Omerta by Mario Puzo Page A

unjust.”
    Nicole was resolute. She did not flinch. “Dad, to domesticate animals, you don’t let them eat raw meat. You don’t let them get a taste of it or they want more. The more we kill, the easier it gets to kill. Can’t you see that?” When he didn’t answer her, she asked, “And how can you decide what’s just or unjust? Where do you draw the line?” It had been meant as a defiance but was more of a plea to understand all her years of doubt in him.
    They all expected an outburst of fury by the Don at her insolence, but suddenly he was in a good humor. “I have had my moments of weakness,” he said, “but I never let a child judge his or her parents. Children are useless and live by our sufferance. And I consider myself beyond reproach as a father. I have raised three children who are pillars in society, talented, accomplished, and successful. And not completely powerless against fate. Can any of you reproach me?”
    At this point Nicole lost her anger. “No,” she said. “As a parent no one can reproach you. But you left something out. The oppressed are the ones who hang. The rich wind up escaping the final punishment.”
    The Don looked at Nicole with great seriousness. “Why, then, do you not fight to change the laws so that the rich hang with the poor? That is more intelligent.”
    Astorre murmured, smiling cheerfully. “There would be very few of us left.” And that remark cut the tension.
    “The greatest virtue of humanity is mercy,” Nicole said. “An enlightened society does not execute a human being, and it refrains from punishment as much as common sense and justice allows.”
    It was only then that the Don lost his customary good humor. “Where did you get such ideas?” he asked. “They are self-indulgent and cowardly—more, they are blasphemous. Who is more merciless than God? He does not forgive, He does not ban punishment. There is a Heaven and there is a Hell by His decree. He does not banish grief and sorrow in His world. It is His Almighty duty to show no more than the necessary mercy. So who are you to dispense such marvelous grace? It’s an arrogance. Do you think that if you are so saintly, you can create a better world? Remember, saints can only whisper prayers to God’s ear and only when they have earned the right to do so by their own martyrdom. No. It is our duty to pursue our fellowman. Or what great sins he could be capable of committing. We would deliver our world to the devil.”
    This left Nicole speechless with anger and Valerius and Marcantonio smiling. Astorre bowed his head as if in prayer.
    Finally Nicole said, “Daddy, you are just too outrageous as a moralist. And you certainly are no example to follow.”
    There was a long silence at the table as each one sat with memories of their strange relationship with the Don. Nicole never quite believing the stories she’d heard about her father and yet fearing they were true. Marcantonio remembering one of his colleagues at the network asking slyly, “How does your father treat you and the other kids?”
    And Marcantonio, considering the question carefully, knowing the man was referring to his father’s reputation, had said quite seriously, “My father is very cordial to us.”
    Valerius was thinking how much his father was like some generals he had served under. Men who got the job done without any moral scruples, without any doubts as to their duty. Arrows that sped to their mark with deadly swiftness and accuracy.
    For Astorre it was different. The Don had always shown him affection and trust. But he was also the only one at the table who knew that the reputation of the Don was true. He was remembering three years before when he had returned from his years of exile. The Don had given him certain instructions.
    The Don had told him, “A man my age can die from stubbing his toe on a door, or from a black mole on his back, or from a break in the beating of his heart. It is strange that a man does not realize