The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [19]
Hector Adonis knew exactly what Don Croce was thinking. Who cared how bad a surgeon the boy would make? It was a matter of family prestige, the loss of respect if the boy failed. No matter how bad a surgeon, he would never kill as many as Don Croce’s more busy employees. Also, this young Doctor Nattore had not bent to his will, not taken the hint, that Don Croce was willing to let the surgeon business go by, that he was willing for his nephew to be a medical doctor.
So now it was time for Hector Adonis to settle the issue. “My dear Don Croce,” he said, “I am sure that Doctor Nattore will accede to your wishes if we continue to persuade him. But why this romantic idea of your nephew to be a surgeon? As you say, he’s too amiable, and surgeons are born sadists. And who in Sicily voluntarily goes under the knife?” He paused for a moment. Then he went on. “Also he must train in Rome, if we pass him here, and the Romans will use any excuse to demolish a Sicilian. You do your nephew a disservice to insist. Let me propose a compromise.”
Doctor Nattore muttered that no compromise was possible. For the first time the lizardlike eyes of Don Croce flashed fire. Doctor Nattore fell silent and Hector Adonis rushed on. “Your nephew will receive passing marks to become a doctor, not a surgeon. We will say he has too kind a heart to cut.”
Don Croce spread wide his arms, his lips parted in a cold smile. “You have defeated me with your good sense and your reasonableness,” he said to Adonis. “So be it. My nephew will be a doctor, not a surgeon. And my sister must be content.” He made haste to leave them, his real purpose achieved; he had not hoped for more. The President of the University escorted him down to the car. But everyone in that room noted the last glance Don Croce gave Doctor Nattore before he left. It was a glance of the closest scrutiny as if he were memorizing the features, to make sure that he did not forget the face of this man who had tried to thwart his will.
When they had left, Hector Adonis turned to Doctor Nattore and said, “You, my dear colleague, must resign from the University and go practice your trade in Rome.”
Doctor Nattore said angrily, “Are you mad?”
Hector Adonis said, “Not as mad as you. I insist you have dinner with me tonight and I will explain to you why our Sicily is no Garden of Eden.”
“But why should I leave?” Doctor Nattore protested.
“You have said the word ‘no’ to Don Croce Malo. Sicily is not big enough for both of you.”
“But he’s gotten his way,” Doctor Nattore cried out in despair. “The nephew will become a doctor. You and the President have approved it.”
“But you did not,” Hector Adonis said. “We approved it to save your life. But still, you are now a marked man.”
That evening Hector Adonis was host to six professors, including Doctor Nattore, at one of Palermo’s best restaurants. Each of these professors had received a visit from a “man of honor” that day and each had agreed to change the marks of a failing pupil. Doctor Nattore listened to their stories with horror and then finally said, “But that cannot be in a medical school, not a doctor,” until finally they lost their temper with him. A Professor of Philosophy demanded to know why the practice of medicine was more important to the human race than the intricate thought processes of the human mind and the immortal sanctity of one’s soul. When they were finished Doctor Nattore agreed to leave the University of Palermo and emigrate to Brazil, where, he was assured by his colleagues, a good surgeon could make his fortune in gall bladders.
That night Hector Adonis slept the sleep of the just. But the next morning he received an urgent phone call from Montelepre. His godson, Turi Guiliano, whose intelligence he had nurtured, whose gentleness he had prized, whose future he had planned, had murdered a policeman.
CHAPTER 3