In fact that was the excuse for the party itself. People would say, "Let's go over to see

what the new picture so and so made is like." And so it was put in a professional context.

Young female starlets were forbidden to attend the Friday night parties. Or rather

discouraged. Most of them took the hint.

Screenings (screening – демонстрация фильма; screen – ширма; экран) of the new

movies took place at midnight and Johnny and Nino arrived at eleven. Roy McElroy

proved to be, at first sight, an enormously likable man, well-groomed (хорошо

ухоженный /о лошади/; холеный), beautifully dressed. He greeted Johnny Fontane

with a surprised cry of delight. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said with genuine

astonishment.

Johnny shook his hand. "I'm showing my country cousin the sights. Meet Nino."

McElroy shook hands with Nino and gazed at him appraisingly. "They'll eat him up

alive," he said to Johnny. He led them to the rear patio.

The rear patio was really a series of huge rooms whose glass doors had been opened

to a garden and pool. There were almost a hundred people milling around (двигались

кругом, кружили; to mill – молоть; mill – мельница), all with drinks in their hands. The

patio lighting was artfully arranged to flatter feminine faces and skin. These were

women Nino had seen on the darkened movie screens when he had been a teenager.

They had played their part in his erotic dreams of adolescence. But seeing them now in

the flesh was like seeing them in some horrible makeup. Nothing could hide the

tiredness of their spirit and their flesh; time had eroded (to erode – разъедать,

разрушать) their godhead. They posed and moved as charmingly as he remembered

but they were like wax fruit, they could not lubricate his glands («смазать» его железы,

гланды). Nino took two drinks, wandered to a table where he could stand next to a nest

of bottles. Johnny moved with him. They drank together until behind them came the

magic voice of Deanna Dunn.

27

Nino, like millions of other men, had that voice imprinted on his brain forever. Deanna

Dunn had won two Academy Awards, had been in the biggest movie grosser (фильм,

приносящий огромный доход) made in Hollywood. On the screen she had a feline

(кошачий ['fi:laın]) feminine charm that made her irresistible to all men. But the words

she was saying had never been heard on the silver screen. "Johnny, you bastard, I had

to go to my psychiatrist again because you gave me a one-night stand. How come you

never came back for seconds?"

Johnny kissed her on her proffered (to proffer – предлагать) cheek. "You wore me

out for a month," he said. "I want you to meet my cousin Nino. A nice strong Italian boy.

Maybe he can keep up with you (держаться наравне; составить компанию)."

Deanna Dunn turned to give Nino a cool look. "Does he like to watch previews?"

Johnny laughed. "I don't think he's ever had the chance. Why don't you break him in?"

Nino had to take a big drink when he was alone with Deanna Dunn. He was trying to

be nonchalant (беспечный, беззаботный ['non∫∂l∂nt]) but it was hard. Deanna Dunn

had the upturned nose, the clean-cut classical features of the Anglo-Saxon beauty. And

he knew her so well. He had seen her alone in a bedroom, heart-broken, weeping over

her dead flier husband who had left her with fatherless children. He had seen her angry,

hurt, humiliated, yet with a shining dignity when a caddish (грубый, вульгарный) Clark

Gable had taken advantage of her, then left her for a sexpot (сексуально

привлекательная женщина, «секс-бомба»). (Deanna Dunn never played sexpots in

the movies.) He had seen her flushed with requited (to requite – отплачивать,

вознаграждать) love, writhing in the embrace of the man she adored and he had seen

her die beautifully at least a half dozen times. He had seen her and heard her and

dreamed about her and yet he was not prepared for the first thing she said to him alone.

"Johnny is one of the few men with balls in this town," she said. "The rest are all fags

(fag – младший ученик, оказывающий услуги старшим товращам /в английских

школах/) and sick morons (moron [‘mo:ron] – слабоумный, идиот) who couldn't get it

up with a broad if you pumped a truckload of Spanish fly into their scrotums (scrotum

[‘skr∂ut∂m] – мошонка)." She took Nino by the hand and led him into a corner of the

room, out of traffic and out of competition.

Then still coolly charming, she asked him about himself. He saw through her. He saw

that she was playing the role of the rich society girl who is being kind to the stableboy or

the chauffeur, but who in the movie would either discourage his amatory interest (if the

28

part were played by Spencer Tracy), or throw up everything in her mad desire for him (if

the part were played by Clark Gable). But it didn't matter. He found himself telling her

about how he and Johnny had grown up together in New York, about how he and

Johnny had sung together on little club dates. He found her marvelously sympathetic

and interested. Once she asked casually, "Do you know how Johnny made that bastard

Jack Woltz give him the part?" Nino froze and shook his head. She didn't pursue it.

The time had come to see the preview of a new Woltz movie. Deanna Dunn led Nino,

her warm hand imprisoning his, to an interior room of the mansion that had no windows

but was furnished with about fifty small two-person couches scattered around in such a

way as to give each one a little island of semiprivacy.

Nino saw there was a small table beside the couch and on the table were an ice bowl,

glasses and bottles of liquor plus a tray of cigarettes. He gave Deanna Dunn a cigarette,

lit it and then mixed them both drinks. They didn't speak to each other. After a few

minutes the lights went out.

He had been expecting something outrageous (возмутительный). After all, he had

heard the legends of Hollywood depravity (развращенность). But he was not quite

prepared for Deanna Dunn's voracious plummet (жадный натиск, «ныряние»;