Exodus - Leon Uris [201]
“Take a good look. This is what women wear.”
Tears of anger welled in Jordana’s eyes.
“The next time you wish to see me you may come to my office,” Kitty said coldly. “I am not a kibbutznik and I like my privacy.”
Jordana slammed the door so hard it shook the cottage.
Karen came to Kitty’s office after the dinner sick call and flopped into a chair.
“Hi,” Kitty said. “How did it go today?”
Karen grabbed two imaginary cow teats and made a milking motion. “Weak hands. I am a lousy milker,” she opined with teen-age sadness. “Kitty, I am truly brokenhearted. I must, must, must, talk to you.”
“Shoot.”
“Not now. We have a Gadna meeting. We are cleaning some new Hungarian rifles. What a mess!”
“The Hungarian rifles can wait a few minutes. What is troubling you, dear?”
“Yona, my roommate. Just when we are getting to be intimate friends. She’s going to join the Palmach next week.”
Kitty felt a stab of dismay. How much longer until Karen came to her and told her she was going to do the same thing? Kitty shoved her papers aside. “You know, Karen, I have been thinking that there is a real shortage of good nurses and medical aides ... I mean, in the Palmach as well as in the settlements. You’ve had lots of experience working with the youngsters in the DP camps and I’ve taken on quite a crowd of the disturbed ones. Do you suppose it would make sense if I asked Dr. Lieberman to let you come to work with me and let me train you as my assistant?”
“Would it!” Karen broke into a broad grin.
“Fine. I’ll try to arrange it so you skip the agriculture work and report right to my office after school.”
Karen sobered. “Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem quite fair to the others.”
“As we say in American, they won’t be losing a farmer, they’ll be gaining a nurse.”
“Kitty, I have a terrible confession to make. Don’t tell the Youth Aliyah, the Zion Settlement Society, or the Central Kibbutz Movement but honest, I’m the worst farmer at Gan Dafna and I’d just love to be a nurse.”
Kitty got up and walked to Karen and put her arm about the girl’s shoulder. “Do you suppose that with Yona gone you would like to move into my cottage and live with me?”
The instantaneous look of happiness on Karen’s face was all the answer that Kitty needed.
Kitty left Dr. Lieberman’s cottage early to give Karen the good news. Dr. Lieberman had considered their duty to dispense love and not rules and decided the cause would not be hurt with one less farmer and one more nurse.
When she left Karen she crossed the center green and stopped before the statue of Dafna. She felt that she had hurt Dafna tonight, she had won a victory. With Karen near her she could keep the child from becoming an aggressive, angry sabra girl. It was good to live with a purpose, Kitty knew. But too much purpose could destroy womanliness. She had hit Jordana in a weak spot and she knew it. Since birth Jordana had been given a mission to carry out without question, at the price of her own personal happiness, career, and femininity. Jordana did not know how to compete with the elegant women coming into Palestine from the continent and from America. She hated Kitty because she wanted to be more like Kitty and Kitty knew it.
“Kitty?” A voice called out in the darkness.
“Yes?”
“I hope I didn’t startle you.”
It was Ari. As he came near her she felt that same now-familiar sensation of helplessness.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get up to see you. Jordana gave you my messages?”
“Jordana? Yes, of course,” Kitty lied.
“How are you getting along?”
“Fine.”
“I came up to ask you if you would care to take the day off tomorrow. A Palmach group is going to climb Mount Tabor. It is something that should not be missed. Would you come with me?”
“Yes, I’d love to.”
Chapter Five
ARI AND KITTY ARRIVED at the kibbutz of Beth Alonim—the House of the Oaks—at the foot of Mount Tabor, shortly after dawn. It was the kibbutz which gave birth to the Palmach during the war and the place Ari had trained troops.
Tabor was odd: not high enough to be a real mountain but far too