Английский язык с Крестным Отцом - Илья Франк

force and strength. He sat straight in the armchair and he said to Hagen, "Give me a

drop of anisette."

Hagen switched bottles and poured them both a portion of the fiery, licorice-tasting

alcohol. It was peasant, homemade stuff, much stronger than that sold in stores, the gift

of an old friend who every year presented the Don with a small truckload.

"My wife was weeping before she fell asleep," Don Corleone said. "Outside my

window I saw my caporegimes coming to the house and it is midnight. So, Consigliori of

mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone knows."

Hagen said quietly, "I didn't tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you

and tell you the news myself. In another moment I would have come to waken you."

Don Corleone said impassively, "But you needed a drink first."

"Yes," Hagen said.

"You've had your drink," the Don said. "You can tell me now." There was just the

faintest hint of reproach for Hagen's weakness.

"They shot Sonny on the causeway," Hagen said. "He's dead."

Don Corleone blinked (to blink – мигать, щуриться). For just the fraction of a second

the wall of his will disintegrated and the draining (to drain – дренировать, осушать

/почву/; истощать /силы, средства/) of his physical strength was plain on his face.

Then he recovered.

He clasped his hands in front of him on top of the desk and looked directly into

Hagen's eyes. "Tell me everything that happened," he said. He held up one of his hands.

"No, wait until Clemenza and Tessio arrive so you won't have to tell it all again."

It was only a few moments later that the two caporegimes were escorted into the room

by a bodyguard. They saw at once that the Don knew about his son's death because

the Don stood up to receive them. They embraced him as old comrades were permitted

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to do. They all had a drink of anisette which Hagen poured them before he told them the

story of that night.

Don Corleone asked only one question at the end. "Is it certain my son is dead?"

Clemenza answered. "Yes," he said. "The bodyguards were of Santino's regime but

picked by me. I questioned them when they came to my house. They saw his body in

the light of the tollhouse. He could not live with the wounds they saw. They place their

lives in forfeit for what they say."

Don Corleone accepted this final verdict without any sign of emotion except for a few

moments of silence. Then he said, "None of you are to concern yourselves with this

affair. None of you are to commit any acts of vengeance, none of you are to make any

inquiries to track down the murderers of my son without my express command. There

will be no further acts of war against the Five Families without my express and personal

wish. Our Family win cease all business operations and cease to protect any of our

business operations until after my son's funeral. Then we will meet here again and

decide what must be done. Tonight we must do what we can for Santino, we must bury

him as a Christian. I will have friends of mine arrange things with the police and all other

proper authorities. Clemenza, you will remain with me at all times as my bodyguard, you

and the men of your regime. Tessio, you will guard all other members of my Family.

Tom, I want you to call Amerigo Bonasera and tell him I will need his services at some

time during this night. To wait for me at his establishment. It may be an hour, two hours,

three hours. Do you all understand that?"

The three men nodded. Don Corleone said, "Clemenza, get some men and cars and

wait for me. I will be ready in a few minutes. Tom, you did well. In the morning I want

Constanzia with her mother. Make arrangements for her and her husband to live in the

mall. Have Sandra's friends, the women, go to her house to stay with her. My wife will

go there also when I have spoken with her. My wife will tell her the misfortune and the

women will arrange for the church to say their masses and prayers for his soul."

The Don got up from his leather armchair. The other men rose with him and

Clemenza and Tessio embraced him again. Hagen held the door open for the Don, who

paused to look at him for a moment. Then the Don put his hand on Hagen's cheek,

embraced him quickly, and said, in Italian, "You've been a good son. You comfort me."

Telling Hagen that he had acted properly in this terrible time. The Don went up to his

bedroom to speak to his wife. It was then that Hagen made the call to Amerigo

Bonasera for the undertaker to redeem (выкупить /заложенные вещи/; возместить;

искупить) the favor he owed to the Corleones.

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Book 5

Chapter 20

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The death of Santino Corleone sent shock waves through the underworld of the nation.

And when it became known that Don Corleone had risen from his sick bed to take

charge of the Family affairs, when spies at the funeral reported that the Don seemed to

be fully recovered, the heads of the Five Families made frantic efforts to prepare a

defense against the bloody retaliatory (to retaliate [rı’tжlıeıt] – отплачивать, отвечать

тем же самым; применять репрессалии; retaliatory [rı’tжlı∂t∂rı] – ответный,

ответный удар; репрессивный) war that was sure to follow. Nobody made the mistake

of assuming that Don Corleone could be held cheaply because of his past misfortunes.

He was a man who had made only a few mistakes in his career and had learned from

every one of them.

Only Hagen guessed the Don's real intentions and was not surprised when emissaries

were sent to the Five Families to propose a peace. Not only to propose a peace but a

meeting of all the Families in the city and with invitations to Families all over the United

States to attend. Since the New York Families were the most powerful in the country, it

was understood that their welfare affected the welfare of the country as a whole.

At first there were suspicions. Was Don Corleone preparing a trap (западня)? Was he

trying to throw his enemies off their guard? Was he attempting to prepare a wholesale

massacre to avenge his son? But Don Corleone soon made it clear that he was sincere.

Not only did he involve all the Families in the country in this meeting, but made no move

to put his own people on a war footing (привести в боевую готовность) or to enlist

allies. And then he took the final irrevocable (неотменяемый, окончательный,

безвозвратный [ı'rev∂k∂bl]) step that established the authenticity of these intentions

and assured the safety of the grand council to be assembled. He called on the services

of the Bocchicchio Family.

The Bocchicchio Family was unique in that, once a particularly ferocious branch of the

Mafia in Sicily, it had become an instrument of peace in America. Once a group of men

who earned their living by a savage determination, they now earned their living in what

perhaps could be called a saintly fashion. The Bocchicchios' one asset (имущество

/часто об одном предмете/; ценное качество /разг./) was a closely knit structure of

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blood relationships, a family loyalty severe even for a society where family loyalty came

before loyalty to a wife.

The Bocchicchio Family, extending out to third cousins, had once numbered nearly

two hundred when they ruled the particular economy of a small section of southern

Sicily. The income for the entire family then came from four or five flour mills, by no

means owned communally, but assuring labor and bread and a minimal security for all

Family members. This was enough, with intermarriages, for them to present a common

front against their enemies.

No competing mill, no dam that would create a water supply to their competitors or

ruin their own selling of water, was allowed to be built in their corner of Sicily. A powerful

landowning baron once tried to erect his own mill strictly for his personal use. The mill

was burned down. He called on the carabineri (полицейские /итал./) and higher

authorities, who arrested three of the Bocchicchio Family. Even before the trial the

manor house of the baron was torched (подожжен; torch – факел). The indictment

(обвинительный акт [ın'daıtm∂nt]) and accusations were withdrawn. A few months later

one of the highest functionaries in the Italian government arrived in Sicily and tried to

solve the chronic water shortage of that island by proposing a huge dam. Engineers

arrived from Rome to do surveys while watched by grim natives, members of the

Bocchicchio clan. Police flooded the area, housed in a specially built barracks.

It looked like nothing could stop the dam from being built and supplies and equipment

had actually been unloaded in Palermo. That was as far as they got. The Bocchicchios

had contacted fellow Mafia chiefs and extracted agreements for their aid. The heavy

equipment was sabotaged, the lighter equipment stolen. Mafia deputies in the Italian

Parliament launched a bureaucratic counterattack against the planners. This went on for

several years and in that time Mussolini came to power. The dictator decreed that the

dam must be built. It was not. The dictator had known that the Mafia would be a threat

to his regime, forming what amounted to a separate authority from his own. He gave full

powers to a high police official, who promptly solved the problem by throwing everybody

into jail or deporting them to penal work islands. In a few short years he had broken the

power of the Mafia, simply by arbitrarily arresting anyone even suspected of being a

mafioso. And so also brought ruin to a great many innocent families.

The Bocchicchios had been rash enough to resort to force against this unlimited

power. Half of the men were killed in armed combat, the other half deported to penal

island colonies. There were only a handful left when arrangements were made for them

to emigrate to America via the clandestine underground route of jumping ship through

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Canada. There were almost twenty immigrants and they settled in a small town not far

from New York City, in the Hudson Valley, where by starting at the very bottom they

worked their way up to owning a garbage hauling firm (фирма по вывозу мусора; to

haul – тянуть, тащить, волочить; перевозить) and their own trucks. They became

prosperous because they had no competition. They had no competition because

competitors found their trucks burned and sabotaged. One persistent fellow who

undercut prices was found buried in the garbage he had picked up during the day,

smothered (to smother [‘smΛр∂] – душить; задохнуться) to death.

But as the men married, to Sicilian girls, needless to say, children came, and the

garbage business though providing a living, was not really enough to pay for the finer

things America had to offer. And so, as a diversification (ответвление; боковая линия;

/здесь/ дополнительное занятие), the Bocchicchio Family became negotiators and

hostages in the peace efforts of warring Mafia families.

A strain of stupidity ran through the Bocchicchio clan, or perhaps they were just

primitive. In any case they recognized their limitations and knew they could not compete

with other Mafia families in the struggle to organize and control more sophisticated

business structures like prostitution, gambling, dope and public fraud (обман,

мошенничество /здесь – государства/ [fro:d]). They were straight-from-the-shoulder

(сплеча, прямо, без обиняков) people who could offer a gift to an ordinary patrolman

but did not know how to approach a political bagman. They had only two assets. Their

honor and their ferocity.

A Bocchicchio never lied, never committed an act of treachery. Such behavior was too

complicated. Also, a Bocchicchio never forgot an injury and never left it unavenged no

matter what the cost. And so by accident they stumbled into what would prove to be

their most lucrative profession.

When warring families wanted to make peace and arrange a parley, the Bocchicchio

clan was contacted. The head of the clan would handle the initial negotiations and

arrange for the necessary hostages. For instance, when Michael had gone to meet

Sollozzo, a Bocchicchio had been left with the Corleone Family as surety for Michael's

safety, the service paid for by Sollozzo. If Michael were killed by Sollozzo, then the

Bocchicchio male hostage held by the Corleone Family would be killed by the

Corleones. In this case the Bocchicchios would take their vengeance on Sollozzo as the

cause of their clansman's death. Since the Bocchicchios were so primitive, they never

let anything, any kind of punishment, stand in their way of vengeance. They would give

up their own lives and there was no protection against them if they were betrayed. A

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Bocchicchio hostage (заложник; залог ['hostıdG]) was gilt-edged (с золотым обрезом;

первоклассный; gilt – позолота) insurance (гарантия, страхование).

And so now when Don Corleone employed the Bocchicchios as negotiators and

arranged for them to supply hostages for all the Families to come to the peace meeting,

there could be no question as to his sincerity. There could be no question of treachery.

The meeting would be safe as a wedding.

Hostages given, the meeting took place in the director's conference room of a small