Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
Шрифт:
defense against the bloody retaliatory (to retaliate [ri’tжlieit] – отплачивать, отвечать
тем же самым; применять репрессалии; retaliatory [ri’tжlitri] – 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
allies. And then he took the final irrevocable (неотменяемый, окончательный,
безвозвратный [i'revkbl]) 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 [in'daitmnt]) 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 [‘smр] – душить; задохнуться) to death.