Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

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 [‘trжkwil])."

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:id]) 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

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