with the blood surging to her face.
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 coudn'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 cafй to chat with her father. Signor Vitelli took pity on him and sent
for his wife and daughter to come down to the cafй 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
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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
Corleone 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 (to pelt – бросать /в кого-либо/,
забрасывать) the neighbors with sugar-coated almonds, the traditional wedding
candies, and with candies left over made sugary white mountains 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 (canopy [‘kжn∂pı] –
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балдахин, полог) 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 (tally – бирка, этикетка, ярлык; счет /в игре/; to tally –
подсчитывать, здесь: просмотреть) 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 (смелое, развязное поведение;
forward [‘fo:w∂d] – передний, передовой; развязный, нахальный /кто лезет вперед/;
behavior [bı’heıvj∂] – поведение, манеры).
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 hody 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 quickly 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 (туго натянутый, упругий [to:t]) 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
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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.