Read Online All Backs Were Turned by Marek Hlasko - Free Book Online

him.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYou can put up all the notices you want, but if anybody from management asks, I’ll say I knew nothing, understand?”
    â€œSure,” Dov said. “I understand. You came here from Europe leaving behind a herring stall or some equally important business. And now you blame Moses for not consulting you as to where to go. Thing is he was ashamed to enter any city leading a rabble of men like you. That’s why he went out into the desert.”
    â€œYou’re a Sabra, aren’t you?” the man asked.
    â€œThat’s right,” Dov said. “A Sabra.”
    He bought two cans of corned beef in a store opposite the airport barracks and drove off to the garage. The owner of the garage was standing in the shade, drinking a bottle of beer.
    â€œMy brakes don’t work,” Dov told him. “What should I do?”
    â€œSell that jeep for scrap metal and ride around in a taxi.”
    â€œListen, wise guy, I’m not feeling well. My head hurts and my eyes are jumping out of their sockets from the glare. So I’ll ask you again: what should I do?”
    â€œWrite to Elizabeth Taylor,” the owner said. “I hear she’s endowed a theater in Tel Aviv. Maybe she’ll want to help you too. She might even adopt you.”
    Dov grabbed the bottle the man was holding, tore it out of his grasp and splashed beer in his face; the man jumped back into the shade.
    â€œA little work will do you good and your wife will love you all the more for it,” Dov said. “I need that car in two hours. And I want those brakes fixed so good they’ll last me until winter.”
    â€œI can’t use the pit now,” the owner of the garage said. “Some men are in it. Go talk to them. They should be finishing soon.”
    Dov tossed the beer bottle back to him; the man caught it deftly. Dov walked into the garage. When his eyes adapted to the dark, he saw three men and an army GMC truck parked over the pit. The left back wheel was off; one of the men was placing a new bearing in the exposed axle, using a piece of pipe and a wooden hammer.
    â€œWill you be finishing soon?” Dov asked.
    The kneeling man turned his face up to him; there were bandages on it, and one of his eyes was swollen. “Yes,” he said. “If only this goddamn pit wasn’t so shallow! I would have finished long ago if there was a proper car hoist here.”
    â€œIs there any other garage in town?” Dov asked.
    â€œNo. Be grateful for this dump. At least you can grease the chassis once in a while. My problem is I can’t fit my body into a pit this small.” There was a proud note in his voice. “I’m too fat and too tall.”
    â€œMaybe you’re not too tall,” Dov said. “Maybe you’re a short chap, only your legs are long.”
    The man looked at him again. “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said. “You’re Dov Ben Dov, aren’t you?”
    Dov opened one of the cans of corned beef and began eating its contents with his knife. “That could be me,” he said, pausing between bites. “Though you might have in mind my brother or my eighty-year-old father.”
    â€œNo, I mean you. I met your brother yesterday evening at the beach.”
    â€œIt must have been night.”
    â€œWhat does it matter? The important thing is that we met.”
    â€œMaybe you interrupted something he was doing?” Dov asked, and the man lifted his hand to his blackened eye. “Something he enjoys doing very much? You don’t know my brother. I do. And let me tell you something: his prick is his Achilles heel.”
    â€œIt’s you I wanted to speak to, not your brother.”
    â€œWhat about?”
    â€œI wanted to ask you to tell your brother that hitting people is not nice.”
    â€œHe knows that,” Dov said. He speared another piece of corned beef with his knife and shoved