Free Maeve's Times by Maeve Binchy Page B

as usual; nothing seemed to have changed. Miriam was still the cynical wit, David the fellow who got things done. Some of the older men and women with Polish names that I never got to know well threw their arms around me and said that I was one of the few summer visitors who ever returned. Sandy and Johnny were so good at Hebrew now that they could hardly bring themselves to talk in English, they said! They were terribly happy; a year and three months had gone by and no one had said anything about a vote. They were obviously there for life. Why didn’t I go up to Tel Aviv for a month, marry someone and bring him back to the kibbutz? Life was so perfect.
    And it was. No yoghurt making, no chickens, I was allowed to bring the kids for swims, if I could prove that I could shout, in Hebrew, all right and useful phrases like ‘Come in at once’ or ‘Nobody out further than their waists’. Sandy’s little boy Tommy was there and he literally couldn’t speak a word of English. He was golden and had lots of friends.
    One evening I was listening to the record player I had borrowed from a nice old Hungarian, who said that he now knew all the records in the library, and I could have the player until they got a few new ones. There were a lot of crickets outside competing with the music, and the laughter of a very young army group of boys and girls of about 18 who had been billeted on the kibbutz for a month and we all found them a terrible nuisance.
    Sandy knocked at the door, and she didn’t seem happy at all and there was very little of that fey glow. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.
    Now what is so bad about a happily married woman having a third baby, you might wonder? The words didn’t strike the terror into me that they have when other people have said them. But then of course I remembered the kibbutz rule, two children and no more. There was every kind of birth control available free and medical help as well, as regards a choice. Anyone who miscalculated had to go to Tel Aviv and have an abortion, there were simply no exceptions. There was no shame about the abortion either in the community, people just laughed and said how stupid of you. But Sandy was really grey with worry. She would like another little Tommy or Frank. She didn’t know after all if they were going to be allowed stay there forever. Should she have the child and go? If she had the child, there was no way she could stay, we both knew that. We decided to ask David, he knew the answer to everything.
    David asked us in for coffee, he asked his wife to go off somewhere for an hour and she good-humouredly agreed. He said that in fact there had been a vote about allowing Sandy and Johnny to stay and that out of 300 people 287 had said yes. So they didn’t bother telling this to the two of them because they might go around wondering who the other 13 were and it might make them feel edgy. Go ahead and have the abortion, said David, there’s no fear.
    I went to Tel Aviv on the bus with her. We found the doctor.
    ‘Silly girl,’ he said kindly. ‘Sit up in the chair here.’
    ‘Now?’ screamed Sandy and I together in horror. We thought you went to bed for a day or two and got injections and tranquilisers and pep talks and anaesthetics and days to recover.
    ‘Now,’ said the doctor.
    A nurse came into the room. She was young and pretty, she was kind, she spoke English, which was a great help to me anyway. She said the doctor had done five that morning and would do another 11 before leaving. There was simply nothing to it. Sandy could go home to the kibbutz that night; there was just no problem. Her friend, who had had one done yesterday, was working again this afternoon. It’s all a matter of coming in time, like Sandy had; please stop getting excited now.
    Sandy begged me not to leave. She told the doctor I was her sister. So I held her hand throughout and looked out the window and thought perhaps life is tougher here, and maybe Sandy after a year here