Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

Франк Илья

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

153

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 [‘rstik]) 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

154

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