The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
316
paused to finish his drink. “But even that’s trouble, for women anyway. I used to have 
women who weren’t supposed to have any more babies. ‘It’s dangerous,’ I’d tell them. 
‘You could die,’ I’d tell them. And a month later they pop in, their faces all rosy, and say, 
‘Doctor, I think I’m pregnant,’ and sure enough they’d kill the rabbit. ‘But it’s dangerous,’ 
I’d tell them. My voice used to have expression in those days. And they’d smile at me 
and say, ‘But my husband and I are very strict Catholics,’ they’d say.” 
There was a knock on the door and two waiters wheeled in a cart covered with food and 
silver service coffeepots. They took a portable table from the bottom of the cart and set 
it up. Then Johnny dismissed them. 
They sat at the table and ate the hot sandwiches Lucy had ordered and drank the 
coffee. Johnny leaned back and lit up a cigarette. “So you save lives. How come you 
became an abortionist?” 
Lucy spoke up for the first time. “He wanted to help girls in trouble, girls who might 
commit suicide or do something dangerous to get rid of the baby.” 
Jules smiled at her and sighed. “It’s not that simple. I became a surgeon finally. I’ve got 
the good hands, as ballplayers say. But I was so good I scared myself silly. I’d open up 
some poor bastard’s belly and know he was going to die. I’d operate and know that the 
cancer or tumor would come back but I’d send them off home with a smile and a lot of 
bullshit. Some poor broad comes in and I slice off one tit. A year later she’s back and I 
slice off the other tit. A year after that, I scoop out her insides like you scoop the seeds 
out of a cantaloupe. After all that she dies anyway. Meanwhile husbands keep calling up 
and asking, ‘What do the tests show? What do the tests show?’ 
“So I hired an extra secretary to take all those calls. I saw the patient only when she was 
fully prepared for examination, tests or operation. I spent the minimum possible time 
with the victim because I was, after all, a busy man. And then finally I’d let the husband 
talk to me for two minutes. ‘It’s terminal,’ I’d say. And they could never hear that last 
word. They understood what it meant but they never heard it. I thought at first that 
unconsciously I was dropping my voice on the last word, so I consciously said it louder. 
But still they never heard it. One guy even said, ‘What the hell do you mean, it’s 
germinal?’” Jules started to laugh. “Germinal, terminal, what the hell. I started to do 
abortions. Nice and easy, everybody happy, like washing the dishes and leaving a clean 
sink. That was my class. I loved it, I loved being an abortionist. I don’t believe that a 
two-month fetus is a human being so no problems there. I was helping young girls and 

---