All Backs Were Turned by Marek Hlasko Read Free Book Online Page B

footsteps. He got up and lit a cigarette, feeling the weight and awkwardness of his own hand.
    â€œDov?” someone said in the dark. “Anything wrong? You need help?”
    â€œNo, I don’t need help, damn you.”
    â€œThen why is your engine running?”
    â€œThat’s what it’s for. I didn’t invent it. Now leave me alone, okay?”
    The man went away. Little Dov sat down next to Esther; she gazed up at him and watched his crooked mouth inhale the smoke.
    â€œWhy is your mouth always crooked, Dov?”
    â€œWhen I was a kid, I fell and busted my septum. A surgeon could have fixed it, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. I had to twist my mouth to breathe normally. My nose healed with time, but this leer remained.” He tossed the cigarette butt away and lay down beside her; the sand was as hot as during the day. He started to move his hands over her body and again felt his jaws begin to clench.
    â€œNo, darling,” she said. “I can’t. I’m hurting all over inside.”
    â€œEsther,” he said quietly, “go into the sea and swim around a bit. And then come back to me. I can’t throw my brother out. And I don’t want to make love to you with him there.” He reached for her swimsuit and helped her put it on. “Now go for a swim.”
    â€œDov,” Esther said.
    â€œYes, baby?”
    â€œI don’t know if I should tell you this, but I’m afraid.”
    â€œOf what, Esther?”
    â€œYour brother.”
    â€œDon’t be afraid of him,” he said. “He’s not a bad man. He’s unhappy, that’s all.”
    â€œPeople have been saying so many bad things about him.”
    â€œThat’s not his fault. People often can’t tell the difference between badness and misfortune. Though I don’t blame them for it.”
    He turned off the jeep’s engine and they started walking toward the sea, passing through hard, invisible walls of heat the day had left behind. Then Little Dov sat down in his boat, which he always beached in this spot, and watched Esther swim quickly out of sight; she was a good, fast swimmer—young, long-armed, and long-legged.
    â€œEnjoying yourself with the little woman, Dov?” suddenly somebody asked.
    Little Dov turned around; there was a man in the motorboat beached alongside his boat and propped on two stays; the man was hammering something.
    â€œAre you trying to insult me?” Little Dov asked.
    â€œGod forbid!” the man said. “It’s enough that you feel insulted just because we fish in the same bay.”
    â€œYou don’t know how to fish,” Little Dov said. “You try, but what of it? If you didn’t have a motorboat, you’d never catch anything.”
    â€œYou too will have a motorboat one day,” the other said soothingly. “Come here and have a drink with me.”
    â€œOkay,” Little Dov said. He jumped out of his boat and went over. Accepting the bottle and the mug the man handed to him, he poured himself a drink, tossed it down, then placed the bottle on the boat’s wooden rail. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    â€œI couldn’t sleep in the house,” the man said. “I don’t have air-conditioning yet and it’s suffocating inside. So I thought to myself, why not take a blanket and try sleeping in the boat? But I get bored when there’s nothing to do, so I started spiking these shoes.” He heaved into sight the one he was holding—a heavy army shoe with spikes in it. “This boat rocks terribly, Dov, whenever I take it away from shore. Maybe if I drive spikes into the soles I can stand better on my feet.”
    â€œIf you had a normal boat, it wouldn’t rock so hard,” Little Dov said, pouring himself another drink.
    â€œYou’re right. But then I wouldn’t be making as much as I do. Look at these shoes; nobody gave them to