Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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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.
"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."
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?"