Английский язык с Крестным Отцом - Илья Франк

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