The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
279
Eden. 
He had planned to walk to the coastal village of Mazara, and then take a bus back to 
Corleone in the evening, and so tire himself out and be able to sleep. The two 
shepherds wore rucksacks filled with bread and cheese they could eat on the way. They 
carried their luparas quite openly as if out for a day’s hunting. 
It was a most beautiful morning. Michael felt as he had felt when as a child he had gone 
out early on a summer day to play ball. Then each day had been freshly washed, freshly 
painted. And so it was now. Sicily was carpeted is gaudy flowers, the scent of orange 
and lemon blossoms so heavy that even with his facial injury which pressed on the 
sinuses, he could smell it. 
The smashing on the left site of his face had completely healed but the bone had formed 
improperly and the pressure on his sinuses made his left eye hurt. It also made his nose 
run continually, he filled up handkerchiefs with mucus and often blew his nose out onto 
the ground as the local peasants did, a habit that had disgusted him when he was a boy 
and had seen old Italians, disdaining handkerchiefs as English foppery, blow out their 
noses in the asphalt gutters. 
His face too felt “heavy.” Dr. Taza had told him that this was due to the pressure on his 
sinuses caused by the badly healed fracture. Dr. Taza called it an eggshell fracture of 
the zygoma; that if it had been treated before the bones knitted, it could have been 
easily remedied by a minor surgical procedure using an instrument like a spoon to push 
out the bone to its proper shape. Now, however, said the dootor, he would have to 
check into a Palermo hospital and undergo a major procedure called maxillo-facial 
surgery where the bone would be broken again. That was enough for Michael. He 
refused. And yet more than the pain, more than the nose dripping, he was bothered by 
the feeling of heaviness in his face. 
He never reached the coast that day. After going about fifteen miles he and his 
shepherds stopped in the cool green watery shade of an orange grove to eat lunch and 
drink their wine. Fabrizzio was chattering about how he would someday get to America. 
After drinking and eating they lolled in the shade and Fabrizzio unbuttoned his shirt and 
contracted his stomach muscles to make the tattoo come alive. The naked couple on his 
chest writhed in a lover’s agony and the dagger thrust by the husband quivered in their 
transfixed flesh. It amused them. It was while this was going on that Michael was hit with 
what the Sicilians call “the thunderbolt.” 

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