Michael said to Dr. Taza, �Have you got anything that can dry up this damn snot always coming out of my nose? I can�t have that girl seeing me wiping it all the time.� Dr. Taza said, �I�ll coat it with a drug before you have to see her. It makes your flesh a little numb but, don�t worry, you won�t be kissing her for a while yet.� Both doctor and Don smiled at this witticism. By Sunday, Michael had an Alfa Romeo, battered but serviceable. He had also made a bus trip to Palermo to buy presents for the girl and her family. He had learned that the girl�s name was Apollonia and every night he thought of her lovely face and her lovely name. He had to drink a good deal of wine to get some sleep and orders were given to the old women servants in the house to leave a chilled bottle at his bedside. He drank.it empty every night. On Sunday, to the tolling of church bells that covered all of Sicily, he drove the Alfa Romeo to the village and parked it just outside the cafe. Calo and Fabrizzio were in the back seat with their luparas and Michael told them they were to wait in the cafe, they were not to come to the house. The cafe was closed but Vitelli was there waiting for them, leaning against the railing of his empty terrace. They shook hands all around and Michael took the three packages, the presents, and trudged up the hill with Vitelli to his home. This proved to be larger than the usual village hut, the Vitellis were not poverty stricken. Inside the house was familiar with statues of the Madonna entombed in glass, votive lights flickering redly at their feet. The two sons were waiting, also dressed in their Sunday black. They were two sturdy young men just out of their teens but liking older because of their hard work on the farm. The mother was a vigorous woman, as stout as her husband. There was no sign of the girl. After the introductions, which Michael did not even hear, they sat in the room that might possibly have been a living room or just as easily the formal dining room. It was cluttered with all kinds of furniture and not very large but for Sicily it was middle class splendor. Michael gave Signor Vitelli and Signora Vitelli their presents. For the father it was a gold cigar cutter, for the mother a bolt of the finest cloth purchasable in Palermo. He still had one package for the girl. His presents were received with reserved thanks. The gifts were a little too premature, he should not have given anything until his second visit. The father said to him, in man to man country fashion, �Don�t think we�re so of no account to welcome strangers into our house so easily. But Don Tommasino vouched for you personally and nobody in this province would ever doubt the word of that good man. And so we make you welcome. But I must tell you that if your intentions are serious about my daughter, we will have to know a little more about you and your family. You can understand, your family is from this country.� Michael nodded and said politely, �I will tell you anything you wish to know anytime.� Signor Vitelli held up a hand. �I�m not a nosy man. Let�s see if it�s necessary first. Right now you�re welcome in my house as a friend of Don Tommasino.� Despite the drug painted inside his nose, Michael actually smelled the girl�s presence in the room. He turned and she was standing in the arched doorway that led to the back of the house. The smell was of fresh flowers and lemon blossoms but she wore nothing in her hair of jet black curls, nothing on her plain severe black dress, obviously her Sunday best. She gave him a quick glance and a tiny smile before she cast her eyes down demurely and sat down next to her mother. Again Michael felt that shortness of breath, that flooding through his body of something that was not so much desire as an insane possessiveness. He understood for the first time the classical jealousy of the Italian male. He was at that moment ready to kill anyone who touched this girl, who tried to claim her, take her away from him. He wanted to own her as wildly as a miser wants to own gold coins, as hungrily as a sharecropper wants to own his own land. Nothing was going to stop him from owning this girl, possessing her, locking her in a house and keeping her prisoner only for himself. He didn�t want anyone even to see her. When she turned to smile at one of her brothers Michael gave that young man a murderous look without even realizing it. The family could see it was a classical case of the �thunderbolt� and they were reassured. This young man would be putty in their daughter�s hands until they were married. After that of course things would change but it wouldn�t matter. Michael had bought himself some new clothes in Palermo and was no longer the roughly dressed peasant, and it was obvious to the family that he was a Don of some kind. His smashed face did not make him as evil looking as he believed; because his other profile was so handsome it made the disfigurement interesting even. And in any case this was a land where to be called disfigured you had to compete with a host of men who had suffered extreme physical misfortune. Michael looked directly at the girl, the lovely ovals of her face. Her lips now he could see were almost blue so dark was the blood pulsating in them. He said, not daring to speak her name, �I saw you by the orange groves the other day. When you ran away. I hope I didn�t frighten you?� The girl raised her eyes to him for just a fraction. She shook her head. But the loveliness of those eyes had made Michael look away. The mother said tartly, �Apollonia, speak to the poor fellow, he�s come miles to see you,� but the girl�s long jet lashes remained closed like wings over her eyes. Michael handed her the present wrapped in gold paper and the girl put it in her lap. The father said, �Open it, girl,� but her hands did not move. Her hands were small and brown, an urchin�s hands. The mother reached over and opened the package impatiently, yet careful not to tear the precious paper. The red velvet jeweler�s box gave her pause, she had never held such a thing in her hands and didn�t know how to spring its catch. But she got it open on pure instinct and then took out the present. It was a heavy gold chain to be worn as a necklace, and it awed them not only because of its obvious value but because a gift of gold in this society was also a statement of the most serious intentions. It was no less than a proposal of matrimony, or rather the signal that there was the intention to propose matrimony. They could no longer doubt the seriousness of this stranger. And they could not doubt his substance. Apollonia still had not touched her present. Her mother held it up for her to see and she raised those long lashes for a moment and then she looked directly at Michael, her doelike brown eyes grave, and said, �Grazie.� It was the first time he had heard her voice. It had all the velvety softness of youth and shyness and it set Michael�s ears ringing. He kept looking away from her and talking to the father and mother simply because looking at her confused him so much. But he noticed that despite the conservative looseness of her dress her body almost shone through the cloth with sheer sensuality. And he noticed the darkening of her skin blushing, the dark creamy skin, going darker with the blood surging to her feet. Finally Michael rose to go and the family rose too. They said their good byes formally, the girl at last confronting him as they shook hands, and he felt the shock of her skin on his skin, her skin warm and rough, peasant skin. The father walked down the hill with him to his car and invited him to Sunday dinner the next week. Michael nodded but he knew he couldn�t wait a week to see the girl again. He didn�t. The next day, without his shepherds, he drove to the village and sat on the garden terrace of the cafe to chat with her father. Signor Vitelli took pity on him and sent for his wife and daughter to come down to the cafe to join them. This meeting was less awkward. The girl Apollonia was less shy, and spoke more. She was dressed in her everyday print frock which suited her coloring much better. The next day the same thing happened. Only this time Apollonia was wearing the gold chain he had given her. He smiled at her then, knowing that this was a signal to him. He walked with her up the hill, her mother close behind them. But it was impossible for the two young people to keep their bodies from brushing against each other and once Apollonia stumbled and fell against him so that he had to hold her and her body so warm and alive in his hands started a deep wave of blood rising in his body. They could not see the mother behind them smiling because her daughter was a mountain goat and had not stumbled on this path since she was an infant in diapers. And smiling because this was the only way this young man was going to get his hands on her daughter until the marriage. This went on for two weeks. Michael brought her presents every time he came and gradually she became less shy. But they could never meet without a chaperone being present. She was just a village girl, barely literate, with no idea of the world, but she had a freshness, an eagerness for life that, with help of the language barrier, made her seem interesting. Everything went very swiftly at Michael�s request. And because the girl was not only fascinated by him but knew he must be rich, a wedding date was set for the Sunday two weeks away. Now Don Tommasino took a hand. He had received word from America that Michael was not subject to orders but that all elementary precautions should be taken. So Don Tommasino appointed himself the parent of the bridegroom to insure the presence of his own bodyguards. Calo and Fabrizzio were also members of the wedding party from Corieone as was Dr. Taza. The bride and groom would live in Dr. Taza�s villa surrounded by its stone wall. The wedding was the usual peasant one. The villagers stood in the streets and threw flowers as the bridal party, principals and guests, went on foot from the church to the bride�s home. The wedding procession pelted the neighbors with sugar coated almonds, the traditional wedding candies, and with candies left over made sugary white mountain on the bride�s wedding bed, in this case only a symbolic one since the first night would be spent in the villa outside Corleone. The wedding feast went on until midnight but bride and groom would leave before that in the Alfa Romeo. When that time came Michael was surprised to find that the mother was coming with them to the Corleone villa at the request of the bride. The father explained: the girl was young, a virgin, a little frightened, she would need someone to talk to on the morning following her bridal night; to put her on the right track if things went wrong. These matters could sometimes get very tricky. Michael saw Apollonia looking at him with doubt in her huge doe brown eyes. He smiled at her and nodded. And so it came about that they drove back to the villa outside Corleone with the mother in law in the car. But the older woman immediately put her head together with the servants of Dr. Taza, gave her daughter a hug and a kiss and disappeared from the scene. Michael and his bride were allowed to go to their huge bedroom alone. Apollonia was still wearing her bridal costume with a cloak thrown over it. Her trunk and case had been brought up to the room from the car. On a small table was a bottle of wine and a plate of small wedding cakes. The huge canopied bed was never out of their vision. The young girl in the center of the room waited for Michael to make the first move. And now that he had her alone, now that he legally possessed her, now that there was no barrier to his enjoying that body and face he had dreamed about every night, Michael could not bring himself to approach her. He watched as she took off the bridal shawl and draped it over a chair, and placed the bridal crown on the small dressing table. That table had an array of perfumes and creams that Michael had had sent from Palermo. The girl tallied them with her eyes for a moment. Michael turned off the lights, thinking the girl was waiting for some darkness to shield her body while she undressed. But the Sicilian moon came through the unshuttered windows, bright as gold, and Michael went to close the shutters but not all the way, the room would be too warm. The girl was still standing by the table and so Michael went out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He and Dr. Taza and Don Tommasino had taken a glass of wine together in the garden while the women had prepared themselves for bed. He had expected to find Apollonia in her nightgown when he returned, already between the covers. He was surprised that the mother had not done this service for her daughter. Maybe Apollonia had wanted him to help her to undress. But he was certain she was too shy, too innocent for such forward behavior. Coming back into the bedroom, he found it completely dark, someone had closed the shutters all the way. He groped his way toward the bed and could make out the shape of Apollonia�s body lying under the covers, her back to him, her body curved away from him and huddled up. He undressed and slipped naked beneath the sheets. He stretched out one hand and touched silky naked skin. She had not put on her gown and this boldness delighted him. Slowly, carefully, he put one hand on her shoulder and pressed her body gently so that she would turn to him. She turned slowly and his hand touched her breast, soft, full and then she was in his arms so quickiy that their bodies came together in one line of silken electricity and he finally had his arms around her, was kissing her warm mouth deeply, was crushing her body and breasts against him and then rolling his body on top of hers. Her flesh and hair taut silk, now she was all eagerness, surging against him wildly in a virginal erotic frenzy. When he entered her she gave a little gasp and was still for just a second and then in a powerful forward thrust of her pelvis she locked her satiny legs around his hips. When they came to the end they were locked together so fiercely, straining against each other so violently, that falling away from each other was like the tremble before death. That night and the weeks that followed, Michael Corleone came to understand the premium put on virginity by socially primitive people. It was a period of sensuality that he had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power. Apollonia in those first days became almost his slave. Given trust, given affection, a young full blooded girl aroused from virginity to erotic awareness was as delicious as an exactly ripe fruit. She on her part brightened up the rather gloomy masculine atmosphere of the villa. She had packed her mother off the very next day after her bridal night and presided at the communal table with bright girlish charm. Don Tommasino dined with them every night and Dr. Taza told all his old stories as they drank wine in the garden full of statues garlanded with blood red flowers, and so the evenings passed pleasantly enough. At night in their bedroom the newly married couple spent hours of feverish lovemaking. Michael could not get enough of Apollonia�s beautifully sculpted body, her honey colored skin, her huge brown eyes glowing with passion. She had a wonderfully fresh smell, a fleshly smell perfumed by her sex yet almost sweet and unbearably aphrodisiacal. Her virginal passion matched his nuptial lust and often it was dawn when they fell into an exhausted slumber. Sometimes, spent but not yet ready for sleep, Michael sat on the window ledge and stared at Apollonia�s naked body while she slept. Her face too was lovely in repose, a perfect face he had seen before only in art books of painted Italian Madonnas who by no stretch of the artist�s skill could be thought virginal. In the first week of their marriage they went on picnics and small trips in the Alfa Romeo. But then Don Tommasino took Michael aside and explained that the marriage had made his presence and identity common knowledge in that part of Sicily and precautions had to be taken against the enemies of the Corleone Family, whose long arms also stretched to this island refuge. Don Tommasino put armed guards around his villa and the two shepherds, Calo and Fabrizzio, were fixtures inside the walls. So Michael and his wife had to remain on the villa grounds. Michael passed the time by teaching Apollonia to read and write English and to drive the car along the inner walls of the villa. About this time Don Tommasino seemed to be preoccupied and poor company. He was still having trouble with the new Mafia in the town of Palermo, Dr. Taza said. One night in the garden an old village woman who worked in the house as a servant brought a dish of fresh olives and then turned to Michael and said, �Is it true what everybody is saying that you are the son of Don Corleone in New York City, the Godfather?� Michael saw Don Tommasino shaking his head in disgust at the general knowledge of their secret. But the old crone was looking at him in so concerned a fashion, as if it was important for her to know the truth, that Michael nodded. �Do you know my father?� he asked. The woman�s name was Filomena and her face was as wrinkled and brown as a walnut, her brown stained teeth showing through the shell of her flesh. For the first time since he had been in the villa she smiled at him. �The Godfather saved my life once,� she said, �and my brains too.� She made a gesture toward her head. She obviously wanted to say something else so Michael smiled to encourage her. She asked almost fearfully, �Is it true that Luca Brasi is dead?� Michael nodded again and was surprised at the look of release on the old woman�s face. Filomena crossed herself and said, �God forgive me, but may his soul roast in hell for eternity.� Michael remembered his old curiosity about Brasi, and had the sudden intuition that this woman knew the story Hagen and Sonny had refused to tell him. He poured the woman a glass of wine and made her sit down. �Tell me about my father and Luca Brasi,� he said gently. �I know some of it, but how did they become friends and why was Brasi so devoted to my father? Don�t be afraid, come tell me.� Filomena�s wrinkled face, her raisin black eyes, turned to Don Tommasino, who in some way signaled his permission. And so Filomena passed the evening for them by telling her story. Thirty years before, Filomena had been a midwife in New York City, on Tenth Avenue, servicing the Italian colony. The women were always pregnant and she prospered. She taught doctors a few things when they tried to interfere in a difficult birth. Her husband was then a prosperous grocery store owner, dead now poor soul, she blessed him, though he had been a card player and wencher who never thought to put aside for hard times. In any event one cursed night thirty years ago when all honest people were long in their beds, there came a knocking on Filomena�s door. She was by no means frightened, it was the quiet hour babes prudently chose to enter safely into this sinful world, and so she dressed and opened the door. Outside it was Luca Brasi whose reputation even then was fearsome. It was known also that he was a bachelor. And so Filomena was immediately frightened. She thought he had come to do her husband harm, that perhaps her husband had foolishly refusal Brasi some small favor. But Brasi had come on the usual errand. He told Filomena that there was a woman about to give birth, that the house was out of the neighborhood some distance away and that she was to come with him. Filomena immediately sensed something amiss. Brasi�s brutal face looked almost like that of a madman that night, he was obviously in the grip of some demon. She tried to protest that she attended only women whose history she knew but he shoved a handful of green dollars in her hand and ordered her roughly to come along with him. She was too frightened to refuse. In the street was a Ford, its driver of the same feather as Luca Brasi. The drive was no more than thirty minutes to a small frame house in Long Island City right over the bridge. A two family house but obviously now tenanted only by Brasi and his gang. For there were some other ruffians in the kitchen playing cards and drinking. Brasi took Filomena up the stairs to a bedroom. In the bed was a young pretty girl who looked Irish, her face painted, her hair red; and with a belly swollen like a sow. The poor girl was so frightened. When she saw Brasi she turned her head away in terror, yes terror, and indeed the look of hatred on Brasi�s evil face was the most frightening thing she had ever seen in her life. (Here Filomena crossed herself again.) To make a long story short, Brasi left the room. Two of his men assisted the midwife and the baby was born, the mother was exhausted and went into a deep sleep. Brasi was summoned and Filomena, who had wrapped the newborn child in an extra blanket, extended the bundle to him and said, �If you�re the father, take her. My work is finished.� Brasi glared at her, malevolent, insanity stamped on his face. �Yes, I�m the father,� he said. �But I don�t want any of that race to live. Take it down to the basement and throw it into the furnace.� For a moment Filomena thought she had not understood him properly. She was puzzled by his use of the word �race.� Did he mean because the girl was not Italian? Or did he mean because the girl was obviously of the lowest type; a whore in short? Or did he mean that anything springing from his loins he forbade to live. And then she was sure he was making a brutal joke. She said shortly, �It�s your child, do what you want.� And she tried to hand him the bundle. At this time the exhausted mother awoke and turned on her side to face them. She was just in time to see Brasi thrust violently at the bundle, crushing the newborn infant against Filomena�s chest. She called out weakly, �Luc, Luc, I�m sorry,� and Brasi turned to face her. It was terrible, Filomena said now. So terrible. They were like two mad animals. They were not human. The hatred they bore each other blazed through the room. Nothing else, not even the newborn infant, existed for them at that moment. And yet there was a strange passion. A bloody, demonical lust so unnatural you knew they were damned forever. Then Luca Brasi turned back to Filomena and said harshly, �Do what tell you, I�ll make you rich.� Filomena could not speak in her terror. She shook her head. Finally she managed to whisper, �You do it, you�re the father, do it if you like.� But Brasi didn�t answer. Instead he drew a knife from inside his shirt. �I�ll cut your throat,� he said. She must have gone into shock then because the next thing she remembered they were all standing in the basement of the house in front of a square iron furnace. Filomena was still holding the blanketed baby, which had not made a sound. (Maybe if it had cried, maybe if I had been shrewd enough to pinch it, Filomena said, that monster would have shown mercy.) One of the men must have opened the furnace door, the fire now was visible. And then she was alone with Brasi in that basement with its sweating pipes, its mousy odor. Brasi had his knife out again. And there could be no doubting that he would kill her. There were the flames, there were Brasi�s eyes. His face was the gargoyle of the devil, it was not human, it was not sane: He pushed her toward the open furnace door. At this point Filomena fell silent. She folded her bony hands in her lap and looked directly at Michael. He knew what she wanted, how she wanted to tell him, without using her voice. He asked gently, �Did you do it?� She nodded. It was only after another glass of wine and crossing herself and muttering a prayer that she continued her story. She was given a bundle of money and driven home. She understood that if she uttered a word about what had happened she would be killed. But two days later Brasi murdered the young Irish girl, the mother of the infant, and was arrested by the police. Filomena, frightened out of her wits, went to the Godfather and told her story. He ordered her to keep silent, that he would attend to everything. At that time Brasi did not work for Don Corleone. Before Don Corleone could set matters aright, Luca Brasi tried to commit suicide in his cell, hacking at his throat with a piece of glass. He was transferred to the prison hospital and by the time he recovered Don Corleone had arranged everything. The police did not have a case they could prove in court and Luca Brasi was released. Though Don Corleone assured Filomena that she had nothing to fear from either Luca Brasi or the police, she had no peace. Her nerves were shattered and she could no longer work at her profession. Finally she persuaded her husband to sell the grocery store and they returned to Italy. Her husband was a good man, had been told everything and understood. But he was a weak man and in Italy squandered the fortune they had both slaved in America to earn. And so after he died she had become a servant. So Filomena ended her story. She had another glass of wine and said to Michael, �I bless the name of your father. He always sent me money when I asked, he saved me from Brasi. Tell him I say a prayer for his soul every night and that he shouldn�t fear dying.� After she had left, Michael asked Don Tommasino, �Is her story true?� The capo mafioso nodded. And Michael thought, no wonder nobody wanted to tell him the story. Some story. Some Luca. The next morning Michael wanted to discuss the whole thug with Don Tommasino but learned that the old man had been called to Palermo by an urgent message delivered by a courier. That evening Don Tommasino returned and took Michael aside. News had come from America, he said. News that it grieved him to tell. Santino Corleone had been killed. Chapter 24 The Sicilian sun, early morning lemon colored, filled Michael�s bedroom. He awoke and, feeling Apollonia�s satiny body against his own sleep warm skin, made her come awake with love. When they were done, even all the months of complete possession could not stop him from marveling at her beauty and her passion. She left the bedroom to wash and dress in the bathroom down the hall. Michael, still naked, the morning sun refreshing his body, lit a cigarette and relaxed on the bed. This was the last morning they would spend in this house and the villa. Don Tommasino had arranged for him to be transferred to another town on the southern coast of Sicily. Apollonia, in the first month of pregnancy, wanted to visit with her family for a few weeks and would join him at the new hiding place after the visit. The night before, Don Tommasino had sat with Michael in the garden after Apollonia had gone to bed. The Don had been worried and tired, and admitted that he was concerned about Michael�s safety. �Your marriage brought you into sight,� he told Michael: �I�m surprised your father hasn�t made arrangements for you to go someplace else. In any case I�m having my own troubles with the young Turks in Palermo. I�ve offered some fair arrangements so that they can wet their beaks more than they deserve, but those scum want everything. I can�t understand their attitude. They�ve tried a few little tricks but I�m not so easy to kill. They must know I�m too strong for them to hold me so cheaply. But that�s the trouble with young people, no matter how talented. They don�t reason things out and they want all the water in the well.� And then Don Tommasino had told Michael that the two shepherds, Fabrizzio and Calo, would go with him as bodyguards in the Alfa Romeo. Don Tommasino would say his good byes tonight since he would be off early in the morning, at dawn, to see to his affairs in Palermo. Also, Michael was not to tell Dr. Taza about the move, since the doctor planned to spend the evening in Palermo and might blab. Michael had known Don Tommasino was in trouble. Armed guards patrolled the walls of the villa at night and a few faithful shepherds with their luparas were always in the house. Don Tommasino himself went heavily armed and a personal bodyguard attended him at all times. The morning sun was now too strong. Michael stubbed out his cigarette and put on work pants, work shirt and the peaked cap most Sicilian men wore. Still barefooted, he leaned out his bedroom window and saw Fabrizzio sitting in one of the garden chairs. Fabrizzio was lazily combing his thick dark hair, his lupara was carelessly thrown acres the garden table. Michael whistled and Fabrizzio looked up to his window. �Get the car,� Michael called down to him. �I�ll be leaving in five minutes. Where�s Calo?� Fabrizzio stood up. His shirt was open, exposing the blue and red lines of the tattoo on his chest. �Calo is having a cup of coffee in the kitchen,� Fabrizzio said. �Is your wife coming with you?� Michael squinted down at him. It occurred to him that Fabrizzio had been following Apollonia too much with his eyes the last few weeks. Not that he would dare ever to make an advance toward the wife of a friend of the Don�s. In Sicily there was no surerroad to death. Michael said coldly, �No, she�s going home to her family first, she�ll join us in a few days.� He watched Fabrizzio hurry into the stone hut that served as a garage for the Alfa Romeo. Michael went down the hall to wash. Apollonia was gone. She was most likely in the kitchen preparing his breakfast with her own hands to wash out the guilt she felt because she wanted to see her family one more time before going so far away to the other end of Sicily. Don Tommasino would arrange transportation for her to where Michael would be. Down in the kitchen the old woman Filomena brought him his coffee and shyly bid him a good bye. �I�ll remember you to my father,� Michael said and she nodded. Calo came into the kitchen and said to Michael, �The car�s outside, shall I get your bag?� �No, I�ll get it,� Michael said. �Where�s Apolla?� Calo�s face broke into an amused grin. �She�s sitting in the driver�s seat of the car, dying to step on the gas. She�ll be a real American woman before she gets to America.� It was unheard of for one of the peasant women in Sicily to attempt driving a car. But Michael sometimes let Apollonia guide the Alfa Romeo around the inside of the villa walls, always beside her however because she sometimes stepped on the gas when she meant to step on the brake. Michael said to Calo, �Get Fabrizzio and wait for me in the car.� He went out of the kitchen and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. His bag was already packed. Before picking it up he looked out the window and saw the car parked in front of the portico steps rather than the kitchen entrance. Apollonia was sitting in the car, her hands on the wheel like a child playing. Calo was just putting the lunch basket in the rear seat. And then Michael was annoyed to see Fabrizzio disappearing through the gates of the villa on some errand outside. What the hell was he doing? He saw Fabrizzio take a look over his shoulder, a look that was somehow furtive. He�d have to straighten that damn shepherd out. Michael went down the stairs and decided to go through the kitchen to see Filomena again and give her a final farewell. He asked the old woman, �Is Dr. Taza still sleeping?� Filomena�s wrinkled face was sly. �Old roosters can�t greet the sun. The doctor went to Palermo last night.� Michael laughed. He went out the kitchen entrance and the smell of lemon blossoms penetrated even his sinus filled nose. He saw Apollonia wave to him from the car just ten paces up the villa�s driveway and then he realized she was motioning him to stay where he was, that she meant to drive the car to where he stood. Calo stood grinning beside the car, his lupara dangling in his hand. But there was still no sign of Fabrizzio. At that moment; without any conscious reasoning process, everything came together in his mind, and Michael shouted to the girl, �No! No!� But his shout was drowned in the roar of the tremendous explosion as Apollonia switched on the ignition. The kitchen door shattered into fragments and Michael was hurled along the wall of the villa for a good ten feet. Stones tumbling from the villa roof hit him on the shoulders and one glanced off his skull as he was lying on the ground. He was conscious just long enough to see that nothing remained of the Alfa Romeo but its four wheels and the steel shafts which held them together. * * * He came to consciousness in a room that seemed very dark and heard voices that were so low that they were pure sound rather than words. Out of animal instinct he tried to pretend he was still unconscious but the voices stopped and someone was leaning from a chair close to his bed and the voice was distinct now, saying, �Well, he�s with us finally.� A lamp went on, its light like white fire on his eyeballs and Michael turned his head. It felt very heavy, numb. And then he could see the face over his bed was that of Dr. Taza. �Let me look at you a minute and I�ll put the light out,� Dr,. Taza said gently. He was busy shining a small pencil flashlight into Michael�s eyes. �You�ll be all right,� Dr. Taza said and turned to someone else in the room. �You can speak to him.� It was Don Tommasino sitting on a chair near his bed, Michael could see him clearly now. Don Tommasino was saying, �Michael, Michael, can I talk to you? Do you want to rest?� It was easier to raise a hand to make a gesture and Michael did so and Don Tommasino said, �Did Fabrizzio bring the car from the garage?� Michael, without knowing he did so, smiled. It was in some strange way, a chilling smile, of assent. Don Tommasino said, �Fabrizzio has vanished. Listen to me, Michael. You�ve been unconscious for nearly a week. Do you understand? Everybody thinks you�re dead, so you�re safe now, they�ve stopped looking for you. I�ve sent messages to your father and he�s sent back instructions. It won�t be long now, you�ll be back in America. Meanwhile you�ll rest here quietly. You�re safe up in the mountains, in a special farmhouse I own. The Palermo people have made their peace with me now that you�re supposed to be dead, so it was you they were after all the time. They wanted to kill you while making people think it was me they were after. That�s something you should know. As for everything else, leave it all to me. You recover your strength and be tranquil.� Michael was remembering everything now. He knew his wife was dead, that Calo was dead. He thought of the old woman in the kitchen. He couldn�t remember if she had come outside with him. He whispered, �Filomena?� Don Tommasino said quietly, �She wasn�t hurt, just a bloody nose from the blast. Don�t worry about her.� Michael said, �Fabrizzio. Let your shepherds know that the one who gives me Fabrizzio will own the finest pastures in Sicily.� Both men seemed to sigh with relief. Don Tontmasino lifted a glass from a nearby table and drank from it an amber fluid that jolted his head up. Dr. Taza sat on the bed and said almost absently, �You know, you�re a widower. That�s rare in Sicily.� As if the distinction might comfort him. Michael motioned to Don Tommasino to lean closer. The Don sat on the bed and bent his head. �Tell my father to get me home,� Michael said. �Tell my father I wish to be his son.� But it was to be another month before Michael recovered from his injuries and another two months after that before all the necessary papers and arrangements were ready. Then he was flown from Palermo to Rome and from Rome to New York. In all that time no trace had been found of Fabrizzio. Book Seven Chapter 25. . . . . . .