Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

– взбивать /масло/; взбалтывать, вспенивать) sourly in his stomach, felt himself

going a little sick. It was more than a year since he had put himself in the debt of the

Don to avenge his daughter's honor and in that time the knowledge that he must pay

that debt had receded. He had been so grateful seeing the bloody faces of those two

ruffians that he would have done anything for the Don. But time erodes gratitude more

quickly than it does beauty. Now Bonasera felt the sickness of a man faced with

disaster. His voice faltered as he answered, "Yes, I understand. I'm

listening."

He was surprised at the coldness in Hagen's voice. The Consigliori had always been

a courteous man, though not Italian, but now he was being rudely brusque. "You owe

the Don a service," Hagen said. "He has no doubt that you will repay him. That you will

be happy to have this opportunity. In one hour, not before, perhaps later, he will be at

your funeral parlor to ask for your help. Be there to greet him. Don't have any people

who work for you there. Send them home. If you have any objections to this, speak now

and I'll inform Don Corleone. He has other friends who can do him this service."

Amerigo Bonasera almost cried out in his fright, "How can you think I would refuse the

Godfather? Of course I'll do anything he wishes. I haven't forgotten my debt. I'll go to my

business immediately, at once."

Hagen's voice was gentler now, but there was something strange about it. "Thank

you," he said. "The Don never doubted you. The question was mine. Oblige him tonight

and you can always come to me in any trouble, you'll earn my personal friendship."

This frightened Amerigo Bonasera even more. He stuttered, "The Don himself is

coming to me tonight?"

"Yes," Hagen said.

"Then he's completely recovered from his injuries, thank God," Bonasera said. His

voice made it a question.

There was a pause at the other end of the phone, then Hagen's voice said very quietly,

"Yes." There was a click and the phone went dead.

Bonasera was sweating. He went into the bedroom and changed his shirt and rinsed

his mouth. But he didn't shave or use a fresh tie. He put on the same one he had used

during the day. He called the funeral parlor and told his assistant to stay with the

bereaved family using the front parlor that night. He himself would be busy in the

laboratory working area of the building. When the assistant started asking questions

Bonasera cut him off very curtly and told him to follow orders exactly.

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He put on his suit jacket and his wife, still eating, looked up at him in surprise. "I have

work to do," he said and she did not dare question him because of the look on his face.

Bonasera went out of the house and walked the few blocks to his funeral parlor.

This building stood by itself on a large lot with a white picket fence running all around

it. There was a narrow roadway leading from the street to the rear, just wide enough for

ambulances and hearses (hearse [h:s] – катафалк, похоронные дроги). Bonasera

unlocked the gate and left it open. Then he walked to the rear of the building and

entered it through the wide door there. As he did so he could see mourners already

entering the front door of the funeral parlor to pay their respects to the current corpse.

Many years ago when Bonasera had bought this building from an undertaker planning

to retire, there had been a stoop of about ten steps that mourners had to mount before

entering the funeral parlor. This had posed a problem. Old and crippled mourners

determined to pay their respects had found the steps almost impossible to mount, so

the former undertaker had used the freight elevator for these people, a small metal

platform, that rose out of the ground beside the building. The elevator was for coffins

and bodies. It would descend underground, then rise into the funeral parlor itself, so that

a crippled mourner would find himself rising through the floor beside the coffin as other

mourners moved their black chairs aside to let the elevator rise through the trapdoor

(люк, опускная дверь; trap – ловушка, капкан; /вентиляционная/ дверь /в шахте/).

Then when the crippled or aged mourner (скорбящий; to mourn – скорбеть,

оплакивать /кого-либо/) had finished paying his respects, the elevator would again

come up through the polished floor to take him down and out again.

Amerigo Bonasera had found this solution to the problem unseemly (неподобающий,

непристойный) and penny-pinching (мелочный, скаредный, экономящий на копейке;

to pinch – щипать; сжимать; скупиться). So he had had the front of the building

remodeled, the stoop done away with and a slightly inclining walk put in its place. But of

course the elevator was still used for coffins and corpses.

In the rear of the building, cut off from the funeral parlor and reception rooms by a

massive soundproof (звуконепроницаемый) door, was the business office, the

embalming (to embalm [im'b:m] – бальзамировать; balm – бальзам) room, a

storeroom for coffins, and a carefully locked closet holding chemicals and the awful

tools of his trade. Bonasera went to the office, sat at his desk and lit up a Camel, one of

the few times he had ever smoked in this building. Then he waited for Don Corleone.

He waited with a feeling of the utmost despair. For he had no doubt as to what

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