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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."
Jules laughed. "You're a true Pygmalion, Doctor. Really, you were marvelous."
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
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
(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
can be fixed."
Fontane was not so charming now. He gave Jules a long cool look. "That's the first
thing I did nearly two years ago. Best specialists. My own doctor who's supposed to be
the top guy out here in California. They told me to get a lot of rest. Nothing wrong, just
getting older. A man's voice changes when he gets older."
Fontane ignored him after that, paying attention to Lucy, charming her as he charmed
all women. Jules kept listening to the voice. There had to be a growth on those vocal
cords. But then why the hell hadn't the specialists spotted it? Was it malignant and
inoperable? Then there was other stuff.
He interrupted Fontane to ask, "When was the last time you got examined by a
specialist?"
Fontane was obviously irritated but trying to be polite for Lucy's sake. "About eighteen
months ago," he said.
"Does your own doctor take a look once in a while?" Jules asked.
"Sure he does," Johnny Fontane said irritably. "He gives me a codeine spray and
checks me out. He told me it's just my voice aging, that all the drinking and smoking and
other stuff. Maybe you know more than he does?"
Jules asked, "What's his name?"
Fontane said with just a faint flicker of pride, "Tucker, Dr. James Tucker. What do you
think of him?"
The name was familiar, linked to famous movie stars, female, and to an expensive
health farm.
"He's a sharp dresser," Jules said with a grin.
Fontane was angry now. "You think you're a better doctor than he is?"
144
Jules laughed. "Are you a better singer than Carmen Lombardo?" He was surprised to
see Nino Valenti break up in laughter, banging his head on his chair. The job hadn't
been that good. Then on the wings of those guffaws (guffaw [gΛ'fo:] – грубый хохот,
гогот) he caught the smell of bourbon (сорт виски ['bu∂b∂n]) and knew that even this
early in the morning Mr. Valenti, whoever the hell he was, was at least half drunk.
Fontane was grinning at his friend. "Hey, you're supposed to be laughing at my jokes,
not his." Meanwhile Lucy stretched out her hand to Jules and drew him to her bedside.
"He looks like a bum (задница /груб./; бездельник, лодырь; плохой, низкого
качества) but he's a brilliant (блестящий) surgeon," Lucy told them. "If he says he's
better than Dr. Tucker then he's better than Dr. Tucker. You listen to him, Johnny."
The nurse came in and told them they would have to leave. The resident was going to
do some work on Lucy and needed privacy. Jules was amused to see Lucy turn her
head away so when Johnny Fontane and Nino Valenti kissed her they would hit her
cheek instead of her mouth, but they seemed to expect it. She let Jules kiss her on the
mouth and whispered, "Come back this afternoon, please?" He nodded.
Out in the corridor, Valenti asked him, "What was the operation for? Anything
serious?"
Jules shook his head. "Just a little female plumbing. Absolutely routine, please believe
me. I'm more concerned than you are, I hope to marry the girl."
They were looking at him appraisingly so he asked, "How did you find out she was in
the hospital?"
"Freddie called us and asked us to look in," Fontane said. "We all grew up in the same
neighborhood. Lucy was maid of honor when Freddie's sister got married."
"Oh," Jules said. He didn't let on that he knew the whole story, perhaps because they
were so cagey (уклончивый) about protecting Lucy and her affair with Sonny.
As they walked down the corridor, Jules said to Fontane, "I have visiting doctor's
privileges here, why don't you let me have a look at your throat?"
Fontane shook his head. "I'm in a hurry."
Nino Valenti said, "That's a million-dollar throat, he can't have cheap doctors looking
down it." Jules saw Valenti was grinning at him, obviously on his side.
Jules said cheerfully, "I'm no cheap doctor. I was the brightest young surgeon and
diagnostician on the East Coast until they got me on an abortion rap (легкий удар;
ответственность /за проступок/, обвинение, наказание /сленг/)."
145
As he had known it would, that made them take him seriously. By admitting his crime
he inspired belief in his claim of high competence. Valenti recovered first. "If Johnny
can't use you, I got a girl friend I want you to look at, not at her throat though."
Fontane said to him nervously, "How long will you take?"
"Ten minutes," Jules said. It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth
telling and medicine just didn't go together except in dire (ужасный, страшный;
крайний) emergencies (emergency [ı‘m∂:dG∂ns] – непредвиденный случай, крайняя
необходимость), if then.
"OK," Fontane said. His voice was darker, hoarser, with fright.
Jules recruited a nurse and a consulting room. It didn't have everything he needed but
there was enough. In less than ten minutes he knew there was a growth on the vocal
chords, that was easy. Tucker, that incompetent sartorial (портняжный, портновский)
son of a bitch of a Hollywood phony, should have been able to spot it. Christ, maybe the
guy didn't even have a license and if he did it should be taken away from him. Jules
didn't pay any attention to the two men now. He picked up the phone and asked for the
throat man at the hospital to come down. Then he swung around and said to Nino
Valenti, "I think it might be a long wait for you, you'd better leave."
Fontane stared at him in utter disbelief. "You son of a bitch, you think you're going to
keep me here? You think you're going to fuck around with my throat?"
Jules, with more pleasure than he would have thought possible, gave it to him straight
between the eyes. "You can do whatever you like," he said. "You've got a growth of
some sort on your vocal chords, in your larynx. If you stay here the next few hours, we
can nail it down, whether it's malignant or nonmalignant. We can make a decision for
surgery or treatment. I can give you the whole story. I can give you the name of a top
specialist in America and we can have him out here on the plane tonight, with your
money that is, and if I think it necessary. But you can walk out of here and see your
quack (знахарь; шарлатан) buddy or sweat while you decide to see another doctor, or
get referred to somebody incompetent. Then if it's malignant and gets big enough they'll
cut out your whole larynx or you'll die. Or you can just sweat. Stick here with me and we
can get it all squared away in a few hours. You got anything more important to do?"
Valenti said, "Let's stick around, Johnny, what the hell. I'll go down the hall and call
the studio. I won't tell them anything, just that we're held up. Then I'll come back here
and keep you company."
It proved to be a very long afternoon but a rewarding one. The diagnosis of the staff
throat man was perfectly sound as far as Jules could see after the X rays and swab
(мазок /мед./) analysis. Halfway through, Johnny Fontane, his mouth soaked with
iodine, retching (to retch – рыгать, тужиться /при рвоте/) over the roll of gauze stuck in
his mouth, tried to quit. Nino Valenti grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him
back into a chair. When it was all over Jules grinned at Fontane and said, "Warts."
Fontane didn't grasp it. Jules said again. "Just some warts. We'll slice them right off
like skin off baloney (= Bologna-sausage – болонская /копченая/ колбаса). In a few
months you'll be OK."
Valenti let out a yell but Fontane was still frowning. "How about singing afterward, how
will it affect my singing?"
Jules shrugged. "On that there's no guarantee. But since you can't sing now what's
the difference?"
Fontane looked at him with distaste. "Kid, you don't know what the hell you're talking
about. You act like you're giving me good news when what you're telling me is maybe I
won't sing anymore. Is that right, maybe I won't sing anymore?"
Finally Jules was disgusted. He'd operated as a real doctor and it had been a
pleasure. He had done this bastard a real favor and he was acting as if he'd been done
dirt. Jules said coldly, "Listen, Mr. Fontane, I'm a doctor of medicine and you can call
me Doctor, not kid. And I did give you very good news. When I brought you down here I
was certain that you had a malignant growth in your larynx which would entail
(повлечет за собой) cutting out your whole voice box. Or which could kill you. I was
worried that I might have to tell you that you were a dead man. And I was so delighted
when I could say the word 'warts.' Because your singing gave me so much pleasure,
helped me seduce girls when I was younger and you're a real artist. But also you're a
very spoiled guy. Do you think because you're Johnny Fontane you can't get cancer? Or
a brain tumor that's inoperable. Or a failure of the heart? Do you think you're never
going to die? Well, it's not all sweet music and if you want to see real trouble take a
walk through this hospital and you'll sing a love song about warts. So just stop the crap
and get on with what you have to do. Your Adolphe Menjou (американский актер
(1890 – 1963), изысканно-аристократический) medical man can get you the proper
surgeon but if he tries to get into the operating room I suggest you have him arrested for
attempted murder."
Jules started to walk out of the room when Valenti said, "Attaboy (= at-a-boy –
молодец, молодчина), Doc, that's telling him."
Jules whirled around and said, "Do you always get looped (напившийся,
надрызгавшийся /сленг/; loop – петля) before noontime?"
Valenti said, "Sure," and grinned at him and with such good humor that Jules said
more gently than he had meant to, "You have to figure you'll be dead in five years if you
keep that up."
Valenti was lumbering (to lumber – тяжело, неуклюже двигаться; lumber –
ненужные громоздкие вещи; бревна) up to him with little dancing steps. He threw his
arms around Jules, his breath stank of bourbon. He was laughing very hard. "Five
years?" he asked still laughing. "Is it going to take that long?"
A month after her operation Lucy Mancini sat beside the Vegas hotel pool, one hand
holding a cocktail, the other hand stroking Jules' head, which lay in her lap.
"You don't have to build up your courage," Jules said teasingly. "I have champagne
waiting in our suite."
"Are you sure it's OK so soon?" Lucy asked.
"I'm the doctor," Jules said. "Tonight's the big night. Do you realize I'll be the first
surgeon in medical history who tried out the results of his 'medical first' operation? You
know, the Before and After. I'm going to enjoy writing it up for the journals. Let's see,
'while the Before was distinctly pleasurable for psychological reasons and the
sophistication of the surgeon-instructor, the post-operative coitus was extremely
rewarding strictly for its neurological" – he stopped talking because Lucy had yanked on
his hair hard enough for him to yell with pain.
She smiled down at him. "If you're not satisfied tonight I can really say it's your fault,"
she said.
"I guarantee my work. I planned it even though I just let old Kellner do the manual
labor," Jules said. "Now let's just rest up, we have a long night of research ahead."
When they went up to their suite – they were living together now – Lucy found a
surprise waiting: a gourmet (гурман /франц./ ['gu∂meı]) supper and next to her
champagne glass, a jeweler's box with a huge diamond engagement ring inside it.
"That shows you how much confidence I have in my work," Jules said. "Now let's see
you earn it."
He was very tender, very gentle with her. She was a little scary at first, her flesh
jumping away from his touch but then, reassured, she felt her body building up to a
passion she had never known, and when they were done the first time and Jules
whispered, "I do good work," she whispered back, "Oh, yes, you do; yes, you do." And
they both laughed to each other as they started making love again.
Book 6
Chapter 23
After five months of exile in Sicily, Michael Corleone came finally to understand his
father's character and his destiny. He carne to understand men like Luca Brasi, the
ruthless caporegime Clemenza. his mother's resignation and acceptance of her role.
For in Sicily he saw what they would have been if they had chosen not to struggle
against their fate. He understood why the Don always said, "A man has only one
destiny." He came to understand the contempt for authority and legal government, the
hatred for any man who broke omerta, the law of silence.
Dressed in old clothes and a billed cap, Michael had been transported from the ship
docked at Palermo to the interior of the Sicilian island, to the very heart of a province
controlled by the Mafia, where the local capo-mafioso was greatly indebted to his father
for some past service. The province held the town of Corleone, whose name the Don
had taken when he emigrated to Arnerica so long ago. But there were no longer any of
the Don's relatives alive. The women had died of old age. All the men had been killed in
vendettas or had also emigrated, either to America, Brazil or to some other province on
the Italian mainland. He was to learn later that this small poverty-stricken town had the
highest murder rate of any place in the world.
Michael was installed as a guest in the home of a bachelor uncle of the capo-mafioso.
The uncle, in his seventies, was also the doctor for the district. The capo-mafioso was a
man in his late fifties named Don Tommasino and he operated as the gabbellotto for a
huge estate belonging to one of Sicily's most noble families. The gabbellotto, a sort of
overseer to the estates of the rich, also guaranteed that the poor would not try to claim
land not being cultivated, would not try to encroach (вторгаться, покушаться на чужие
права) in any way on the estate, by poaching (to poach – браконьерствовать;
незаконно вторгаться в чужие владения) or trying to farm it as squatters
(поселившийся незаконно на незанятой земле; to squat – сидеть на корточках). In
short, the gabbellotto was a mafioso who for a certain sum of money protected the real
estate of the rich from all claims made on it by the poor, legal or illegal. When any poor
peasant tried to implement (выполнять, осуществлять, обеспечивать выполнение)
the law which permitted him to buy uncultivated land, the gabbellotto frightened him off
with threats of bodily harm or death. It was that simple.
Don Tommasino also controlled the water rights in the area and vetoed the local
building of any new dams by the Roman government. Such dams would ruin the
lucrative business of selling water from the artesian wells he controlled, make water too
cheap, ruin the whole important water economy so laboriously built up over hundreds of
years. However, Don Tommasino was an old-fashioned Mafia chief and would have
nothing to do with dope traffic or prostitution. In this Don Tommasino was at odds with
the new breed of Mafia leaders springing up in big cities like Palermo, new men who,
influenced by American gangsters deported to Italy, had no such scruples.
The Mafia chief was an extremely portly (полный, дородный; представительный)
man, a "man with a belly," literally as well as in the figurative sense that meant a man
able to inspire fear in his fellow men. Under his protection, Michael had nothing to fear,
yet it was considered necessary to keep the fugitive's identity a secret. And so Michael
was restricted to the walled estate of Dr. Taza, the Don's uncle.
Dr. Taza was tall for a Sicilian, almost six feet, and had ruddy cheeks and snow-white
hair. Though in his seventies, he went every week to Palermo to pay his respects to the
younger prostitutes of that city, the younger the better. Dr. Taza's other vice was
reading. He read everything and talked about what he read to his fellow townsmen,
patients who were illiterate peasants, the estate shepherds, and this gave him a local
reputation for foolishness. What did books have to do with them?
In the evenings Dr. Taza, Don Tommasino and Michael sat in the huge garden
populated with those marble statues that on this island seemed to grow out of the
garden as magically as the black heady grapes. Dr. Taza loved to tell stories about the
Mafia and its exploits over the centuries and in Michael Corleone he had a fascinated
listener. There were times when even Don Tommasino would be carried away by the
balmy air, the fruity, intoxicating wine, the elegant and quiet comfort of the garden, and
tell a story from his own practical experience. The doctor was the legend, the Don the
reality.
In this antique garden, Michael Corleone learned about the roots from which his father
grew. That the word "Mafia" had originally meant place of refuge. Then it became the
name for the secret organization that sprang up to fight against the rulers who had
crushed the country and its people for centuries. Sicily was a land that had been more
cruelly raped than any other in history. The Inquisition had tortured rich and poor alike.
The landowning barons and the princes of the Catholic Church exercised absolute
power over the shepherds and farmers. The police were the instruments of their power
150
and so identified with them that to be called a policeman is the foulest insult one Sicilian
can hurl (бросать, швырять) at another.
Faced with the savagery of this absolute power, the suffering people learned never to
betray their anger and their hatred for fear of being crushed. They learned never to
make themselves vulnerable by uttering any sort of threat since giving such a warning
insured a quick reprisal (репрессалия). They learned that society was their enemy and
so when they sought redress for their wrongs they went to the rebel underground the
Дата публикования: 2014-11-18; Прочитано: 197 | Нарушение авторского права страницы | Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!