problem would have been

solved years ago. Now let me tell you what your problem is: it's not the equivalent of

being ugly, of having bad skin and squinty (косой, косоглазый; to squint – косить

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глазами) eyes that facial surgery really doesn't solve. Your problem is like having a wart

(бородавка [wo:t]) or a mole (родинка) on your chin, or an improperly formed ear. Stop

thinking of it in sexual terms. Stop thinking in your head that you have a big box no man

can love because it won't give his penis the necessary friction. What you have is a

pelvic (тазовый) malformation (неправильное образование, порок развития) and

what we surgeons call a weakening of the pelvic floor. It usually comes after child-

bearing but it can be simply bad bone structure. It's a common condition and many

women live a life of misery because of it when a simple operation could fix them up.

Some women even commit suicide because of it. But I never figured you for that

condition because you have such a beautiful body. I thought it was psychological, since

I know your story, you told it to me often enough, you and Sonny. But let me give you a

thorough physical examination and I can tell you just exactly how much work will have

to be done. Now go in and take a shower."

Lucy went in and took her shower. Patiently and over her protests, Jules made her lie

on the bed, legs spread apart. He had an extra doctor's bag in his apartment and it was

open. He also had a small glass-topped table by the bed which held some other

instruments. He was all business now, examining her, sticking his fingers inside her and

moving them around. She was beginning to feel humiliated when he kissed her on the

navel and said, almost absent-mindedly, "First time I've enjoyed my work." Then he

flipped her over and thrust a finger in her rectum, feeling around, but his other hand was

stroking her neck affectionately. When he was finished he turned her right side up again,

kissed her tenderly on the mouth and said, "Baby, I'm going to build you a whole new

thing down there, and then I'll try it out personally. It will be a medical first, I'll be able to

write a paper on it for the official journals."

Jules did everything with such good-humored affection, he so obviously cared for her,

that Lucy got over her shame and embarrassment. He even had the medical textbook

down off its shelf to show her a case like her own and the surgical procedure to correct

it. She found herself quite interested.

"It's a health thing too," Jules said. "If you don't get it corrected you're going to have a

hell of a lot of trouble later on with your whole plumbing system (водопроводная

система; plumb [plΛm] – отвес; лот, грузило). The structure becomes progressively

weaker unless it's corrected by surgery. It's a damn shame that old-fashioned prudery

([‘pru:d∂rı] – излишняя или притворная стыдливость) keeps a lot of doctors from

properly diagnosing and correcting the situation, and a lot of women from complaining

about it."

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"Don't talk about it, please don't talk about it," Lucy

said.

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He could see that she was still to some extent ashamed of her secret, embarrassed

by her "ugly defect." Though to his medically trained mind this seemed the height of

silliness, he was sensitive enough to identify with her. It also put him on the right track to

making her feel better.

"OK, I know your secret so now I'll tell you mine," he said. "You always ask me what

I'm doing in this town, one of the youngest and most brilliant surgeons in the East." He

was mocking some newspaper reports about himself. "The truth is that I'm an

abortionist, which in itself is not so bad, so is half the medical profession; but I got

caught. I had a friend, a doctor named Kennedy, we interned (intern – студент

медицинского колледжа или молодой врач, работающий в больнице и живущий

при ней) together, and he's a really straight guy but he said he'd help me. I understand

Tom Hagen had told him if he ever needed help on anything the Corleone Family was

indebted to him. So he spoke to Hagen. The next thing I know the charges were

dropped, but the Medical Association and the Eastern establishment had me black-

listed. So the Corleone Family got me this job out here. I make a good living. I do a job

that has to be done. These show girls are always getting knocked up and aborting them

is the easiest thing in the world if they come to me right away. I curette (кюретка /хир./;

выскабливать кюреткой [kju∂'ret]) 'em like you scrape a frying pan. Freddie Corleone

is a real terror. By my count he's knocked up fifteen girls while I've been here. I've

seriously considered giving him a father-to-son talk about sex. Especially since I've had

to treat him three times for clap (триппер) and once for syphilis. Freddie is the original

bareback (без седла, на неоседланной лошади) rider."

Jules stopped talking. He had been deliberately indiscreet, something he never did, so

that Lucy would know that other people, including someone she knew and feared a little

like Freddie Corleone, also had shameful secrets.

"Think of it as a piece of elastic in your body that has lost its elasticity," Jules said. "By

cutting out a piece, you make it tighter, snappier."

"I'll think about it," Lucy said, but she was sure she was going to go through with it,

she trusted Jules absolutely. Then she thought of something else. "How much will it

cost?"

Jules frowned. "I haven't the facilities here for surgery like that and I'm not the expert

at it. But I have a friend in Los Angeles who's the best in the field and has facilities at

the best hospital. In fact he tightens up all the movie stars, when those dames find out

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140

that getting their faces and breasts lifted isn't the whole answer to making a man love

them. He owes me a few favors so it won't cost anything. I do his abortions for him.

Listen, if it weren't unethical I'd tell you the names of some of the movie sex queens

who have had the operation."

She was immediately curious. "Oh, come on, tell me," she said. "Come on." It would

be a delicious piece of gossip and one of the things about Jules was that she could

show her feminine love of gossip without him making fun of it.

"I'll tell you if you have dinner with me and spend the night with me," Jules said. "We

have a lot of lost time to make up for because of your silliness."

Lucy felt an overwhelming affection to him for being so kind and she was able to say,

"You don't have to sleep with me, you know you won't enjoy it the way I am now."

Jules burst out laughing. "You dope, you incredible dope. Didn't you ever hear of any

other way of making love, far more ancient, far more civilized. Are you really that

innocent?"

"Oh that," she said.

"Oh that," he mimicked her. "Nice girls don't do that, manly men don't do that. Even in

the year 1948. Well, baby, I can take you to the house of a little old lady right here in

Las Vegas who was the youngest madam of the most popular whorehouse in the wild

west days, back in 1880, I think it was. She likes to talk about the old days. You know

what she told me? That those gunslingers (стрелки; агрессивные ребята; to sling –

швырять; метать из пращи; sling – праща; рогатка), those manly, virile, straight-

shooting cowboys would always ask the girls for a 'French,' what we doctors call fellatio,

what you call 'oh that.' Did you ever think of doing 'oh that' with your beloved Sonny?"

For the first time she truly surprised him. She turned on him with what he could think

of only as a Mona Lisa smile (his scientific mind immediately darting off on a tangent

(отклонился в сторону; tangent ['tжndG∂nt] – касательная; тангенс), could this be the

solving of that centuries-old mystery?) and said quietly, "I did everything with Sonny." It

was the first time she had ever admitted anything like that to anyone.

Two weeks later Jules Segal stood in the operating room of the Los Angeles hospital

and watched his friend Dr. Frederick Kellner perform the specialty. Before Lucy was put

under anesthesia, Jules leaned over and whispered, "I told him you were my special girl

so he's going to put in some real tight walls." But the preliminary pill had already made

her dopey and she didn't laugh or smile. His teasing remark did take away some of the

terror of the operation.

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Dr. Kellner made his incision (разрез, надрез) with the confidence of a pool (лужа,

прудок; омут, заводь) shark (акула) making an easy shot. The technique of any

operation to strengthen the pelvic floor required the accomplishment of two objectives.

The musculofibrous pelvic sling had to be shortened so that the slack was taken up.

And of course the vaginal opening, the weak spot itself in the pelvic floor, had to be

brought forward, brought under the pubic arch and so relieved from the line of direct

pressure above. Repairing the pelvic sling (ремень, канат) was called perincorrhaphy.

Suturing (to suture [‘sju:t∫∂] – накладывать шов) the vaginal wall was called

colporrhaphy.

Jules saw that Dr. Kellner was working carefully now, the big danger in the cutting

was going too deep and hitting the rectum. It was a fairly uncomplicated case, Jules had

studied all the X rays and tests. Nothing should go wrong except that in surgery

something could always go wrong.

Kellner was working on the diaphragm sling, the T forceps (хирургические щипцы,

пинцет ['fo:seps]) held the vaginal flap (что-либо, прикрепленное за один конец;

клапан), and exposing the ani muscle and the fasci (фасции) which formed its sheath.

Kellner's gauze-covered (gauze [go:z] – газ /материя/; марля) fingers were pushing

aside loose connective tissue. Jules kept his eyes on the vaginal wall for the

appearance of the veins, the telltale danger signal of injuring the rectum. But old Kellner

knew his stuff. He was building a new snatch as easily as a carpenter nails together

two-by-four studs (stud – гвоздь с большой шляпокй; штифт).

Kellner was trimming away the excess vaginal wall using the fastening-down stitch to

close the "bite" taken out of the tissue of the redundant (излишний, чрезмерный

[rı'dΛnd∂nt]) angle, insuring that no troublesome projections would form. Kellner was

trying to insert three fingers into the narrowed opening of the lumen (канал, проход

/анат./ ['lu:m∂n]), then two. He just managed to get two fingers in, probing deeply and

for a moment he looked up at Jules and his china-blue eyes over the gauze mask

twinkled as though asking if that was narrow enough. Then he was busy again with his

sutures.

It was all over. They wheeled Lucy out to the recovery room and Jules talked to

Kellner. Kellner was cheerful, the best sign that everything had gone well. "No

complications at all, my boy," he told Jules. "Nothing growing in there, very simple case.

She has wonderful body tone, unusual in these cases and now she's in first-class shape

for fun and games. I envy you, my boy. Of course you'll have to wait a little while but

then I guarantee you'll like my work."

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Jules laughed. "You're a true Pygmalion, Doctor. Really, you were marvelous."

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Dr. Kellner grunted. "That's all child's play, like your abortions. If society would only be

realistic, people like you and I, really talented people, could do important work and leave

this stuff for the hacks (наемная лошадь; поденщик). By the way, I'll be sending you a

girl next week, a very nice girl, they seem to be the ones who always get in trouble. That

will make us all square (так мы сочтемся) for this job today."

Jules shook his hand. "Thanks, Doctor. Come out yourself sometime and I'll see that

you get all the courtesies of the house."

Kellner gave him a wry smile. "I gamble every day, I don't need your roulette wheels

and crap tables. I knock heads with fate too often as it is. You're going to waste out

there, Jules. Another couple of years and you can forget about serious surgery. You

won't be up to it." He turned away.

Jules knew it was not meant as a reproach but as a warning. Yet it took the heart out

of him anyway. Since Lucy wouldn't be out of the recovery room for at least twelve

hours, he went out on the town and got drunk. Part of getting drunk was his feeling of

relief that everything had worked out so well with Lucy.

The next morning when he went to the hospital to visit her he was surprised to find

two men at her bedside and flowers all over the room. Lucy was propped up on pillows,

her face radiant. Jules was surprised because Lucy had broken with her family and had

told him not to notify them unless something went wrong. Of course Freddie Corleone

knew she was in the hospital for a minor operation; that had been necessary so that

they both could get time off, and Freddie had told Jules that the hotel would pick up all

the bills for Lucy.

Lucy was introducing them and one of the men Jules recognized instantly. The

famous Johnny Fontane. The other was a big, muscular, snotty-looking Italian guy

whose name was Nino Valenti. They both shook hands with Jules and then paid no

further attention to him. They were kidding Lucy, talking about the old neighborhood in

New York, about people and events Jules had no way of sharing. So he said to Lucy,

"I'll drop by later, I have to see Dr. Kellner anyway."

But Johnny Fontane was turning the charm on him. "Hey, buddy, we have to leave

ourselves, you keep Lucy company. Take good care of her, Doc." Jules noticed a

peculiar hoarseness in Johnny Fontane's voice and remembered suddenly that the man

hadn't sung in public for over a year now, that he had won the Academy Award for his

acting. Could the man's voice have changed so late in life and the papers keeping it a

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secret, everybody keeping it a secret? Jules loved inside gossip and kept listening to

Fontane's voice in an attempt to diagnose the trouble. It could be simple strain

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(растяжение), or too much booze and cigarettes or even too much women. The voice

had an ugly timbre to it, he could never be called the sweet crooner (эстрадный певец;

croon – тихое проникновенное пение; to croon – напевать вполголоса) anymore.

"You sound like you have a cold," Jules said to Johnny Fontane.

Fontane said politely, "Just strain, I tried to sing last night. I guess I just can't accept the

fact that my voice changed, getting old you know." He gave Jules a what-the-hell grin

(усмешка, как бы говорящая: «Какого черта?»).

Jules said casually, "Didn't you get a doctor to look at it? Maybe it's something that

can be fixed."

Fontane was not so charming now. He gave Jules a long cool look. "That's the first

thing I did nearly two years ago. Best specialists. My own doctor who's supposed to be

the top guy out here in California. They told me to get a lot of rest. Nothing wrong, just

getting older. A man's voice changes when he gets older."

Fontane ignored him after that, paying attention to Lucy, charming her as he charmed

all women. Jules kept listening to the voice. There had to be a growth on those vocal

cords. But then why the hell hadn't the specialists spotted it? Was it malignant and

inoperable? Then there was other stuff.

He interrupted Fontane to ask, "When was the last time you got examined by a

specialist?"

Fontane was obviously irritated but trying to be polite for Lucy's sake. "About eighteen

months ago," he said.

"Does your own doctor take a look once in a while?" Jules asked.

"Sure he does," Johnny Fontane said irritably. "He gives me a codeine spray and

checks me out. He told me it's just my voice aging, that all the drinking and smoking and

other stuff. Maybe you know more than he does?"

Jules asked, "What's his name?"

Fontane said with just a faint flicker of pride, "Tucker, Dr. James Tucker. What do you

think of him?"

The name was familiar, linked to famous movie stars, female, and to an expensive

health farm.

"He's a sharp dresser," Jules said with a grin.

Fontane was angry now. "You think you're a better doctor than he is?"

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Jules laughed. "Are you a better singer than Carmen Lombardo?" He was surprised to

see Nino Valenti break up in laughter, banging his head on his chair. The job hadn't

been that good. Then on the wings of those guffaws (guffaw [gΛ'fo:] – грубый хохот,

гогот) he caught the smell of bourbon (сорт виски ['bu∂b∂n]) and knew that even this

early in the morning Mr. Valenti, whoever the hell he was, was at least half drunk.

Fontane was grinning at his friend. "Hey, you're supposed to be laughing at my jokes,

not his." Meanwhile Lucy stretched out her hand to Jules and drew him to her bedside.

"He looks like a bum (задница /груб./; бездельник, лодырь; плохой, низкого

качества) but he's a brilliant (блестящий) surgeon," Lucy told them. "If he says he's

better than Dr. Tucker then he's better than Dr. Tucker. You listen to him, Johnny."

The nurse came in and told them they would have to leave. The resident was going to

do some work on Lucy and needed privacy. Jules was amused to see Lucy turn her

head away so when Johnny Fontane and Nino Valenti kissed her they would hit her

cheek instead of her mouth, but they seemed to expect it. She let Jules kiss her on the

mouth and whispered, "Come back this afternoon, please?" He nodded.

Out in the corridor, Valenti asked him, "What was the operation for? Anything

serious?"

Jules shook his head. "Just a little female plumbing. Absolutely routine, please believe

me. I'm more concerned than you are, I hope to marry the girl."

They were looking at him appraisingly so he asked, "How did you find out she was in

the hospital?"

"Freddie called us and asked us to look in," Fontane said. "We all grew up in the same

neighborhood. Lucy was maid of honor when Freddie's sister got married."

"Oh," Jules said. He didn't let on that he knew the whole story, perhaps because they

were so cagey (уклончивый) about protecting Lucy and her affair with Sonny.

As they walked down the corridor, Jules said to Fontane, "I have visiting doctor's

privileges here, why don't you let me have a look at your throat?"

Fontane shook his head. "I'm in a hurry."

Nino Valenti said, "That's a million-dollar throat, he can't have cheap doctors looking

down it." Jules saw Valenti was grinning at him, obviously on his side.

Jules said cheerfully, "I'm no cheap doctor. I was the brightest young surgeon and

diagnostician on the East Coast until they got me on an abortion rap (легкий удар;

ответственность /за проступок/, обвинение, наказание /сленг/)."

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145

As he had known it would, that made them take him seriously. By admitting his crime

he inspired belief in his claim of high competence. Valenti recovered first. "If Johnny

can't use you, I got a girl friend I want you to look at, not at her throat though."

Fontane said to him nervously, "How long will you take?"

"Ten minutes," Jules said. It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth

telling and medicine just didn't go together except in dire (ужасный, страшный;

крайний) emergencies (emergency [ı‘m∂:dG∂ns] – непредвиденный случай, крайняя

необходимость), if then.

"OK," Fontane said. His voice was darker, hoarser, with fright.

Jules recruited a nurse and a consulting room. It didn't have everything he needed but

there was enough. In less than ten minutes he knew there was a growth on the vocal

chords, that was easy. Tucker, that incompetent sartorial (портняжный, портновский)

son of a bitch of a Hollywood phony, should have been able to spot it. Christ, maybe the

guy didn't even have a license and if he did it should be taken away from him. Jules

didn't pay any attention to the two men now. He picked up the phone and asked for the

throat man at the hospital to come down. Then he swung around and said to Nino

Valenti, "I think it might be a long wait for you, you'd better leave."

Fontane stared at him in utter disbelief. "You son of a bitch, you think you're going to

keep me here? You think you're going to fuck around with my throat?"

Jules, with more pleasure than he would have thought possible, gave it to him straight

between the eyes. "You can do whatever you like," he said. "You've got a growth of

some sort on your vocal chords, in your larynx. If you stay here the next few hours, we

can nail it down, whether it's malignant or nonmalignant. We can make a decision for

surgery or treatment. I can give you the whole story. I can give you the name of a top

specialist in America and we can have him out here on the plane tonight, with your

money that is, and if I think it necessary. But you can walk out of here and see your

quack (знахарь; шарлатан) buddy or sweat while you decide to see another doctor, or

get referred to somebody incompetent. Then if it's malignant and gets big enough they'll

cut out your whole larynx or you'll die. Or you can just sweat. Stick here with me and we

can get it all squared away in a few hours. You got anything more important to do?"

Valenti said, "Let's stick around, Johnny, what the hell. I'll go down the hall and call

the studio. I won't tell them anything, just that we're held up. Then I'll come back here

and keep you company."

It proved to be a very long afternoon but a rewarding one. The diagnosis of the staff

throat man was perfectly sound as far as Jules could see after the X rays and swab

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(мазок /мед./) analysis. Halfway through, Johnny Fontane, his mouth soaked with

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iodine, retching (to retch – рыгать, тужиться /при рвоте/) over the roll of gauze stuck in

his mouth, tried to quit. Nino Valenti grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him

back into a chair. When it was all over Jules grinned at Fontane and said, "Warts."

Fontane didn't grasp it. Jules said again. "Just some warts. We'll slice them right off

like skin off baloney (= Bologna-sausage – болонская /копченая/ колбаса). In a few

months you'll be OK."

Valenti let out a yell but Fontane was still frowning. "How about singing afterward, how

will it affect my singing?"

Jules shrugged. "On that there's no guarantee. But since you can't sing now what's

the difference?"

Fontane looked at him with distaste. "Kid, you don't know what the hell you're talking

about. You act like you're giving me good news when what you're telling me is maybe I

won't sing anymore. Is that right, maybe I won't sing anymore?"

Finally Jules was disgusted. He'd operated as a real doctor and it had been a

pleasure. He had done this bastard a real favor and he was acting as if he'd been done

dirt. Jules said coldly, "Listen, Mr. Fontane, I'm a doctor of medicine and you can call

me Doctor, not kid. And I did give you very good news. When I brought you down here I

was certain that you had a malignant growth in your larynx which would entail

(повлечет за собой) cutting out your whole voice box. Or which could kill you. I was

worried that I might have to tell you that you were a dead man. And I was so delighted

when I could say the word 'warts.' Because your singing gave me so much pleasure,

helped me seduce girls when I was younger and you're a real artist. But also you're a

very spoiled guy. Do you think because you're Johnny Fontane you can't get cancer? Or

a brain tumor that's inoperable. Or a failure of the heart? Do you think you're never

going to die? Well, it's not all sweet music and if you want to see real trouble take a

walk through this hospital and you'll sing a love song about warts. So just stop the crap

and get on with what you have to do. Your Adolphe Menjou (американский актер

(1890 – 1963), изысканно-аристократический) medical man can get you the proper

surgeon but if he tries to get into the operating room I suggest you have him arrested for

attempted murder."

Jules started to walk out of the room when Valenti said, "Attaboy (= at-a-boy –

молодец, молодчина), Doc, that's telling him."

Jules whirled around and said, "Do you always get looped (напившийся,

надрызгавшийся /сленг/; loop – петля) before noontime?"

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Valenti said, "Sure," and grinned at him and with such good humor that Jules said

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more gently than he had meant to, "You have to figure you'll be dead in five years if you

keep that up."

Valenti was lumbering (to lumber – тяжело, неуклюже двигаться; lumber –

ненужные громоздкие вещи; бревна) up to him with little dancing steps. He threw his

arms around Jules, his breath stank of bourbon. He was laughing very hard. "Five

years?" he asked still laughing. "Is it going to take that long?"

A month after her operation Lucy Mancini sat beside the Vegas hotel pool, one hand

holding a cocktail, the other hand stroking Jules' head, which lay in her lap.

"You don't have to build up your courage," Jules said teasingly. "I have champagne

waiting in our suite."

"Are you sure it's OK so soon?" Lucy asked.

"I'm the doctor," Jules said. "Tonight's the big night. Do you realize I'll be the first

surgeon in medical history who tried out the results of his 'medical first' operation? You

know, the Before and After. I'm going to enjoy writing it up for the journals. Let's see,

'while the Before was distinctly pleasurable for psychological reasons and the

sophistication of the surgeon-instructor, the post-operative coitus was extremely

rewarding strictly for its neurological" – he stopped talking because Lucy had yanked on

his hair hard enough for him to yell with pain.

She smiled down at him. "If you're not satisfied tonight I can really say it's your fault,"

she said.

"I guarantee my work. I planned it even though I just let old Kellner do the manual

labor," Jules said. "Now let's just rest up, we have a long night of research ahead."

When they went up to their suite – they were living together now – Lucy found a

surprise waiting: a gourmet (гурман /франц./ ['gu∂meı]) supper and next to her

champagne glass, a jeweler's box with a huge diamond engagement ring inside it.

"That shows you how much confidence I have in my work," Jules said. "Now let's see

you earn it."

He was very tender, very gentle with her. She was a little scary at first, her flesh

jumping away from his touch but then, reassured, she felt her body building up to a

passion she had never known, and when they were done the first time and Jules

whispered, "I do good work," she whispered back, "Oh, yes, you do; yes, you do." And

they both laughed to each other as they started making love again.

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Book 6

Chapter 23

After five months of exile in Sicily, Michael Corleone came finally to understand his

father's character and his destiny. He carne to understand men like Luca Brasi, the

ruthless caporegime Clemenza. his mother's resignation and acceptance of her role.

For in Sicily he saw what they would have been if they had chosen not to struggle

against their fate. He understood why the Don always said, "A man has only one

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destiny." He came to understand the contempt for authority and legal government, the

hatred for any man who broke omerta, the law of silence.

Dressed in old clothes and a billed cap, Michael had been transported from the ship

docked at Palermo to the interior of the Sicilian island, to the very heart of a province

controlled by the Mafia, where the local capo-mafioso was greatly indebted to his father

for some past service. The province held the town of Corleone, whose name the Don

had taken when he emigrated to Arnerica so long ago. But there were no longer any of

the Don's relatives alive. The women had died of old age. All the men had been killed in

vendettas or had also emigrated, either to America, Brazil or to some other province on

the Italian mainland. He was to learn later that this small poverty-stricken town had the

highest murder rate of any place in the world.

Michael was installed as a guest in the home of a bachelor uncle of the capo-mafioso.

The uncle, in his seventies, was also the doctor for the district. The capo-mafioso was a

man in his late fifties named Don Tommasino and he operated as the gabbellotto for a

huge estate belonging to one of Sicily's most noble families. The gabbellotto, a sort of

overseer to the estates of the rich, also guaranteed that the poor would not try to claim

land not being cultivated, would not try to encroach (вторгаться, покушаться на чужие

права) in any way on the estate, by poaching (to poach – браконьерствовать;

незаконно вторгаться в чужие владения) or trying to farm it as squatters

(поселившийся незаконно на незанятой земле; to squat – сидеть на корточках). In

short, the gabbellotto was a mafioso who for a certain sum of money protected the real

estate of the rich from all claims made on it by the poor, legal or illegal. When any poor

peasant tried to implement (выполнять, осуществлять, обеспечивать выполнение)

the law which permitted him to buy uncultivated land, the gabbellotto frightened him off

with threats of bodily harm or death. It was that simple.

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Don Tommasino also controlled the water rights in the area and vetoed the local

building of any new dams by the Roman government. Such dams would ruin the

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lucrative business of selling water from the artesian wells he controlled, make water too

cheap, ruin the whole important water economy so laboriously built up over hundreds of

years. However, Don Tommasino was an old-fashioned Mafia chief and would have

nothing to do with dope traffic or prostitution. In this Don Tommasino was at odds with

the new breed of Mafia leaders springing up in big cities like Palermo, new men who,

influenced by American gangsters deported to Italy, had no such scruples.

The Mafia chief was an extremely portly (полный, дородный; представительный)

man, a "man with a belly," literally as well as in the figurative sense that meant a man

able to inspire fear in his fellow men. Under his protection, Michael had nothing to fear,

yet it was considered necessary to keep the fugitive's identity a secret. And so Michael

was restricted to the walled estate of Dr. Taza, the Don's uncle.

Dr. Taza was tall for a Sicilian, almost six feet, and had ruddy cheeks and snow-white

hair. Though in his seventies, he went every week to Palermo to pay his respects to the

younger prostitutes of that city, the younger the better. Dr. Taza's other vice was

reading. He read everything and talked about what he read to his fellow townsmen,

patients who were illiterate peasants, the estate shepherds, and this gave him a local

reputation for foolishness. What did books have to do with them?

In the evenings Dr. Taza, Don Tommasino and Michael sat in the huge garden

populated with those marble statues that on this island seemed to grow out of the

garden as magically as the black heady grapes. Dr. Taza loved to tell stories about the

Mafia and its exploits over the centuries and in Michael Corleone he had a fascinated

listener. There were times when even Don Tommasino would be carried away by the

balmy air, the fruity, intoxicating wine, the elegant and quiet comfort of the garden, and

tell a story from his own practical experience. The doctor was the legend, the Don the

reality.

In this antique garden, Michael Corleone learned about the roots from which his father

grew. That the word "Mafia" had originally meant place of refuge. Then it became the

name for the secret organization that sprang up to fight against the rulers who had

crushed the country and its people for centuries. Sicily was a land that had been more

cruelly raped than any other in history. The Inquisition had tortured rich and poor alike.

The landowning barons and the princes of the Catholic Church exercised absolute

power over the shepherds and farmers. The police were the instruments of their power

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and so identified with them that to be called a policeman is the foulest insult one Sicilian

can hurl (бросать, швырять) at another.

Faced with the savagery of this absolute power, the suffering people learned never to

betray their anger and their hatred for fear of being crushed. They learned never to

make themselves vulnerable by uttering any sort of threat since giving such a warning

insured a quick reprisal (репрессалия). They learned that society was their enemy and

so when they sought redress for their wrongs they went to the rebel underground the

Mafia. And the Mafia cemented its power by originating the law of silence, the omerta.

In the countryside of Sicily a stranger asking directions to the nearest town will not even

receive the courtesy of an answer. And the greatest crime any member of the Mafia

could commit would be to tell the police the name of the man who had just shot him or

done him any kind of injury. Omerta became the religion of the people. A woman whose

husband has been murdered would not tell the police the name of her husband's

murderer, not even of her child's murderer, her daughter's raper.

Justice had never been forthcoming (предстоящий, грядущий; ожидаемый) from the

authorities and so the people had always gone to the Robin Hood Mafia. And to some

extent the Mafia still fulfilled this role. People turned to their local capo-mafioso for help

in every emergency. He was their social worker, their district captain ready with a

basket of food and a job, their protector.

But what Dr. Taza did not add, what Michael learned on his own in the months that

followed, was that the Mafia in Sicily had become the illegal arm of the rich and even

the auxiliary police of the legal and political structure. It had become a degenerate

capitalist structure, anti-communist, anti-liberal, placing its own taxes on every form of

business endeavor no matter how small.

Michael Corleone understood for the first time why men like his father chose to

become thieves and murderers rather than members of the legal society. The poverty

and fear and degradation were too awful to be acceptable to any man of spirit. And in

America some emigrating Sicilians had assumed there would be an equally cruel

authority.

Dr. Taza offered to take Michael into Palermo with him on his weekly visit to the

bordello but Michael refused. His flight to Sicily had prevented him from getting proper

medical treatment for his smashed jaw and he now carried a memento from Captain

McCluskey on the left side of his face. The bones had knitted badly, throwing his profile

askew (криво, косо), giving him the appearance of depravity (порочность,

развращенность [dı'prжvıtı]) when viewed from that side. He had always been vain

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about his looks and this upset him more than he thought possible. The pain that came

and went he didn't mind at all, Dr. Taza gave him some pills that deadened it. Taza

offered to treat his face but Michael refused. He had been there long enough to learn

that Dr. Taza was perhaps the worst physician in Sicily. Dr. Taza read everything but his

medical literature, which he admitted he could not understand. He had passed his

medical exams through the good offices of the most important Mafia chief in Sicily who

had made a special trip to Palermo to confer with Taza's professors about what grades

they should give him. And this too showed how the Mafia in Sicily was cancerous to the

society it inhabited. Merit (заслуга, достоинство) meant nothing. Talent meant nothing.

Work meant nothing. The Mafia Godfather gave you your profession as a gift.

Michael had plenty of time to think things out. During the day he took walks in the

countryside, always accompanied by two of the shepherds attached to Don

Tommasino's estate. The shepherds of the island were often recruited to act as the

Mafia's hired killers and did their job simply to earn money to live. Michael thought about

his father's organization. If it continued to prosper it would grow into what had happened

here on this island, so cancerous that it would destroy the whole country. Sicily was

already a land of ghosts, its men emigrating to every other country on earth to be able

to earn their bread, or simply to escape being murdered for exercising their political and

economic freedoms.

On his long walks the most striking thing in Michael's eyes was the magnificent beauty

of the country; he walked through the orange orchards that formed shady deep caverns

through the countryside with their ancient conduits (трубопровод; акведук ['kondıt])

splashing water out of the fanged (fang – клык) mouths of great snake stones carved

before Christ. Houses built like ancient Roman villas, with huge marble portals and

great vaulted (vault [vo:lt] – свод) rooms, falling into ruins or inhabited by stray

(заблудившееся или отбившееся от стада животное) sheep. On the horizon the

bony hills shone like picked bleached (to bleach – белить, отбеливать; побелеть)

bones piled high. Gardens and fields, sparkly green, decorated the desert landscape

like bright emerald necklaces. And sometimes he walked as far as the town of Corleone,

its eighteen thousand people strung out (to string out – растягивать вереницей) in

dwellings that pitted the side of the nearest mountain, the mean hovels (лачуга,

хибарка ['hov∂l]) built out of black rock quarried (to quarry – добывать камень /из

карьера/; quarry – каменоломня) from that mountain. In the last year there had been

over sixty murders in Corleone and it seemed that death shadowed the town. Further on,

the wood of Ficuzza broke the savage monotony of arable (пахотный ['жr∂bl]) plain.

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His two shepherd bodyguards always carried their luparas with them when

accompanying Michael on his walks. The deadly Sicilian shotgun was the favorite

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weapon of the Mafia. Indeed the police chief sent by Mussolini to clean the Mafia out of

Sicily had, as one of his first steps, ordered all stone walls in Sicily to be knocked down

to not more than three feet in height so that murderers with their luparas could not use

the walls as ambush points for their assassinations. This didn't help much and the

police minister solved his problem by arresting and deporting to penal colonies any

male suspected of being a mafioso.

When the island of Sicily was liberated by the Allied Armies, the American military

government officials believed that anyone imprisoned by the Fascist regime was a

democrat and many of these mafiosi were appointed as mayors of villages or

interpreters to the military government. This good fortune enabled the Mafia to

reconstitute itself and become more formidable than ever before.

The long walks, a bottle of strong wine at night with a heavy plate of pasta and meat,

enabled Michael to sleep. There were books in Italian in Dr. Taza's library and though

Michael spoke dialect Italian and had taken some college courses in Italian, his reading

of these books took a great deal of effort and time. His speech became almost

accentless and, though he could never pass as a native of the district, it would be

believed that he was one of those strange Italians from the far north of Italy bordering

the Swiss and Germans.

The distortion of the left side of his face made him more native. It was the kind of

disfigurement common in Sicily because of the lack of medical care. The little injury that

cannot be patched up simply for lack of money. Many children, many men, bore

disfigurements that in America would have been repaired by minor surgery or

sophisticated medical treatments.

Michael often thought of Kay, of her smile, her body, and always felt a twinge of

conscience at leaving her so brutally without a word of farewell. Oddly enough his

conscience was never troubled by the two men he had murdered; Sollozzo had tried to

kill his father, Captain McCluskey had disfigured him for life.

Dr. Taza always kept after him about getting surgery done for his lopsided face,

especially when Michael asked him for pain-killing drugs, the pain getting worse as time

went on, and more frequent. Taza explained that there was a facial nerve below the eye

from which radiated a whole complex of nerves. Indeed, this was the favorite spot for

Mafia torturers, who searched it out on the cheeks of their victims with the needle-fine

point of an ice pick. That particular nerve in Michael's face had been injured or perhaps

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there was a splinter of bone lanced into it. Simple surgery in a Palermo hospital would

permanently relieve the pain.

Michael refused. When the doctor asked why, Michael grinned and said, "It's

something from home."

And he really didn't mind the pain, which was more an ache, a small throbbing in his

skull, like a motored apparatus running in liquid to purify it.

It was nearly seven months of leisurely rustic (сельский, деревенский; простой,

грубый [‘rΛstık]) living before Michael felt real boredom. At about this time Don

Tommasino became very busy and was seldom seen at the villa. He was having his

troubles with the "new Mafia" springing up in Palermo, young men who were making a

fortune out of the postwar construction boom in that city. With this wealth they were

trying to encroach on the country fiefs of old-time Mafia leaders whom they

contemptuously labeled Moustache Petes. Don Tommasino was kept busy defending

his domain. And so Michael was deprived of the old man's company and had to be

content with Dr. Taza's stories, which were beginning to repeat themselves.

One morning Michael decided to take a long hike to the mountains beyond Corleone.

He was, naturally, accompanied by the two shepherd bodyguards. This was not really a

protection against enemies of the Corleone Family. It was simply too dangerous for

anyone not a native to go wandering about by himself. It was dangerous enough for a

native. The region was loaded with bandits, with Mafia partisans fighting against each

other and endangering everybody else in the process. He might also be mistaken for a

pagliaio thief.

A pagliaio is a straw-thatched hut erected in the fields to house farming tools and to

provide shelter for the agricultural laborers so that they will not have to carry them on

the long walk from their homes in the village. In Sicily the peasant does not live on the

land he cultivates. It is too dangerous and any arable land, if he owns it, is too precious.

Rather, he lives in his village and at sunrise begins his voyage out to work in distant

fields, a commuter (to commute – совершать регулярные поездки из дома на работу

/в отдаленное место, например, из пригорода в город/) on foot. A worker who

arrived at his pagliaio and found it looted was an injured man indeed. The bread was

taken out of his mouth for that day. The Mafia, after the law proved helpless, took this

interest of the peasant under its protection and solved the problem in typical fashion. It

hunted down and slaughtered all pagliaio thieves. It was inevitable that some innocents

suffered. It was possible that if Michael wandered past a pagliaio that had just been

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looted he might be adjudged (to adjudge – выносить приговор, признавать виновным)

the criminal unless he had somebody to vouch (поручиться) for him.

So on one sunny morning he started hiking (to hike – путешествовать, бродить

пешком; бродяжничать) across the fields followed by his two faithful shepherds. One

of them was a plain simple fellow, almost moronic (слабоумный), silent as the dead

and with a face as impassive as an Indian. He had the wiry small build of the typical

Sicilian before they ran to the fat of middle age. His name was Calo.

The other shepherd was more outgoing, younger, and had seen something of the

world. Mostly oceans, since he had been a sailor in the Italian navy during the war and

had just had time enough to get himself tattooed before his ship was sunk and he was

captured by the British. But the tattoo made him a famous man in his village. Sicilians

do not often let themselves be tattooed, they do not have the opportunity nor the

inclination. (The shepherd, Fabrizzio, had done so primarily to cover a splotchy (splotch

– большое неровное пятно) red birthmark on his belly.) And yet the Mafia market carts

had gaily painted scenes on their sides, beautifully primitive paintings done with loving

care. In any case, Fabrizzio, back in his native village, was not too proud of that tattoo

on his chest, though it showed a subject dear to the Sicilian "honor," a husband

stabbing a naked man and woman entwined together on the hairy floor of his belly.

Fabrizzio would joke with Michael and ask questions about America, for of course it was

impossible to keep them in the dark about his true nationality. Still, they did not know

exactly who he was except that he was in hiding and there could be no babbling (to

babble – болтать; выбалтывать, проболтаться) about him. Fabrizzio sometimes

brought Michael a fresh cheese still sweating the milk that formed it.

They walked along dusty country roads passing donkeys pulling gaily painted carts.

The land was filled with pink flowers, orange orchards, groves of almond (рощи

миндаля ['a:m∂nd]) and olive trees, all blooming. That had been one of the surprises.

Michael had expected a barren land because of the legendary poverty of Sicilians. And

yet he had found it a land of gushing (to gush – хлынуть, литься потоком) plenty,

carpeted with flowers scented by lemon blossoms. It was so beautiful that he wondered

how its people could bear to leave it. How terrible man had been to his fellow man could

be measured by the great exodus from what seemed to be a Garden of Eden.

He had planned to walk to the coastal village of Mazara, and then take a bus back to

Corleone in the evening, and so tire himself out and be able to sleep. The two

shepherds wore rucksacks filled with bread and cheese they could eat on the way. They

carried their luparas quite openly as if out for a day's hunting.

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It was a most beautiful morning. Michael felt as he had felt when as a child he had

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gone out early on a summer day to play ball. Then each day had been freshly washed,

freshly painted. And so it was now. Sicily was carpeted in gaudy (яркий, кричащий;

цветистый ['go:dı]) flowers, the scent of orange and lemon blossoms so heavy that

even with his facial injury which pressed on the sinuses (sinus ['saın∂s] – пазуха

/анат./), he could smell it.

The smashing on the left side of his face had completely healed but the bone had

formed improperly and the pressure on his sinuses made his left eye hurt. It also made

his nose run continually, he filled up handkerchiefs with mucus (слизь ['mju:k∂s]) and

often blew his nose out onto the ground as the local peasants did, a habit that had

disgusted him when he was a boy and had seen old Italians, disdaining handkerchiefs

as English foppery (щегольство), blow out their noses in the asphalt gutters.

His face too felt "heavy." Dr. Taza had told him that this was due to the pressure on

his sinuses caused by the badly healed fracture. Dr. Taza called it an eggshell fracture

of the zygoma; that if it had been treated before the bones knitted, it could have been

easily remedied by a minor surgical procedure using an instrument like a spoon to push

out the bone to its proper shape. Now, however, said the doctor, he would have to

check into a Palermo hospital and undergo a major procedure called maxillo-facial

surgery where the bone would be broken again. That was enough for Michael. He

refused. And yet more than the pain, more than the nose dripping, he was bothered by

the feeling of heaviness in his face.

He never reached the coast that day. After going about fifteen miles he and his

shepherds stopped in the cool green watery shade of an orange grove to eat lunch and

drink their wine. Fabrizzio was chattering about how he would someday get to America.

After drinking and eating they lolled (to loll [lol] – сидеть развалясь) in the shade and

Fabrizzio unbuttoned his shirt and contracted his stomach muscles to make the tattoo

come alive. The naked couple on his chest writhed in a lover's agony and the dagger

thrust by the husband quivered in their transfixed (to transfix [trжns’fıks] – пронзать,

прокалывать) flesh. It amused them. It was while this was going on that Michael was hit

with what the Sicilians call "the thunderbolt."

Beyond the orange grove lay the green ribboned fields of a baronial estate. Down the

road from the grove was a villa so Roman it looked as if it had been dug up from the

ruins of Pompeii. It was a little palace with a huge marble portico and fluted (flute –

канелюра, желобок /архит./) Grecian columns and through those columns came a

bevy (стая /птиц/; общество, собрание /женщин/ ['bevı]) of village girls flanked by two

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stout matrons clad in black. They were from the village and had obviously fulfilled their

ancient duty to the local baron by cleaning his villa and otherwise preparing it for his

winter sojourn (временное пребывание [‘sodG∂:n]). Now they were going into the

fields to pick the flowers with which they would fill the rooms. They were gathering the

pink sulla, purple wisteria (глициния), mixing them with orange and lemon blossoms.

The girls, not seeing the men resting in the orange grove, came closer and closer.

They were dressed in cheap gaily printed frocks that clung to their bodies. They were

still in their teens but with the full womanliness sundrenched flesh ripened into so

quickly. Three or four of them started chasing one girl, chasing her toward the grove.

The girl being chased held a bunch of huge purple grapes in her left hand and with her

right hand was picking grapes off the cluster and throwing them at her pursuers. She

had a crown of ringleted hair as purple-black as the grapes and her body seemed to be

bursting out of its skin.

Just short of the grove she poised, startled, her eyes having caught the alien color of

the men's shirts. She stood there up on her toes poised like a deer to run. She was very

close now, close enough for the men to see every feature of her face.

She was all ovals – oval-shaped eyes, the bones of her face, the contour of her brow.

Her skin was an exquisite dark creaminess and her eyes, enormous, dark violet or

brown but dark with long heavy lashes shadowed her lovely face. Her mouth was rich

without being gross, sweet without being weak and dyed dark red with the juice of the

grapes. She was so incredibly lovely that Fabrizzio murmured, "Jesus Christ, take my

soul, I'm dying," as a joke, but the words came out a little too hoarsely. As if she had

heard him, the girl came down off her toes and whirled away from them and fled back to

her pursuers. Her haunches moved like an animal's beneath the tight print of her dress;

as pagan and as innocently lustful. When she reached her friends she whirled around

again and her face was like a dark hollow against the field of bright flowers. She

extended an arm, the hand full of grapes pointed toward the grove. The girls fled

laughing, with the black-clad, stout matrons scolding them on.

As for Michael Corleone, he found himself standing, his heart pounding in his chest; he

felt a little dizzy. The blood was surging through his body, through all its extremities and

pounding against the tips of his fingers, the tips of his toes. All the perfumes of the

island came rushing in on the wind, orange, lemon blossoms, grapes, flowers. It

seemed as if his body had sprung away from him out of himself. And then he heard the

two shepherds laughing.

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"You got hit by the thunderbolt, eh?" Fabrizzio said, clapping him on the shoulder.

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Even Calo became friendly, patting him on the arm and saying, "Easy, man, easy," but

with affection. As if Michael had been hit by a car. Fabrizzio handed him a wine bottle

and Michael took a long slug (глоток /спиртного/). It cleared his head.

"What the hell are you damn sheep lovers talking about?" he said.

Both men laughed. Calo, his honest face filled with the utmost seriousness, said, "You

can't hide the thunderbolt. When it hits you, everybody can see it. Christ, man, don't be

ashamed of it, some men pray for the thunderbolt. You're a lucky fellow."

Michael wasn't too pleased about his emotions being so easily read. But this was the

first time in his life such a thing had happened to him. It was nothing like his adolescent

crushes (увлечение, пылкая любовь; to crush – раздавить, сокрушить), it was

nothing like the love he'd had for Kay, a love based as much on her sweetness, her

intelligence and the polarity of the fair and dark. This was an overwhelming desire for

possession, this was an inerasible printing of the girl's face on his brain and he knew

she would haunt his memory every day of his life if he did not possess her. His life had

become simplified, focused on one point, everything else was unworthy of even a

moment's attention. During his exile he had always thought of Kay, though he felt they

could never again be lovers or even friends. He was, after all was said, a murderer, a

Mafioso who had "made his bones." But now Kay was wiped completely out of his

consciousness.

Fabrizzio said briskly, "I'll go to the village, we'll find out about her. Who knows, she

may be more available than we think. There's only one cure for the thunderbolt, eh,

Calo?"

The other shepherd nodded his head gravely. Michael didn't say anything. He

followed the two shepherds as they started down the road to the nearby village into

which the flock of girls had disappeared.

The village was grouped around the usual central square with its fountain. But it was

on a main route so there were some stores, wine shops and one little cafй with three

tables out on a small terrace. The shepherds sat at one of the tables and Michael joined

them. There was no sign of the girls, not a trace. The village seemed deserted except

for small boys and a meandering (to meander [mı'жnd∂] – бродить без цели; meander

– извилина /дороги, реки/; меандр /орнамент/) donkey.

The proprietor of the cafй came to serve them. He was a short, burly man, almost

dwarfish but he greeted them cheerfully and set a dish of chickpeas (нут, горох

турецкий) at their table. "You're strangers here," he said, "so let me advise you. Try my

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wine. The grapes come from my own farm and it's made by my sons themselves. They

mix it with oranges and lemons. It's the best wine in Italy."

They let him bring the wine in a jug and it was even better than he claimed, dark

purple and as powerful as a brandy. Fabrizzio said to the cafй proprietor, "You know all

the girls here, I'll bet. We saw some beauties coming down the road, one in particular

got our friend here hit with the thunderholt." He motioned to Michael.

The cafй owner looked at Michael with new interest. The cracked face had seemed

quite ordinary to him before, not worth a second glance. But a man hit with the

thunderbolt was another matter. "You had better bring a few bottles home with you, my

friend," he said. "You'll need help in getting to sleep tonight."

Michael asked the man, "Do you know a girl with her hair all curly? Very creamy skin,

very big eves, very dark eyes. Do you know a girl like that in the village?"

The cafй owner said curtly, "No. I don't know any girl like that." He vanished from the

terrace into his cafй.

The three men drank their wine slowly, finished off the jug and called for more. The

owner did not reappear. Fabrizzio went into the cafй after him. When Fabrizzio came

out he grimaced and said to Michael, "Just as I thought, it's his daughter we were

talking about and now he's in the back boiling up his blood to do us a mischief. I think

we'd better start walking toward Corleone."

Despite his months on the island Michael still could not get used to the Sicilian

touchiness on matters of sex, and this was extreme even for a Sicilian. But the two

shepherds seemed to take it as a matter of course. They were waiting for him to leave.

Fabrizzio said, "The old bastard mentioned he has two sons, big tough lads that he has

only to whistle up. Let's get going."

Michael gave him a cold stare. Up to now he had been a quiet, gentle young man, a

typical American, except that since he was hiding in Sicily he must have done

something manly. This was the first time the shepherds had seen the Corleone stare.

Don Tommasino, knowing Michael's true identity and deed, had always been wary

(осторожный, настороженный ['wε∂rı]) of him, treating him as a fellow "man of

respect." But these unsophisticated sheep herders had come to their own opinion of

Michael, and not a wise one. The cold look, Michael's rigid white face, his anger that

came off him like cold smoke off ice, sobered their laughter and snuffed out (snuff –

нагар на свече; to snuff out – потушить /свечу/; разрушить, подавить) their familiar

friendliness.

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When he saw he had their proper, respectful attention Michael said to them, "Get that

man out here to me."

They didn't hesitate. They shouldered their luparas and went into the dark coolness of

the cafй. A few seconds later they reappeared with the cafй owner between them. The

stubby man looked in no way frightened but his anger had a certain wariness about it.

Michael leaned back in his chair and studied the man for a moment. Then he said

very quietly, "I understand I've offended you by talking about your daughter. I offer you

my apologies, I'm a stranger in this country, I don't know the customs that well. Let me

say this. I meant no disrespect to you or her." The shepherd bodyguards were

impressed. Michael's voice had never sounded like this before when speaking to them.

There was command and authority in it though he was making an apology. The cafй

owner shrugged, more wary still, knowing he was not dealing with some farmboy. "Who

are you and what do you want from my daughter?"

Without even hesitating Michael said, "I am an American hiding in Sicily, from the

police of my country. My name is Michael. You can inform the police and make your

fortune but then your daughter would lose a father rather than gain a husband. In any

case I want to meet your daughter. With your permission and under the supervision of

your family. With all decorum. With all respect. I'm an honorable man and I don't think of

dishonoring your daughter. I want to meet her, talk to her and then if it hits us both right

we'll marry. If not, you'll never see me again. She may find me unsympathetic after all,

and no I man can remedy that. But when the proper time comes I'll tell you everything

about me that a wife's father should know."

All three men were looking at him with amazement. Fabrizzio whispered in awe, "It's

the real thunderbolt." The cafй owner, for the first time, didn't look so confident, or

contemptuous; his anger was not so sure. Finally he asked, "Are you a friend of the

friends?"

Since the word Mafia could never be uttered aloud by the ordinary Sicilian, this was as

close as the cafй owner could come to asking if Michael was a member of the Mafia. It

was the usual way of asking if someone belonged but it was ordinarily not addressed to

the person directly concerned.

"No," Michael said. "I'm a stranger in this country."

The cafй owner gave him another look, the smashed left side of his face, the long legs

rare in Sicily. He took a look at the two shepherds carrying their luparas quite openly

without fear and remembered how they had come into his cafй and told him their

padrone wanted to talk to him. The cafй owner had snarled (рычать; огрызаться,

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сердито ворчать) that he wanted the son of a bitch out of his terrace and one of the

shepherds had said, "Take my word, it's best you go out and speak to him yourself."

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And something had made him come out. Now something made him realize that it would

be best to show this stranger some courtesy. He said grudgingly, "Come Sunday

afternoon. My name is Vitelli and my house is up there on the hill, above the village. But

come here to the cafй and I'll take you up."

Fabrizzio started to say something but Michael gave him one look and the shepherd's

tongue froze in his mouth. This was not lost on Vitelli. So when Michael stood up and

stretched out his hand, the cafй owner took it and smiled. He would make some

inquiries and if the answers were wrong he could always greet Michael with his two

sons bearing their own shotguns. The cafй owner was not without his contacts among

the "friends of the friends." But something told him this was one of those wild strokes of

good fortune that Sicilians always believed in, something told him that his daughter's

beauty would make her fortune and her family secure. And it was just as well. Some of

the local youths were already beginning to buzz around (виться, увиваться; to buzz –

жужжать, гудеть) and this stranger with his broken face could do the necessary job of

scaring them off. Vitelli, to show his goodwill, sent the strangers off with a bottle of his

best and coldest wine. He noticed that one of the shepherds paid the bill. This

impressed him even more, made it clear that Michael was the superior of the two men

who accompanied him.

Michael was no longer interested in his hike. They found a garage and hired a car and

driver to take them back to Corleone, and some time before supper, Dr. Taza must have

been informed by the shepherds of what had happened. That evening, sitting in the

garden, Dr. Taza said to Don Tommasino, "Our friend got hit by the thunderbolt today."

Don Tommasino did not seem surprised. He grunted. "I wish some of those young

fellows in Palermo would get a thunderbolt, maybe I could get some peace." He was

talking about the new-style Mafia chiefs rising in the big cities of Palermo and

challenging the power of old-regime stalwarts like himself.

Michael said to Tommasino, "I want you to tell those two sheep herders to leave me

alone Sunday. I'm going to go to this girl's family for dinner and I don't want them

hanging around."

Don Tommasino shook his head. "I'm responsible to your father for you, don't ask me

that. Another thing, I hear you've even talked marriage. I can't allow that until I've sent

somebody to speak to your father."

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Michael Corleone was very careful, this was after all a man of respect. "Don

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Tommasino, you know my father. He's a man who goes deaf when somebody says the

word no to him. And he doesn't get his hearing back until they answer him with a yes.

Well, he has heard my no many times. I understand about the two guards, I don't want

to cause you trouble, they can come with me Sunday, but if I want to marry I'll marry.

Surely if I don't permit my own father to interfere with my personal life it would be an

insult to him to allow you to do so."

The capo-mafioso sighed. "Well, then, marriage it will have to be. I know your

thunderbolt. She's a good girl from a respectable family. You can't dishonor them

without the father trying to kill you, and then you'll have to shed blood. Besides, I know

the family well, I can't allow it to happen."

Michael said, "She may not be able to stand the sight of me, and she's a very young

girl, she'll think me old." He saw the two men smiling at him. "I'll need some money for

presents and I think I'll need a car."

The Don nodded. "Fabrizzio will take care of everything, he's a clever boy, they taught

him mechanics in the navy. I'll give you some money in the morning and I'll let your

father know what's happening. That I must do."

Michael said to Dr. Taza, "Have you got anything that can dry up this damn snot

(сопли /груб./) always coming out of my nose? I can't have that girl seeing me wiping it

all the time."

Dr. Taza said, "I'll coat (покрывать) it with a drug before you have to see her. It

makes your flesh a little numb (онемелый [nΛm]) but, don't worry, you won't be kissing

her for a while yet." Both doctor and Don smiled at this witticism.

By Sunday, Michael had an Alfa Romeo, battered (to batter – сильно бить, колотить;

плющить /металл/) but serviceable. He had also made a bus trip to Palermo to buy

presents for the girl and her family. He had learned that the girl's name was Apollonia

and every night he thought of her lovely face and her lovely name. He had to drink a

good deal of wine to get some sleep and orders were given to the old women servants

in the house to leave a chilled bottle at his bedside. He drank it empty every night.

On Sunday, to the tolling of church bells that covered all of Sicily, he drove the Alfa

Romeo to the village and parked it just outside the cafй. Calo and Fabrizzio were in the

back seat with their luparas and Michael told them they were to wait in the cafй, they

were not to come to the house. The cafй was closed but Vitelli was there waiting for

them, leaning against the railing of his empty terrace.

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They shook hands all around and Michael took the three packages, the presents, and

trudged (идти с трудом, устало тащиться) up the hill with Vitelli to his home. This

proved to be larger than the usual village hut, the Vitellis were not poverty-stricken.

Inside the house was familiar with statues of the Madonna entombed in glass, votive

(исполненный по обету; ['v∂utıv]) lights flickering redly at their feet. The two sons were

waiting, also dressed in their Sunday black. They were two sturdy young men just out of

their teens but looking older because of their hard work on the farm. The mother was a

vigorous woman, as stout as her husband. There was no sign of the girl.

After the introductions, which Michael did not even hear, they sat in the room that

might possibly have been a living room or just as easily the formal dining room. It was

cluttered with all kinds of furniture and not very large but for Sicily it was middle-class

splendor.

Michael gave Signor Vitelli and Signora Vitelli their presents. For the father it was a

gold cigar-cutter, for the mother a bolt (кусок, рулон /холста, шелковой материи/) of

the finest cloth purchasable in Palermo. He still had one package for the girl. His

presents were received with reserved thanks. The gifts were a little too premature, he

should not have given anything until his second visit.

The father said to him, in man-to-man country fashion, "Don't think we're so of no

account to welcome strangers into our house so easily. But Don Tommasino vouched

for you personally and nobody in this province would ever doubt the word of that good

man. And so we make you welcome. But I must tell you that if your intentions are

serious about my daughter, we will have to know a little more about you and your family.

You can understand, your family is from this country."

Michael nodded and said politely, "I will tell you anything you wish to know anytime."

Signor Vitelli held up a hand. "I'm not a nosy (носатый; любопытный) man. Let's see

if it's necessary first. Right now you're welcome in my house as a friend of Don

Tommasino."

Despite the drug painted inside his nose, Michael actually smelled the girl's presence

in the room. He turned and she was standing in the arched doorway that led to the back

of the house. The smell was of fresh flowers and lemon blossoms but she wore nothing

in her hair of jet black curls, nothing on her plain severe black dress, obviously her

Sunday best. She gave him a quick glance and a tiny smile before she cast her eyes

down demurely and sat down next to her mother.

Again Michael felt that shortness of breath, that flooding through his body of

something that was not so much desire as an insane possessiveness. He understood

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for the first time the classical jealousy of the Italian male. He was at that moment ready

to kill anyone who touched this girl, who tried to claim her, take her away from him. He

wanted to own her as wildly as a miser (скупец, скряга) wants to own gold coins, as

hungrily as a sharecropper (испольщик, издольщик) wants to own his own land.

Nothing was going to stop him from owning this girl, possessing her, locking her in a

house and keeping her prisoner only for himself. He didn't want anyone even to see her.

When she turned to smile at one of her brothers Michael gave that young man a

murderous look without even realizing it. The family could see it was a classical case of

the "thunderholt" and they were reassured. This young man would be putty (оконная

замазка; шпатлевка; послушное орудие, игрушка /в чьих-либо руках/) in their

daughter's hands until they were married. After that of course things would change but it

wouldn't matter.

Michael had bought himself some new clothes in Palermo and was no longer the

roughly dressed peasant, and it was obvious to the family that he was a Don of some

kind. His smashed face did not make him as evil-looking as he believed; because his

other profile was so handsome it made the disfigurement interesting even. And in any

case this was a land where to be called disfigured you had to compete with a host of

men who had suffered extreme physical misfortune.

Michael looked directly at the girl, the lovely ovals of her face. Her lips now he could

see were almost blue so dark was the blood pulsating in them. He said, not daring to

speak her name, "I saw you by the orange groves the other day. When you ran away. I

hope I didn't frighten you?"

The girl raised her eyes to him for just a fraction. She shook her head. But the

loveliness of those eyes had made Michael look away. The mother said tartly (tart –

кислый, терпкий, едкий; резкий, колкий /об ответе или возражении/), "Apollonia,

speak to the poor fellow, he's come miles to see you," but the girl's long jet lashes

remained closed like wings over her eyes. Michael handed her the present wrapped in

gold paper and the girl put it in her lap. The father said, "Open it, girl," but her hands did

not move. Her hands were small and brown, an urchin's hands (urchin – мальчишка,

пострел). The mother reached over and opened the package impatiently, yet careful

not to tear the precious paper. The red velvet jeweler's box gave ber pause, she had

never held such a thing in her hands and didn't know how to spring its catch (запор,

задвижка). But she got it open on pure instinct and then took out the present.

It was a heavy gold chain to be worn as a necklace, and it awed them not only

because of its obvious value but because a gift of gold in this society was also a

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statement of the most serious intentions. It was no less than a proposal of matrimony, or

rather the signal that there was the intention to propose matrimony. They could no

longer doubt the seriousness of this stranger. And they could not doubt his substance

(вещество, материя; имущество, состояние).

Apollonia still had not touched her present. Her mother held it up for her to see and

she raised those long lashes for a moment and then she looked directly at Michael, her

doelike brown eyes grave, and said, "Grazia." It was the first time he had heard her

voice.

It had all the velvety softness of youth and shyness and it set Michael's ears ringing.

He kept looking away from her and talking to the father and mother simply because

looking at her confused him so much. But he noticed that despite the conservative

looseness of her dress her body almost shone through the cloth with sheer sensuality.

And he noticed the darkening of her skin blushing, the dark creamy skin, going darker

with the blood surging to her face.

Finally Michael rose to go and the family rose too. They said their good-byes formally,

the girl at last confronting him as they shook hands, and he felt the shock of her skin on

his skin, her skin warm and rough, peasant skin. The father walked down the hill with

him to his car and invited him to Sunday dinner the next week. Michael nodded but he

knew he coudn't wait a week to see the girl again.

He didn't. The next day, without his shepherds, he drove to the village and sat on the

garden terrace of the cafй to chat with her father. Signor Vitelli took pity on him and sent

for his wife and daughter to come down to the cafй to join them. This meeting was less

awkward. The girl Apollonia was less shy, and spoke more. She was dressed in her

everyday print frock which suited her coloring much better.

The next day the same thing happened. Only this time Apollonia was wearing the gold

chain he had given her. He smiled at her then, knowing that this was a signal to him. He

walked with her up the hill, her mother close behind them. But it was impossible for the

two young people to keep their bodies from brushing against each other and once

Apollonia stumbled and fell against him so that he had to hold her and her body so

warm and alive in his hands started a deep wave of blood rising in his body. They could

not see the mother behind them smiling because her daughter was a mountain goat and

had not stumbled on this path since she was an infant in diapers. And smiling because

this was the only way this young man was going to get his hands on her daughter until

the marriage.

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This went on for two weeks. Michael brought her presents every time he came and

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gradually she became less shy. But they could never meet without a chaperone being

present. She was just a village girl, barely literate, with no idea of the world, but she had

a freshness, an eagerness for life that, with help of the language barrier, made her

seem interesting. Everything went very swiftly at Michael's request. And because the

girl was not only fascinated by him but knew he must be rich, a wedding date was set

for the Sunday two weeks away.

Now Don Tommasino took a hand. He had received word from America that Michael

was not subject to orders but that all elementary precautions should be taken. So Don

Tommasino appointed himself the parent of the bridegroom to insure the presence of

his own bodyguards. Calo and Fabrizzio were also members of the wedding party from

Corleone as was Dr. Taza. The bride and groom would live in Dr. Taza's villa

surrounded by its stone wall.

The wedding was the usual peasant one. The villagers stood in the streets and threw

flowers as the bridal party, principals and guests, went on foot from the church to the

bride's home. The wedding procession pelted (to pelt – бросать /в кого-либо/,

забрасывать) the neighbors with sugar-coated almonds, the traditional wedding

candies, and with candies left over made sugary white mountains on the bride's

wedding bed, in this case only a symbolic one since the first night would be spent in the

villa outside Corleone. The wedding feast went on until midnight but bride and groom

would leave before that in the Alfa Romeo. When that time came Michael was surprised

to find that the mother was coming with them to the Corleone villa at the request of the

bride. The father explained: the girl was young, a virgin, a little frightened, she would

need someone to talk to on the morning following her bridal night; to put her on the right

track if things went wrong. These matters could sometimes get very tricky. Michael saw

Apollonia looking at him with doubt in her huge doe-brown eyes. He smiled at her and

nodded.

And so it came about that they drove back to the villa outside Corleone with the

mother-in-law in the car. But the older woman immediately put her head together with

the servants of Dr. Taza, gave her daughter a hug and a kiss and disappeared from the

scene. Michael and his bride were allowed to go to their huge bedroom alone.

Apollonia was still wearing her bridal costume with a cloak thrown over it. Her trunk

and case had been brought up to the room from the car. On a small table was a bottle

of wine and a plate of small wedding cakes. The huge canopied (canopy [‘kжn∂pı] –

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балдахин, полог) bed was never out of their vision. The young girl in the center of the

room waited for Michael to make the first move.

And now that he had her alone, now that he legally possessed her, now that there

was no barrier to his enjoying that body and face he had dreamed about every night,

Michael could not bring himself to approach her. He watched as she took off the bridal

shawl and draped it over a chair, and placed the bridal crown on the small dressing

table. That table had an array of perfumes and creams that Michael had had sent from

Palermo. The girl tallied (tally – бирка, этикетка, ярлык; счет /в игре/; to tally –

подсчитывать, здесь: просмотреть) them with her eyes for a moment.

Michael turned off the lights, thinking the girl was waiting for some darkness to shield

her body while she undressed. But the Sicilian moon came through the unshuttered

windows, bright as gold, and Michael went to close the shutters but not all the way, the

room would be too warm.

The girl was still standing by the table and so Michael went out of the room and down

the hall to the bathroom. He and Dr. Taza and Don Tommasino had taken a glass of

wine together in the garden while the women had prepared themselves for bed. He had

expected to find Apollonia in her nightgown when he returned, already between the

covers. He was surprised that the mother had not done this service for her daughter.

Maybe Apollonia had wanted him to help her to undress. But he was certain she was

too shy, too innocent for such forward behavior (смелое, развязное поведение;

forward [‘fo:w∂d] – передний, передовой; развязный, нахальный /кто лезет вперед/;

behavior [bı’heıvj∂] – поведение, манеры).

Coming back into the bedroom, he found it completely dark, someone had closed the

shutters all the way. He groped his way toward the bed and could make out the shape

of Apollonia's body lying under the covers, her back to him, her body curved away from

him and huddled up. He undressed and slipped naked beneath the sheets. He stretched

out one hand and touched silky naked skin. She had not put on her gown and this

boldness delighted him. Slowly, carefully, he put one hand on her shoulder and pressed

her hody gently so that she would turn to him. She turned slowly and his hand touched

her breast, soft, full and then she was in his arms so quickly that their bodies came

together in one line of silken electricity and he finally had his arms around her, was

kissing her warm mouth deeply, was crushing her body and breasts against him and

then rolling his body on top of hers.

Her flesh and hair taut (туго натянутый, упругий [to:t]) silk, now she was all

eagerness, surging against him wildly in a virginal erotic frenzy. When he entered her

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she gave a little gasp and was still for just a second and then in a powerful forward

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thrust of her pelvis she locked her satiny legs around his hips. When they came to the

end they were locked together so fiercely, straining against each other so violently, that

falling away from each other was like the tremble before death.

That night and the weeks that followed, Michael Corleone came to understand the

premium (большой почет, спрос [‘pri:mj∂m]) put on virginity by socially primitive people.

It was a period of sensuality that he had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed

with a feeling of masculine power. Apollonia in those first days became almost his slave.

Given trust, given affection, a young full-blooded girl aroused from virginity to erotic

awareness was as delicious as an exactly ripe fruit.

She on her part brightened up the rather gloomy masculine atmosphere of the villa.

She had packed her mother off the very next day after her bridal night and presided at

the communal table with bright girlish charm. Don Tommasino dined with them every

night and Dr. Taza told all his old stories as they drank wine in the garden full of statues

garlanded with blood-red flowers, and so the evenings passed pleasantly enough. At

night in their bedroom the newly married couple spent hours of feverish lovemaking.

Michael could not get enough of Apollonia's beautifully sculpted body, her honey-

colored skin, her huge brown eyes glowing with passion. She had a wonderfully fresh

smell, a fleshly smell perfumed by her sex yet almost sweet and unbearably

aphrodisiacal. Her virginal passion matched his nuptial lust and often it was dawn when

they fell into an exhausted slumber. Sometimes, spent but not yet ready for sleep,

Michael sat on the window ledge (на подоконнике; ledge – планка, рейка; выступ)

and stared at Apollonia's naked body while she slept. Her face too was lovely in repose,

a perfect face he had seen before only in art books of painted Italian Madonnas who by

no stretch (напряжение) of the artist's skill could be thought virginal.

In the first week of their marriage they went on picnics and small trips in the Alfa

Romeo. But then Don Tommasino took Michael aside and explained that the marriage

had made his presence and identity common knowledge in that part of Sicily and

precautions had to be taken against the enemies of the Corleone Family, whose long

arms also stretched to this island refuge. Don Tommasino put armed guards around his

villa and the two shepherds, Calo and Fabrizzio, were fixtures (прикрепление; лицо,

прочно обосновавшееся в каком-либо месте) inside the walls. So Michael and his

wife had to remain on the villa grounds. Michael passed the time by teaching Apollonia

to read and write English and to drive the car along the inner walls of the villa. About

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this time Don Tommasino seemed to be preoccupied and poor company. He was still

having trouble with the new Mafia in the town of Palermo, Dr. Taza said.

One night in the garden an old village woman who worked in the house as a servant

brought a dish of fresh olives and then turned to Michael and said, "Is it true what

everybody is saying that you are the son of Don Corleone in New York City, the

Godfather?"

Michael saw Don Tommasino shaking his head in disgust at the general knowledge of

their secret. But the old crone (старуха, старая карга) was looking at him in so

concerned a fashion, as if it was important for her to know the truth, that Michael

nodded. "Do you know my father?" he asked.

The woman's name was Filomena and her face was as wrinkled and brown as a

walnut, her brown-stained teeth showing through the shell of her flesh. For the first time

since he had been in the villa she smiled at him. "The Godfather saved my life once,"

she said, "and my brains too." She made a gesture toward her head.

She obviously wanted to say something else so Michael smiled to encourage her. She

asked almost fearfully, "Is it true that Luca Brasi is dead?"

Michael nodded again and was surprised at the look of release on the old woman's

face. Filomena crossed herself and said, "God forgive me, but may his soul roast in hell

for eternity."

Michael remembered his old curiosity about Brasi, and had the sudden intuition that

this woman knew the story Hagen and Sonny had refused to tell him. He poured the

woman a glass of wine and made her sit down. "Tell me about my father and Luca

Brasi," he said gently. "I know some of it, but how did they become friends and why was

Brasi so devoted to my father? Don't be afraid, come tell me."

Filomena's wrinkled face, her raisin-black (raisin [reızn] – изюм) eyes, turned to Don

Tommasino, who in some way signaled his permission. And so Filomena passed the

evening for them by telling her story.

Thirty years before, Filnmena had been a midwife in New York City, on Tenth Avenue,

servicing the Italian colony. The women were always pregnant and she prospered. She

taught doctors a few things when they tried to interfere in a difficult birth. Her husband

was then a prosperous grocery store owner, dead now poor soul, she blessed him,

though he had been a card player and wencher (бабник; wench – девушка, молодая

женщина /шутл./) who never thought to put aside for hard times. In any event one

cursed night thirty years ago when all honest people were long in their beds, there came

a knocking on Filomena's door. She was by no means frightened, it was the quiet hour

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babes prudently chose to enter safely into this sinful world, and so she dressed and

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opened the door. Outside it was Luca Brasi whose reputation even then was fearsome.

It was known also that he was a bachelor. And so Filomena was immediately frightened.

She thought he had come to do her husband harm, that perhaps her husband had

foolishly refused Brasi some small favor.

But Brasi had come on the usual errand. He told Filomena that there was a woman

about to give birth, that the house was out of the neighborhood some distance away

and that she was to come with him. Filomena immediately sensed something amiss.

Brasi's brutal face looked almost like that of a madman that night, he was obviously in

the grip of some demon. She tried to protest that she attended only women whose

history she knew but he shoved a bandful of green dollars in her hand and ordered her

roughly to come along with him. She was too frightened to refuse.

In the street was a Ford, its driver of the same feather as Luca Brasi. The drive was

no more than thirty minutes to a small frame house in Long Island City right over the

bridge. A two-family house but obviously now tenanted only by Brasi and his gang. For

there were some other ruffians in the kitchen playing cards and drinking. Brasi took

Filomena up the stairs to a bedroom. In the bed was a young pretty girl who looked Irish,

her face painted, her hair red; and with a belly swollen like a sow. The poor girl was so

frightened. When she saw Brasi she turned her head away in terror, yes terror, and

indeed the look of hatred on Brasi's evil face was the most frightening thing she had

ever seen in her life. (Here Filomena crossed herself again.)

To make a long story short, Brasi left the room. Two of his men assisted the midwife

and the baby was born, the mother was exhausted and went into a deep sleep. Brasi

was summoned and Filomena, who had wrapped the newborn child in an extra blanket,

extended the bundle to him and said, "If you're the father, take her. My work is finished."

Brasi glared at her, malevolent, insanity stamped on his face. "Yes, I'm the father," he

said. "But I don't want any of that race to live. Take it down to the basement and throw it

into the furnace."

For a moment Filomena thought she had not understood him properly. She was

puzzled by bis use of the word "race." Did he mean because the girl was not Italian? Or

did he mean because the girl was obviously of the lowest type; a whore in short? Or did

he mean that anything springing from his loins he forbade to live. And then she was

sure he was making a brutal joke. She said shortly, "It's your child, do what you want."

And she tried to hand him the bundle.

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At this time the exhausted mother awoke and turned on her side to face them. She

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was just in time to see Brasi thrust violently at the bundle, crushing the newborn infant

against Filomena's chest. She called out weakly, "Luc, Luc, I'm sorry," and Brasi turned

to face her.

It was terrible, Filomena said now. So terrible. They were like two mad animals. They

were not human. The hatred they bore each other blazed through the room. Nothing

else, not even the newborn infant, existed for them at that moment. And yet there was a

strange passion. A bloody, demonical lust so unnatural you knew they were damned

forever. Then Luca Brasi turned back to Filomena and said harshly, "Do what I tell you,

I'll make you rich."

Filomena could not speak in her terror. She shook her head. Finally she managed to

whisper, "You do it, you're the father, do it if you like." But Brasi didn't answer. Instead

he drew a knife from inside his shirt. "I'll cut your throat," he said.

She must have gone into shock then because the next thing she remembered they

were all standing in the basement of the house in front of a square iron furnace.

Filomena was still holding the blanketed baby, which had not made a sound. (Maybe if it

had cried, maybe if I had been shrewd enough to pinch it, Filomena said, that monster

would have shown mercy.)

One of the men must have opened the furnace door, the fire now was visible. And

then she was alone with Brasi in that basement with its sweating pipes, its mousy odor.

Brasi had his knife out again. And there could be no doubting that he would kill her.

There were the flames, there were Brasi's eyes. His face was the gargoyle (горгулья –

выступающая водосточная труба в виде фантастической фигуры /в готической

архитектуре/ ['gα:goıl]) of the devil, it was not human, it was not sane. He pushed her

toward the open furnace door.

At this point Filomena fell silent. She folded her bony hands in her lap and looked

directly at Michael. He knew what she wanted, how she wanted to tell him, without using

her voice. He asked gently, "Did you do it?" She nodded.

It was only after another glass of wine and crossing herself and muttering a prayer

that she continued her story. She was given a bundle of money and driven home. She

understood that if she uttered a word about what had happened she would be killed. But

two days later Brasi murdered the young Irish girl, the mother of the infant, and was

arrested by the police. Filomena, frightened out of her wits, went to the Godfather and

told her story. He ordered her to keep silent, that he would attend to everything. At that

time Brasi did not work for Don Corleone.

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Before Don Corleone could set matters aright, Luca Brasi tried to commit suicide in

his cell, hacking at his throat with a piece of glass. He was transferred to the prison

hospital and by the time he recovered Don Corleone had arranged everything. The

police did not have a case they could prove in court and Luca Brasi was released.

Though Don Corleone assured Filomena that she had nothing to fear from either Luca

Brasi or the police, she had no peace. Her nerves were shattered and she could no

longer work at her profession. Finally she persuaded her husband to sell the grocery

store and they returned to Italy. Her husband was a good man, had been told everything

and understood. But he was a weak man and in Italy squandered (to squander –

проматывать) the fortune they had both slaved in America to earn. And so after he died

she had become a servant. So Filomena ended her story. She had another glass of

wine and said to Michael, "I bless the name of your father. He always sent me money

when I asked, he saved me from Brasi. Tell him I say a prayer for his soul every night

and that he shouldn't fear dying."

After she had left, Michael asked Don Tommasino, "Is her story true?" The capo-

mafioso nodded. And Michael thought, no wonder nobody wanted to tell him the story.

Some story (ну и история, ничего себе история). Some Luca.

The next morning Michael wanted to discuss the whole thing with Don Tommasino but

learned that the old man had been called to Palermo by an urgent message delivered

by a courier. That evening Don Tommasino returned and took Michael aside. News had

come from America, he said. News that it grieved him to tell. Santino Corleone had

been killed.

Chapter 24

The Sicilian sun, early-morning lemon-colored, filled Michael's bedroom. He awoke

and, feeling Apollonia's satiny body against his own sleep-warm skin, made her come

awake with love. When they were done, even all the months of complete possession

could not stop him from marveling at her heauty and her passion.

She left the bedroom to wash and dress in the bathroom down the hall. Michael, still

naked, the morning sun refreshing his body, lit a cigarette and relaxed on the bed. This

was the last morning they would spend in this house and the villa Don Tommasino had

arranged for him to be transferred to another town on the southern coast of Sicily.

Apollonia, in the first month of pregnancy, wanted to visit with her family for a few weeks

and would join him at the new hiding place after the visit.

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The night before, Don Tommasino had sat with Michael in the garden after Apollonia

had gone to bed. The Don had been worried and tired, and admitted that he was

concerned about Michael's safety. "Your marriage brought you into sight," he told

Michael. "I'm surprised your father hasn't made arrangements for you to go someplace

else. In any case I'm having my own troubles with the young Turks in Palermo. I've

offered some fair arrangements so that they can wet their beaks more than they

deserve, but those scum (пена, накипь; подонки; мерзавец) want everything. I can't

understand their attitude. They've tried a few little tricks but I'm not so easy to kill. They

must know I'm too strong for them to hold me so cheaply. But that's the trouble with

young people, no matter how talented. They don't reason things out and they want all

the water in the well (родник; колодец; водоем)."

And then Don Tommasino had told Michael that the two shepherds, Fabrizzio and

Calo, would go with him as bodyguards in the Alfa Romeo. Don Tommasino would say

his good-byes tonight since he would he off early in the morning, at dawn, to see to his

affairs in Palermo. Also, Michael was not to tell Dr. Taza about the move, since the

doctor planned to spend the evening in Palermo and might blab (проболтаться).

Michael had known Don Tommasino was in trouble. Armed guards patrolled the walls

of the villa at night and a few faithful shepherds with their luparas were always in the

house. Don Tommasino himself went heavily armed and a personal bodyguard

attended him at all times.

The morning sun was now too strong. Michael stubbed out his cigarette and put on

work pants, work shirt and the peaked cap most Sicilian men wore. Still barefooted, he

leaned out his bedroom window and saw Fabrizzio sitting in one of the garden chairs.

Fabrizzio was lazily combing his thick dark hair, his lupara was carelessly thrown across

the garden table. Michael whistled and Fabrizzio looked up to his window.

"Get the car," Michael called down to him. "I'll be leaving in five minutes. Where's

Calo?"

Fabrizzio stood up. His shirt was open, exposing the blue and red lines of the tattoo

on his chest. "Calo is having a cup of coffee in the kitchen," Fabrizzio said. "Is your wife

coming with you?"

Michael squinted (to squint – косить /глазами/; бросить взгляд украдкой) down at

him. It occurred to him that Fabrizzio had been following Apollonia too much with his

eyes the last few weeks. Not that he would dare ever to make an advance toward the

wife of a friend of the Don's. In Sicily there was no surer road to death. Michael said

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coldly, "No, she's going home to her family first, she'll join us in a few days." He

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watched Fabrizzio hurry into the stone hut that served as a garage for the Alfa Romeo.

Michael went down the hall to wash. Apollonia was gone. She was most likely in the

kitchen preparing his breakfast with her own hands to wash out the guilt she felt

because she wanted to see her family one more time before going so far away to the

other end of Sicily. Don Tommasino would arrange transportation for her to where

Michael would be.

Down in the kitchen the old woman Filomena brought him his coffee and shyly bid him

a good-bye. "I'll remember you to my father," Michael said and she nodded.

Calo came into the kitchen and said to Michael, "The car's outside, shall I get your

bag?"

"No, I'll get it," Michael said. "Where's Apolla?"

Calo's face broke into an amused grin. "She's sitting in the driver's seat of the car,

dying to step on the gas. She'll be a real American woman before she gets to America."

It was unheard of for one of the peasant women in Sicily to attempt driving a car. But

Michael sometimes let Apollonia guide the Alfa Romeo around the inside of the villa

walls, always beside her however because she sometimes stepped on the gas when

she meant to step on the brake.

Michael said to Calo, "Get Fabrizzio and wait for me in the car." He went out of the

kitchen and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. His bag was already packed. Before

picking it up he looked out the window and saw the car parked in front of the portico

steps rather than the kitchen entrance. Apollonia was sitting in the car, her hands on the

wheel like a child playing. Calo was just putting the lunch basket in the rear seat. And

then Michael was annoyed to see Fabrizzio disappearing through the gates of the villa

on some errand outside. What the hell was he doing? He saw Fabrizzio take a look over

his shoulder, a look that was somehow furtive. He'd have to straighten that damn

shepherd out. Michael went down the stairs and decided to go through the kitchen to

see Filomena again and give her a final farewell. He asked the old woman, "Is Dr. Taza

still sleeping?"

Filomena's wrinkled face was sly. "Old roosters (петух) can't greet the sun. The doctor

went to Palermo last night."

Michael laughed. He went out the kitchen entrance and the smell of lemon blossoms

penetrated even his sinus-filled nose. He saw Apollonia wave to him from the car just

ten paces up the villa's driveway and then he realized she was motioning him to stay

where he was, that she meant to drive the car to where he stood. Calo stood grinning

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beside the car, his lupara dangling in his hand. But there was still no sign of Fabrizzio.

At that moment, without any conscious reasoning process, everything came together in

his mind, and Michael shouted to the girl, "No! No!" But his shout was drowned in the

roar of the tremendous explosion as Apollonia switched on the ignition (зажигание).

The kitchen door shattered into fragments and Michael was hurled along the wall of the

villa for a good ten feet. Stones tumbling from the villa roof hit him on the shoulders and

one glanced off (to glance off – скользнуть; glance [glα:ns] – быстрый взгляд; to

glance – мельком взглянуть; мелькнуть; отражаться) his skull as he was lying on the

ground. He was conscious just long enough to see that nothing remained of the Alfa

Romeo but its four wheels and the steel shafts which held them together.

He came to consciousness in a room that seemed very dark and heard voices that

were so low that they were pure sound rather than words. Out of animal instinct he tried

to pretend he was still unconscious but the voices stopped and someone was leaning

from a chair close to his bed and the voice was distinct now, saying, "Well, he's with us

finally." A lamp went on, its light like white fire on his eyeballs and Michael turned his

head. It felt very heavy, numb. And then he could see the face over his bed was that of

Dr. Taza.

"Let me look at you a minute and I'll put the light out," Dr. Taza said gently. He was

busy shining a small pencil flashlight (ручной фонарик) into Michael's eyes. "You'll be

all right," Dr. Taza said and turned to someone else in the room. "You can speak to

him."

It was Don Tommasino sitting on a chair near his bed, Michael could see him clearly

now. Don Tommasino was saying, "Michael, Michael, can I talk to you? Do you want to

rest?"

It was easier to raise a hand to make a gesture and Michael did so and Don

Tommasino said, "Did Fabrizzio bring the car from the garage?"

Michael, without knowing he did so, smiled. It was in some strange way, a chilling smile,

of assent (согласие; разрешение [∂'sent]). Don Tommasino said, "Fabrizzio has

vanished. Listen to me, Michael. You've been unconscious for nearly a week. Do you

understand? Everybody thinks you're dead, so you're safe now, they've stopped looking

for you. I've sent messages to your father and he's sent back instructions. It won't be

long now, you'll be back in America. Meanwhile you'll rest here quietly. You're safe up in

the mountains, in a special farmhouse I own. The Palermo people have made their

peace with me now that you're supposed to be dead, so it was you they were after all

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the time. They wanted to kill you while making people think it was me they were after.

That's something you should know. As for everything else, leave it all to me. You

recover your strength and be tranquil (спокойный [‘trжŋkwıl])."

Michael was remembering everything now. He knew his wife was dead, that Calo was

dead. He thought of the old woman in the kitchen. He couldn't remember if she had

come outside with him. He whispered, "Filomena?" Don Tommasino said quietly, "She

wasn't hurt, just a bloody nose from the blast. Don't worry about her."

Michael said, "Fabrizzio. Let your shepherds know that the one who gives me

Fabrizzio will own the finest pastures in Sicily."

Both men seemed to sigh with relief. Don Tommasino lifted a glass from a nearby

table and drank from it an amber fluid (янтарная жидкость ['flu:ıd]) that jolted (to jolt –

подбрасывать) his head up. Dr. Taza sat on the bed and said almost absently, "You

know, you're a widower. That's rare in Sicily." As if the distinction might comfort him.

Michael motioned to Don Tommasino to lean closer. The Don sat on the bed and bent

his head. "Tell my father to get me home," Michael said. "Tell my father I wish to be his

son."

But it was to be another month before Michael recovered from his injuries and another

two months after that before all the necessary papers and arrangements were ready.

Then he was flown from Palermo to Rome and from Rome to New York. In all that time

no trace had been found of Fabrizzio.

Book 7

Chapter 25

When Kay Adams received her college degree, she took a job teaching grade school

in her New Hampshire hometown. The first six months after Michael vanished she made

weekly telephone calls to his mother asking about him. Mrs. Corleone was always

friendly and always wound up saying, "You a very very nice girl. You forget about Mikey

and find a nice husband." Kay was not offended at her bluntness and understood that

the mother spoke out of concern for her as a young girl in an impossible situation.

When her first school term ended, she decided to go to New York to buy some decent

clothes and see some old college girl friends. She thought also about looking for some

sort of interesting job in New York. She had lived like a spinster for almost two years,

reading and teaching, refusing dates, refusing to go out at all, even though she had

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given up making calls to Long Beach. She knew she couldn't keep that up, she was

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becoming irritable and unhappy. But she had always believed Michael would write her

or send her a message of some sort. That he had not done so humiliated her, it

saddened her that he was so distrustful even of her.

She took an early train and was checked into her hotel by midafternoon. Her girl

friends worked and she didn't want to bother them at their jobs, she planned to call them

at night. And she didn't really feel like going shopping after the exhausting train trip.

Being alone in the hotel room, remembering all the times she and Michael had used

hotel rooms to make love, gave her a feeling of desolation. It was that more than

anything else that gave her the idea of calling Michael's mother out in Long Beach.

The phone was answered by a rough masculine voice with a typical, to her, New York

accent. Kay asked to speak to Mrs. Corelone. There was a few minutes' silence and

then Kay heard the heavily accented voice asking who it was.

Kay was a little embarrassed now. "This is Kay Adams, Mrs. Corleone," she said. "Do

you remember me?"

"Sure, sure, I remember you," Mrs. Corleone said. "How come you no call up no more?

You get a married?"

"Oh, no," Kay said. "I've been busy." She was surprised at the mother obviously being

annoyed that she had stopped calling. "Have you heard anything from Michael? Is he all

right?"

There was silence at the other end of the phone and then Mrs. Corleone's voice came

strong. "Mikey is a home. He no call you up? He no see you?"

Kay felt her stomach go weak from shock and a humiliating desire to weep. Her voice

broke a little when she asked, "How long has he been home?"

Mrs. Corleone said, "Six months."

"Oh, I see," Kay said. And she did. She felt hot waves of shame that Michael's mother

knew he was treating her so cheaply. And then she was angry. Angry at Michael, at his

mother, angry at all foreigners, Italians who didn't have the common courtesy to keep

up a decent show of friendship even if a love affair was over. Didn't Michael know she

would be concerned for him as a friend even if he no longer wanted her for a bed

companion, even if he no longer wanted to marry her? Did he think she was one of

those poor benighted Italian girls who would commit suicide or make a scene after

giving up her virginity and then being thrown over? But she kept her voice as cool as

possible. "I see, thank you very much," she said. "I'm glad Michael is home again and

all right. I just wanted to know. I won't call you again."

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Mrs. Corleone's voice came impatiently over the phone as if she had heard nothing

that Kay had said. "You wanta see Mikey, you come out here now. Give him a nice

surprise. You take a taxi, and I tell the man at the gate to pay the taxi for you. You tell

the taxi man he gets two times his clock, otherwise he no come way out the Long Beach.

But don't you pay. My husband's man at the gate pay the taxi."

"I couldn't do that, Mrs. Corleone," Kay said coldly. "If Michael wanted to see me, he

would have called me at home before this. Obviously he doesn't want to resume our

relationship."

Mrs. Corleone's voice came briskly over the phone. "You a very nice girl, you gotta

nice legs, but you no gotta much brains." She chuckled. "You come out to see me, not

Mikey. I wanta talk to you. You come right now. An' no pay the taxi. I wait for you." The

phone clicked. Mrs. Corleone had hung up.

Kay could have called back and said she wasn't coming but she knew she had to see

Michael, to talk to him, even if it was just polite talk. If he was home now, openly, that

meant he was no longer in trouble, he could live normally. She jumped off the bed and

started to get ready to see him. She took a great deal of care with her makeup and

dress. When she was ready to leave she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Was she

better-looking than when Michael had disappeared? Or would he find her unattractively

older? Her figure had become more womanly, her hips rounder, her breasts fuller.

Italians liked that supposedly, though Michael had always said he loved her being so

thin. It didn't matter really, Michael obviously didn't want anything to do with her

anymore, otherwise he most certainly would have called in the six months he had been

home.

The taxi she hailed refused to take her to Long Beach until she gave him a pretty

smile and told him she would pay double the meter. It was nearly an hour's ride and the

mall in Long Beach had changed since she last saw it. There were iron fences around it

and an iron gate barred the mall entrance. A man wearing slacks and a white jacket

over a red shirt opened the gate, poked his head into the cab to read the meter and

gave the cab driver some bills. Then when Kay saw the driver was not protesting and

was happy with the money paid, she got out and walked across the mall to the central

house.

Mrs. Corleone herself opened the door and greeted Kay with a warm embrace that

surprised her. Then she surveyed Kay with an appraising eye. "You a beautiful girl," she

said flatly. "I have stupid sons." She pulled Kay inside the door and led her to the

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kitchen, where a platter of food was already set out and a pot of coffee perked on the

stove. "Michael comes home pretty soon," she said. "You surprise him."

They sat down together and the old woman forced Kay to eat, meanwhile asking

questions with great curiosity. She was delighted that Kay was a schoolteacher and that

she had come to New York to visit old girl friends and that Kay was only twenty-four

years old. She kept nodding her head as if all the facts accorded with some private

specifications in her mind. Kay was so nervous that she just answered the questions,

never saying anything else.

She saw him first through the kitchen window. A car pulled up in front of the house

and the two other men got out. Then Michael. He straightened up to talk with one of the

other men. His profile, the left one, was exposed to her view. It was cracked, indented,

like the plastic face of a doll that a child has wantonly kicked. In a curious way it did not

mar his handsomeness in her eyes but moved her to tears. She saw him put a snow-

white handkerchief to his mouth and nose and hold it there for a moment while he

turned away to come into the house.

She heard the door open and his footsteps in the hall turning into the kitchen and then

he was in the open space, seeing her and his mother. He seemed impassive, and then

he smiled ever so slightly, the broken half of his face halting the widening of his mouth.

And Kay, who had meant just to say "Hello, how are you," in the coolest possible way,

slipped out of her seat to run into his arms, bury her face against his shoulder. He

kissed her wet cheek and held her until she finished weeping and then he walked her

out to his car, waved his bodyguard away and drove off with her beside him, she

repairing her makeup by simply wiping what was left of it away with her handkerchief.

"I never meant to do that," Kay said. "It's just that nobody told me how badly they hurt

you."

Michael laughed and touched the broken side of his face. "You mean this? That's

nothing. Just gives me sinus trouble. Now that I'm home I'll probably get it fixed, I

couldn't write you or anything," Michael said. "You have to understand that before

anything else."

"OK," she said.

"I've got a place in the city," Michael said. "Is it all right if we go there or should it be

dinner and drinks at a restaurant?"

"I'm not hungry," Kay said.

They drove toward New York in silence for a while. "Did you get your degree?" Michael

asked.

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"Yes," Kay said. "I'm teaching grade school in my hometown now. Did they find the

man who really killed the policeman, is that why you were able to come home?"

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For a moment Michael didn't answer. "Yes, they did," he said. "It was in all the New

York papers. Didn't you read about it?"

Kay laughed with the relief of him denying he was a murderer. "We only get The New

York Times up in our town," she said. "I guess it was buried back in page eighty-nine. If

I'd read about it I'd have called your mother sooner." She paused and then said, "It's

funny, the way your mother used to talk, I almost believed you had done it. And just

before you came, while we were drinking coffee, she told me about that crazy man who

confessed."

Michael said, "Maybe my mother did believe it at first."

"Your own mother?" Kay asked.

Michael grinned. "Mothers are like cops. They always believe the worst."

Michael parked the car in a garage on Mulberry Street where the owner seemed to

know him. He took Kay around the corner to what looked like a fairly decrepit

brownstone house which fitted into the rundown neighborhood. Michael had a key to the

front door and when they went inside Kay saw that it was as expensively and

comfortably furnished as a millionaire's town house. Michael led her to the upstairs

apartment which consisted of an enormous living room, a huge kitchen and door that

led to the bedroom. In one corner of the living room was a bar and Michael mixed them

both a drink. They sat on a sofa together and Michael said quietly, "We might as well go

into the bedroom." Kay took a long pull from her drink and smiled at him. "Yes," she said.

For Kay the lovemaking was almost like it had been before except that Michael was

rougher, more direct, not as tender as he had been. As if he were on guard against her.

But she didn't want to complain. It would wear off. In a funny way, men were more

sensitive in a situation like this, she thought. She had found making love to Michael after

a two-year absence the most natural thing in the world. It was as if he had never been

away.

"You could have written me, you could have trusted me," she said, nestling against his

body. "I would have practiced the New England omerta. Yankees are pretty

closemouthed too, you know."

Michael laughed softly in the darkness. "I never figured you to be waiting," he said. "I

never figured you to wait after what happened."

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Kay said quickly, "I never believed you killed those two men. Except maybe when

your mother seemed to think so. But I never believed it in my heart. I know you too

well,"

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She could hear Michael give a sigh. "It doesn't matter whether I did or not," he said.

"You have to understand that."

Kay was a little stunned by the coldness in his voice. She said, "So just tell me now,

did you or didn't you?"

Michael sat up on his pillow and in the darkness a light flared as he got a cigarette

going. "If I asked you to marry me, would I have to answer that question first before

you'd give me an answer to mine?"

Kay said, "I don't care, I love you, I don't care. If you loved me you wouldn't be afraid

to tell me the truth. You wouldn't be afraid I might tell the police. That's it, isn't it? You're

really a gangster then, isn't that so? But I really don't care. What I care about is that you

obviously don't love me. You didn't even call me up when you got back home."

Michael was puffing on his cigarette and some burning

ashes fell on Kay's bare back. She flinched a little and said jokingly, "Stop torturing me,

I won't talk."

Michael didn't laugh. His voice sounded absentminded. "You know, when I came

home I wasn't that glad when I saw my family, my father, my mother, my sister Connie,

and Tom. It was nice but I didn't really give a damn. Then I came home tonight and saw

you in the kitchen and I was glad. Is that what you mean by love?"

"That's close enough for me," Kay said.

They made love again for a while. Michael was more tender this time. And then he

went out to get them both a drink. When he came back he sat on an armchair facing the

bed. "Let's get serious," he said. "How do you feel about marrying me?" Kay smiled at

him and motioned him into the bed. Michael smiled back at her. "Be serious," he said. "I

can't tell you about anything that happened. I'm working for my father now. I'm being

trained to take over the family olive oil business. But you know my family has enemies,

my father has enemies. You might be a very young widow, there's a chance, not much

of one, but it could happen. And I won't be telling you what happened at the office every

day. I won't be telling you anything about my business. You'll be my wife but you won't

be my partner in life, as I think they say. Not an equal partner. That can't be."

Kay sat up in bed. She switched on a huge lamp standing on the night table and then

she lit a cigarette. She leaned back on the pillows and said quietly, "You're telling me

you're a gangster, isn't that it? You're telling me that you're responsible for people being

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killed and other sundry crimes related to murder. And that I'm not ever to ask about that

part of your life, not even to think about it. Just like in the horror movies when the

monster asks the beautiful girl to marry him." Michael grinned, the cracked part of his

face turned toward her, and Kay said in contrition, "Oh, Mike, I don't even notice that

stupid thing, I swear I don't."

"I know," Michael said laughing. "I like having it now except that it makes the snot drip

out of my nose."

"You said be serious," Kay went on. "If we get married what kind of a life am I

supposed to lead? Like your mother, like an Italian housewife with just the kids and

home to take care of? And what about if something happens? I suppose you could wind

up in jail someday."

"No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no."

Kay laughed at this confidence, it was a laugh that had a funny mixture of pride with

its amusement. "But how can you say that?" she said. "Really."

Michael sighed. "These are all the things I can't talk to you about, I don't want to talk

to you about."

Kay was silent for a long time. "Why do you want me to marry you after never calling

me all these months? Am I so good in bed?"

Michael nodded gravely. "Sure," he said. "But I'm getting it for nothing so why should I

marry you for that? Look, I don't want an answer now. We're going to keep seeing each

other. You can talk it over with your parents. I hear your father is a real tough guy in his

own way. Listen to his advice."

"You haven't answered why, why you want to marry me," Kay said.

Michael took a white handkerchief from the drawer of the night table and held it to his

nose. He blew into it and then wiped. "There's the best reason for not marrying me," he

said. "How would that be having a guy around who always has to blow his nose."

Kay said impatiently, "Come on, be serious, I asked you a question."

Michael held the handkerchief in his hand. "OK," he said, "this one time. You are the

only person I felt any affection for, that I care about. I didn't call you because it never

occurred to me that you'd still be interested in me after everything that's happened. Sure,

I could have chased you, I could have conned you, but I didn't want to do that. Now

here's something I'll trust you with and I don't want you to repeat it even to your father. If

everything goes right, the Corleone Family will be completely legitimate in about five

years. Some very tricky things have to be done to make that possible. That's when you

may become a wealthy widow. Now what do I want you for? Well, because I want you

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and I want a family. I want kids; it's time. And I don't want those kids to be influenced by

me the way I was influenced by my father. I don't mean my father deliberately

influenced me. He never did. He never even wanted me in the family business. He

wanted me to become a professor or a doctor, something like that. But things went bad

and I had to fight for my Family. I had to fight because I love and admire my father. I

never knew a man more worthy of respect. He was a good husband and a good father

and a good friend to people who were not so fortunate in life. There's another side to

him, but that's not relevant to me as his son. Anyway I don't want that to happen to our

kids. I want them to be influenced by you. I want them to grow up to be All-American

kids, real All-American, the whole works. Maybe they or their grandchildren will go into

politics." Michael grinned. "Maybe one of them will be President of the United States.

Why the hell not? In my history course at Dartmouth we did some background on all the

Presidents and they had fathers and grandfathers who were lucky they didn't get

hanged. But I'll settle for my kids being doctors or musicians or teachers. They'll never

be in the Family business. By the time they are that old I'll be retired anyway. And you

and I will be part of some country club crowd, the good simple life of well-to-do

Americans. How does that strike you for a proposition?"

"Marvelous," Kay said. "But you sort of skipped over the widow part."

"There's not much chance of that. I just mentioned it to give a fair presentation."

Michael patted his nose with the handkerchief.

"I can't believe it, I can't believe you're a man like that, you're just not," Kay said. Her

face had a bewildered look. "I just don't understand the whole thing, how it could

possibly be."

"Well, I'm not giving any more explanations," Michael said gently. "You know, you

don't have to think about any of this stuff, it has nothing to do with you really, or with our

life together if we get married."

Kay shook her head. "How can you want to marry me, how can you hint that you love

me, you never say the word but you just now said you loved your father, you never said

you loved me, how could you if you distrust me so much you can't tell me about the

most important things in your life? How can you want to have a wife you can't trust?

Your father trusts your mother. I know that."

"Sure," Michael said. "But that doesn't mean he tells her everything. And, you know,

he has reason to trust her. Not because they got married and she's his wife. But she

bore him four children in times when it was not that safe to bear children. She nursed

and guarded him when people shot him. She believed in him. He was always her first

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loyalty for forty years. After you do that maybe I'll tell you a few things you really don't

want to hear."

"Will we have to live in the mall?" Kay asked.

Michael nodded. "We'll have our own house, it won't be so bad. My parents don't

meddle. Our lives will be our own. But until everything gets straightened out, I have to

live in the mall."

"Because it's dangerous for you to live outside it," Kay said.

For the first time since she had come to know him, she saw Michael angry. It was cold

chilling anger that was not externalized in any gesture or change in voice. It was a

coldness that came off him like death and Kay knew that it was this coldness that would

make her decide not to marry him if she so decided.

"The trouble is all that damn trash in the movies and in the newspapers," Michael said.

"You've got the wrong idea of my father and the Corleone Family. I'll make a final

explanation and this one will be really final. My father is a businessman trying to provide

for his wife and children and those friends he might need someday in a time of trouble.

He doesn't accept the rules of the society we live in because those rules would have

condemned him to a life not suitable to a man like himself, a man of extraordinary force

and character. What you have to understand is that he considers himself the equal of all

those great men like Presidents and Prime Ministers and Supreme Court Justices and

Governors of the States. He refuses to live by rules set up by others, rules which

condemn him to a defeated life. But his ultimate aim is to enter that society with a

certain power since society doesn't really protect its members who do not have their

own individual power. In the meantime he operates on a code of ethics he considers far

superior to the legal structures of society."

Kay was looking at him incredulously. "But that's ridiculous," she said. "What if

everybody felt the same way? How could society ever function, we'd be back in the

times of the cavemen. Mike, you don't believe what you're saying, do you?"

Michael grinned at her. "I'm just telling you what my father believes. I just want you to

understand that whatever else he is, he's not irresponsible, or at least not in the society

which he has created. He's not a crazy machine-gunning mobster as you seem to think.

He's a responsible man in his own way."

"And what do you believe?" Kay asked quietly.

Michael shrugged. "I believe in my family," he said. "I believe in you and the family we

may have. I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the

hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to

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vote for them. But that's for now. My father's time is done. The things he did can no

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longer be done except with a great deal of risk. Whether we like it or not the Corleone

Family has to join that society. But when they do I'd like us to join it with plenty of our

own power; that is, money and ownership of other valuables. I'd like to make my

children as secure as possible before they join that general destiny."

"But you volunteered to fight for your country, you were a war hero," Kay said. "What

happened to make you change?"

Michael said, "This is really getting us no place. But maybe I'm just one of those real

old-fashioned conservatives they grow up in your hometown. I take care of myself,

individual. Governments really don't do much for their people, that's what it comes down

to, but that's not it really. All I can say, I have to help my father, I have to be on his side.

And you have to make your decision about being on my side," He smiled at her. "I

guess getting married was a bad idea."

Kay patted the bed. "I don't know about marrying, but I've gone without a man for two

years and I'm not letting you off so easy now. Come on in here."

When they were in bed together, the light out, she whispered to him, "Do you believe

me about not having a man since you left?"

"I believe you," Michael said.

"Did you?" she whispered in a softer voice.

"Yes," Michael said. He felt her stiffen a little. "But not in the last six months." It was

true. Kay was the first woman he had made love to since the death of Apollonia.

Chapter 26

The garish suite overlooked the fake fairyland grounds in the rear of the hotel;

transplanted palm trees lit up by climbers of orange lights, two huge swimming pools

shimmering dark blue by the light of the desert stars. On the horizon were the sand and

stone mountains that ringed Las Vegas nestling in its neon valley. Johnny Fontane let

the heavy, richly embroidered gray drape fall and turned back to the room.

A special detail of four men, a pit boss, a dealer, extra relief man, and a cocktail

waitress in her scanty nightclub costume were getting things ready for private action.

Nino Valenti was lying on the sofa in the living room part of the suite, a water glass of

whiskey in his hand. He watched the people from the casino setting up the blackjack

table with the proper six padded chairs around its horseshoe outer rim. "That's great,

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185

that's great," he said in a slurred voice that was not quite drunken. "Johnny, come on

and gamble with me against these bastards. I got the luck. We'll beat their crullers in."

Johnny sat on a footstool opposite the couch: "You know I don't gamble," he said.

"How you feeling, Nino?"

Nino Valenti grinned at him. "Great. I got broads coming up at midnight, then some

supper, then back to the blackjack table. You know I got the house beat for almost fifty

grand and they've been grinding me for a week?"

"Yeah," Johnny Fontane said. "Who do you want to leave it to when you croak?"

Nino drained his glass empty. "Johnny, where the hell did you get your rep as a

swinger? You're a deadhead, Johnny. Christ, the tourists in this town have more fun

than you do."

Johnny said, "Yeah. You want a lift to that blackjack table?"

Nino struggled erect on the sofa and planted his feet firmly on the rug. "I can make it,"

he said. He let the glass slip to the floor and got up and walked quite steadily to where

the blackjack table had been set up. The dealer was ready. The pit boss stood behind

the dealer watching. The relief dealer sat on a chair away from the table. The cocktail

waitress sat on another chair in a line of vision so that she could see any of Nino

Valenti's gestures.

Nino rapped on the green baize with his knuckles. "Chips," he said.

The pit boss took a pad from his pocket and filled out a slip and put it in front of Nino

with a small fountain pen. "Here you are, Mr. Valenti," he said. "The usual five thousand

to start." Nino scrawled his signature on the bottom of the slip and the pit boss put it in

his pocket. He nodded to the dealer.

The dealer with incredibly deft fingers took stacks of black and gold one-hundred-

dollar chips from the built-in racks before him. In not more than five seconds Nino had

five even stacks of one-hundred-dollar chips before him, each stack had ten chips.

There were six squares a little larger than playing card, shapes etched in white on the

green baize, each square placed to correspond to where a player would sit. Now Nino

was placing bets on three of these squares, single chips, and so playing three hands

each for a hundred dollars. He refused to take a hit on all three hands because the

dealer had a six up, a bust card, and the dealer did bust. Nino raked in his chips and

turned to Johnny Fontane. "That's how to start the night, huh, Johnny?"

Johnny smiled. It was unusual for a gambler like Nino to have to sign a chit while

gambling. A word was usually good enough for the high rollers. Maybe they were afraid

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Nino wouldn't remember his take-out because of his drinking. They didn't know that

Nino remembered everything.

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Nino kept winning and after the third round lifted a finger at the cocktail waitress. She

went to the bar at the end of the room and brought him his usual rye in a water glass.

Nino took the drink, switched it to his other hand so he could put an arm around the

waitress. "Sit with me, honey, play a few hands; bring me luck."

The cocktail waitress was a very beautiful girl, but Johnny could see she was all cold

hustle, no real personality, though she worked at it. She was giving Nino a big smile but

her tongue was hanging out for one of those black and gold chips. What the hell,

Johnny thought, why shouldn't she get some of it? He just regretted that Nino wasn't

getting something better for his money.

Nino let the waitress play his hands for a few rounds and then gave her one of the

chips and a pat on the behind to send her away from the table. Johnny motioned to her

to bring him a drink. She did so but she did it as if she were playing the most dramatic

moment in the most dramatic movie ever made. She turned all her charm on the great

Johnny Fontane. She made her eyes sparkle with invitation, her walk was the sexiest

walk ever walked, her mouth was very slightly parted as if she were ready to bite the

nearest object of her obvious passion. She resembled nothing so much as a female

animal in heat, but it was a deliberate act. Johnny Fontane thought, oh, Christ, one of

them. It was the most popular approach of women who wanted to take him to bed. It

only worked when he was very drunk and he wasn't drunk now. He gave the girl one of

his famous grins and said, "Thank you, honey." The girl looked at him and parted her

lips in a thank-you smile, her eyes went all smoky, her body tensed with the torso

leaning slightly back from the long tapering legs in their mesh stockings. An enormous

tension seemed to be building up in her body, her breasts seemed to grow fuller and

swell burstingly against her thin scantily cut blouse. Then her whole body gave a slight

quiver that almost let off a sexual twang. The whole impression was one of a woman

having an orgasm simply because Johnny Fontane had smiled at her and said, "Thank

you, honey." It was very well done. It was done better than Johnny had ever seen it

done before. But by now he knew it was fake. And the odds were always good that the

broads who did it were a lousy lay.

He watched her go back to her chair and nursed his drink slowly. He didn't want to

see that little trick again. He wasn't in the mood for it tonight.

It was an hour before Nino Valenti began to go. He started leaning first, wavered back,

and then plunged off the chair straight to the floor. But the pit boss and the relief dealer

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had been alerted by the first weave and caught him before he hit the ground. They lifted

him and carried him through the parted drapes that led to the bedroom of the suite.

Johnny kept watching as the cocktail waitress helped the other two men undress Nino

and shove him under the bed covers. The pit boss was counting Nino's chips and

making a note on his pad of chits, then guarding the table with its dealer's chips. Johnny

said to him, "How long has that been going on?"

The pit boss shrugged. "He went early tonight. The first time we got the house doc

and he fixed Mr. Valenti up with something and gave him some sort of lecture. Then

Nino told us that we shouldn't call the doc when that happened, just put him to bed and

he'd be OK in the morning. So that's what we do. He's pretty lucky, he was a winner

again tonight, almost three grand."

Johnny Fontane said, "Well, let's get the house doc up here tonight. OK? Page the

casino floor if you have to."

It was almost fifteen minutes before Jules Segal came into the suite. Johnny noted

with irritation that this guy never looked like a doctor. Tonight he was wearing a blue

loose-knit polo shirt with white trim, some sort of white suede shoes and no socks. He

looked funny as hell carrying the traditional black doctor's bag.

Johnny said, "You oughta figure out a way to carry your stuff in a cut-down golf bag."

Jules grinned understandingly, "Yeah, this medical school carryall is a real drag.

Scares the hell out of people. They should change the color anyway."

He went over to where Nino was lying in bed. As he opened his bag he said to Johnny.

"Thanks for that check you sent me as a consultant. It was excessive. I didn't do that

much."

"Like hell you didn't," Johnny said. "Anyway, forget that, that was a long time ago.

What's with Nino?"

Jules was making a quick examination of heartbeat, pulse and blood pressure. He

took a needle out of his bag and shoved it casually into Nino's arm and pressed the

plunger. Nino's sleeping face lost its waxy paleness, color came into the cheeks, as if

the blood had started pumping faster.

"Very simple diagnosis," Jules said briskly. "I had a chance to examine him and run

some tests when he first came here and fainted. I had him moved to the hospital before

he regained consciousness. He's got diabetes, mild adult stabile, which is no problem if

you take care of it with medication and diet and so forth. He insists on ignoring it. Also

he is firmly determined to drink himself to death. His liver is going and his brain will go.

Right now he's in a mild diabetic coma. My advice is to have him put away."

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Johnny felt a sense of relief. It couldn't be too serious, all Nino had to do was take

care of himself. "You mean in one of those joints where they dry you out?" Johnny

asked.

Jules went over to the bar in the far corner of the room and made himself a drink.

"No," he said. "I mean committed. You know, the crazy house."

"Don't be funny," Johnny said.

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"I'm not joking," Jules said. "I'm not up on all the psychiatric jazz but I know something

about it, part of my trade. Your friend Nino can be put back into fairly good shape unless

the liver damage has gone too far, which we can't know until an autopsy really. But the

real disease is in his head. In essence he doesn't care if he dies, maybe he even wants

to kill himself. Until that is cured there's no hope for him. That's why I say, have him

committed and then he can undergo the necessary psychiatric treatment."

There was a knock on the door and Johnny went to answer it. It was Lucy Mancini.

She came into Johnny's arms and kissed him. "Oh, Johnny, it's so good to see you,"

she said.

"It's been a long time," Johnny Fontane said. He noticed that Lucy had changed. She

had gotten much slimmer, her clothes were a hell of a lot better and she wore them

better. Her hair style fitted her face in a sort of boyish cut. She looked younger and

better than he had ever seen her and the thought crossed his mind that she could keep

him company here in Vegas. It would be a pleasure hanging out with a real broad. But

before he could turn on the charm he remembered she was the doc's girl. So it was out.

He made his smile just friendly and said, "What are you doing coming to Nino's

apartment at night, eh?"

She punched him in the shoulder. "I heard Nino was sick and that Jules came up. I

just wanted to see if I could help. Nino's OK, isn't he?"

"Sure," Johnny said. "He'll be fine."

Jules Segal had sprawled out on the couch. "Like hell he is," Jules said. "I suggest we

all sit here and wait for Nino to come to. And then we all talk him into committing himself.

Lucy, he likes you, maybe you can help. Johnny, if you're a real friend of his you'll go

along. Otherwise old Nino's liver will shortly be exhibit A in some university medical lab."

Johnny was offended by the doctor's flippant attitude. Who the hell did he think he

was? He started to say so but Nino's voice came from the bed, "Hey, old buddy, how

about a drink?"

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Nino was sitting up in bed. He grinned at Lucy and said, "Hey, baby, come to old

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Nino," He held his arms wide open. Lucy sat on the edge of the bed and gave him a hug.

Oddly enough Nino didn't look bad at all now, almost normal.

Nino snapped his fingers. "Come on, Johnny, gimmee a drink. The night's young yet.

Where the hell's my blackjack table?"

Jules took a long slug from his own glass and said to Nino, "You can't have a drink.

Your doctor forbids it."

Nino scowled. "Screw my doctor." Then a play-acting look of contrition came on his

face. "Hey, Julie, that's you. You're my doctor, right? I don't mean you, old buddy.

Johnny, get me a drink or I get up out of bed and get it myself."

Johnny shrugged and moved toward the bar. Jules said indifferently, "I'm saying he

shouldn't have it."

Johnny knew why Jules irritated him. The doctor's voice was always cool, the words

never stressed no matter how dire, the voice always low and controlled. If he gave a

warning the warning was in the words alone, the voice itself was neutral, as if uncaring.

It was this that made Johnny sore enough to bring Nino his water glass of whiskey.

Before he handed it over he said to Jules, "This won't kill him, right?"

"No, it won't kill him," Jules said calmly. Lucy gave him an anxious glance, started to

say something, then kept still. Meanwhile Nino had taken the whiskey and poured it

down his throat.

Johnny was smiling down at Nino; they had shown the punk doctor. Suddenly Nino

gasped, his face seemed to turn blue, he couldn't catch his breath and was choking for

air. His body leaped upward like a fish, his face was gorged with blood, his eyes bulging.

Jules appeared on the other side of the bed facing Johnny and Lucy. He took Nino by

the neck and held him still and plunged the needle into the shoulder near where it joined

the neck. Nino went limp in his hands, the heaves of his body subsided, and after a

moment he slumped down back onto his pillow. His eyes closed in sleep.

Johnny, Lucy and Jules went back into the living room part of the suite and sat around

the huge solid coffee table. Lucy picked up one of the aquamarine phones and ordered

coffee and some food to be sent up. Johnny had gone over to the bar and mixed himself

a drink.

"Did you know he would have that reaction from the whiskey?" Johnny asked.

Jules shrugged. "I was pretty sure he would."

Johnny said sharply, "Then why didn't you warn me?"

"I warned you," Jules said.

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"You didn't warn me right," Johnny said with cold anger. "You are really one hell of a

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doctor. You don't give a shit. You tell me to get Nino in a crazy house, you don't bother

to use a nice word like sanitorium. You really like to stick it to people, right?"

Lucy was staring down in her lap. Jules kept smiling at Fontane. "Nothing was going

to stop you from giving Nino that drink. You had to show you didn't have to accept my

warnings, my orders. Remember when you offered me a job as your personal physician

after that throat business? I turned you down because I knew we could never get along.

A doctor thinks he's God, he's the high priest in modern society, that's one of his

rewards. But you would never treat me that way. I'd be a flunky God to you. Like those

doctors you guys have in Hollywood. Where do you get those people from anyway?

Christ, don't they know anything or don't they just care? They must know what's

happening to Nino but they just give him all kinds of drugs to keep him going. They wear

those silk suits and they kiss your ass because you're a power movie man and so you

think they are great doctors. Show biz, docs, you gotta have heart? Right? But they

don't give a fuck if you live or die. Well, my little hobby, unforgivable as it is, is to keep

people alive. I let you give Nino that drink to show you what could happen to him." Jules

leaned toward Johnny Fontane, his voice still calm, unemotional. "Your friend is almost

terminal. Do you understand that? He hasn't got a chance without therapy and strict

medical care. His blood pressure and diabetes and bad habits can cause a cerebral

hemorrhage in this very next instant. His brain will blow itself apart. Is that vivid enough

for you? Sure, I said crazy house. I want you to understand what's needed. Or you won't

make a move. I'll put it to you straight. You can save your buddy's life by having him

committed. Otherwise kiss him good-bye."

Lucy murmured, "Jules, darling, Jules, don't be so tough. Just tell him."

Jules stood up. His usual cool was gone, Johnny Fontane noticed with satisfaction.

His voice too had lost its quiet unaccented monotone.