Abortion and the single woman as literary tropes in the works of Amos Oz — Page 7:
31 In the course of the tale, the male narrator makes it clear that her solitary state is a situation she is responsible for, namely, spurning his attempts at companionship and rejecting any intimacy: "Sometimes I would rest a conciliatory hand on her neck, and wait for her to calm down. But she never relaxed completely. If once or twice she leaned against me, she always blamed her broken sandal or her aching head. And so we drifted apart" (Oz, "Nomad" 28). Thus, what befalls Geula is the fate of all the unwed literary heroines, who, having discarded wedlock, are left to be scolded and chastised by society. Characteristically, the spinster is also segregated and delineated as different, "Geula is not like the rest of the girls in the Kibbutz" (29). In a similar vein, the youngsters of the Kibbutz maliciously snicker at her nightly walks in the orchards which she takes alone and returns alone – which further compounds the depressed and dejected persona of Geula. It is clear that her status as the social 'other' in the Kibbutz is intensified by the encounter with the Bedouin nomad whom she meets in the orchard while taking one of her nightly walks the Kibbutz.
32 Finding the Bedouin shepherd repulsively attractive (despite being blind in one eye), she sets out to seduce and ensnare him. Accepting his offer of a cigarette, she asks him for another, hoping to prolong the encounter, and wants him to disrobe, excited by the prospect of physical contact, "The girl eyed his desert robe. Aren't you hot in that thing? The man gave an embarrassed, guilty smile [. . .]"(31). She twice repeats his earlier claim that he still young and therefore has no girlfriend,( intimating that she is available) and persists in asking him personal questions. Emboldened by the Arab's compliment that she is beautiful — a compliment, which Avinor argues, is the figment of her imagination (Avinor 263) — she touches his arms hoping for a commensurate reaction.
33 Throughout the encounter, Geula is nervous and thrilled by the potential for a sexual liaison. She smiles at him, and mistakes a narrowing of the eye for a flirtatious wink, "His blind eye narrowed. Geula was momentarily alarmed: surely it was a wink" (32). The young man, however, is not interested in her advances, sustaining the conversation only in an attempt to ingratiate himself to Geula and avoid being reported to the Kibbutz authority for trespassing.
34 As the story draws to a close, it is clear that even the young nomad is disinterested in the old maid: He does reciprocate Geula’s advances, but retreats back to his camp. Geula is left disappointed and humiliated. It should be noted that she is filled with disgust not because he touched her but because the nomad did not touch her.
35 And indeed, the rejection by the nomad brings to the surface all the fallow hatred so patently simmering inside her. Although it is clear that no sexual or physical contact occurred, apart from Geula touching the Bedouin's arm (33), the young woman slowly convinces herself that she was attacked, and behaves as though she was the victim of an attempted rape. Clearly, no incident has taken place. Nevertheless, she devises a more adventurous dénouement befitting her expectation. At this point, her imagination takes such a strong hold of her that the supposed particulars of the attempted rape in the orchard become actual. Fantasy intermingles with reality. Immediately after he leaves, she begins running in panic as if pursued towards her room, certain that she was attacked: "Give him a kind word, or a smile, and he pounces on you like a wild beast and tries to rape you. It was just as well I ran away from him" (35).