The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
302
with the money paid, she got out and walked across the mall to the central house. 
Mrs. Corleone herself opened the door and greeted Kay with a warm embrace that 
surprised her. Then she surveyed Kay with an appraising eye. “You a beautiful girl,” she 
said flatly. “I have stupid sons.” She pulled Kay inside the door and led her to the 
kitchen, where a platter of food was already set out and a pot of coffee perked on the 
stove. “Michael comes home pretty soon,” she said. “You surprise him.” 
They sat down together and the old woman forced Kay to eat, meanwhile asking 
questions with great curiosity. She was delighted that Kay was a schoolteacher and that 
she had come to New York to visit old girl friends and that Kay was only twenty-four 
years old. She kept nodding her head as if all the facts accorded with some private 
specifications in her mind. Kay was so nervous that she just answered the questions, 
never saying anything else. 
She saw him first through the kitchen window. A car pulled up in front of the house and 
the two other men got out. Then Michael. He straightened up to talk with one of the 
other men. His profile, the left one, was exposed to her view. It was cracked, indented, 
like the plastic face of a doll that a child has wantonly kicked. In a curious way it did not 
mar his handsomeness in her eyes but moved her to tears. She saw him put a 
snow-white handkerchief to his mouth and nee and hold it there for a moment while he 
turned away to come into the house. 
She heard the door open and his footsteps in the hall turning into the kitchen and then 
he was in the open space, seeing her and his mother. He seemed impassive, and then 
he smiled ever so slightly, the broken half of his face halting the widening of his mouth. 
And Kay, who had want just to say “Hello, how are you,” in the coolest possible way, 
slipped out of her seat to run into his arms, bury her face against his shoulder. He 
kissed her wet cheek and held her until she finished weeping and then he walked her 
out to his car, waved his bodyguard away and drove off with her beside him, she 
repairing her makeup by simply wiping what was left of it away with her handkerchief. 
“I never meant to do that,” Kay said. “It’s just that nobody told me how badly they hurt 
you.” 
Michael laughed and touched the broken side of his face. “You mean this? That’s 
nothing. Just gives me sinus trouble. Now that I’m home I’ll probably get it fixed. I 
couldn’t write you or anything,” Michael said. “You have to understand that before 
anything else.” 

---