The Last Don - Mario Puzo [5]
Pippi stared at her blankly for a moment, surprised, slightly apprehensive. Then he said softly, “You were never in any danger,” and he put his arm around her shoulder. “Believe me,” he said. “Don’t think about these things. Forget everything. We have happy lives ahead of us. Just forget the past.”
Rose Marie dipped her head to kiss her infant but really to hide her face from Pippi. “I understand everything,” she said, knowing that he would repeat the conversation to her father and her brothers. “I have made peace with it.” She wanted her family to know that she loved them still and that she was content her infant had been received into the Family, sanctified now by Holy Water, and saved from everlasting Hell.
At that moment Virginio Ballazzo gathered Rose Marie and Pippi up and swept them to the center of the lawn. Don Domenico Clericuzio emerged from the mansion, followed by his three sons.
Men in formal dress, women in gowns, infants in satin, the Clericuzio Family formed a half circle for the photographer. The crowd of guests clapped and shouted congratulations, and the moment was frozen: the moment of peace, of victory, and of love.
Later the picture was enlarged and framed and hung in the Don’s study room, next to the last portrait of his son Silvio, killed in the war against the Santadio.
The Don watched the rest of the party festivities from the balcony of his bedroom.
Rose Marie wheeled her baby carriage past the bowlers, and Pippi’s wife, Nalene, slim, tall, and elegant, came along the lawn carrying her infant, Croccifixio, in her arms. She put the child in the same carriage with Dante, and the two women gazed down lovingly.
The Don felt a surge of joy that these two infants would grow up sheltered and safe and would never know the price that had been paid for their happy destiny.
Then the Don saw Petie slip a baby bottle of milk into the carriage and everyone laughed as the two babies fought for it. Rose Marie raised her son Dante from the carriage, and the Don remembered her as she was just a few short years before. The Don sighed. There is nothing so beautiful as a woman in love, nor so heartbreaking as when she is made a widow, he thought with regret.
Rose Marie was the child he had most loved, she had been so radiant, so full of cheer. But Rose Marie had changed. The loss of her brother and her husband was too great. Yet, in the Don’s experience, true lovers would always love again and widows grew tired of black weeds. And now she had an infant to cherish.
The Don looked back on his life and marveled it had come to such glorious fruition. Certainly he had made monstrous decisions to achieve power and wealth, but he felt little regret. And it all had been necessary and proved correct. Let other men groan over their sins, Don Clericuzio accepted them and placed his faith in the God he knew would forgive him.
Now Pippi was playing boccie with three soldiers from the Bronx Enclave, men older than him, who had solid business shops in the Enclave, but who were in awe of Pippi. Pippi with his usual high spirits and skill was still the center of attention. He was a legend, he had played boccie against the Santadio.
Pippi was exuberant, shouting with joy when his ball jostled the opposing ball away from the target bowl. What a man Pippi was, the Don thought. A faithful soldier, a warm companion. Strong and quick, cunning and withholding.
His dear friend Virginio Ballazzo had appeared on the boccie court, the only man who could rival Pippi’s skill. Ballazzo gave a great flourish as he let his ball go, and there was a loud cheer as he made the successful hit. He raised his hand to the balcony in triumph, and the Don clapped. He felt a sense of pride that such men flowered and prospered under his rule, as had all the people who had gathered together on this Palm Sunday in Quogue. And that his foresight would protect them in the difficult years to come.
What the Don could not foresee were the seeds of evil in as yet unformed human minds.
BOOK I
Hollywood
Las Vegas 1990