Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The deserter # 2

What happened before:

Judy Priscoll, an American psychologist, was in Tunisia in 1943 as an officer in the American Army fighting the Germans.
She was send on a fact finding mission when her Jeep hit a land mine.
Locals took her to a village high up in the mountains where a German doctor had deserted to.
Judy was healed and taken care of by the German doctor and a relationship developed between them.
In time she got pregnant and they had a baby.
But then Judy started to feel like going home.


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Part 2.


The question whether to stay in the Tunisian village, high up in the mountains far away from the rest of the world, became a serious issue between Jurgen and Judy.
The more their son grew up, the more Judy became convinced that she should not limit his life by staying in the village.
At the same time she loved Jurgen and was understanding why he wanted to stay.
But she also started to miss her family.
She felt more and more to see them again and show them her child.
She started to miss strongly the United States: her home, her parents, her friends, her society, her culture.

Jurgen missed Germany, his family and culture also.
But he knew he couldn't go back.
He realized that by deserting the German Army he had made himself an outcast among his own people.
Jurgen therefore focused much more on the positive sides of living and working as a doctor in the isolated Tunisian mountain village.
The peace, the harmony, the simplicity of life.
He had come to appreciate that very highly.
He was content being there.

Over time, because of this issue, the relationship between Judy and Jurgen became bitter.
Jurgen came to realize he could have lived all his life in happiness in the Tunisian village if he had not met Judy.
And Judy came to realize that because of Jurgen she was condemned to live in the village.

The bitterness reached a point that they eventually understood that a compromise was not possible.
Judy couldn't stay and Jurgen couldn't go.

They came to the conclusion that a separation was the only solution.
When a caravan left the village to get supplies from the far away small town of Ksar el Hallouf, Judy and the son joined and they left the village.
Jurgen stayed behind.

Judy managed to find her way back to the USA.
She returned with her son to her native town and soon worked as a psychologist again.
Her mind and her heart were often with Jurgen and to protect him she remained vague to other people about her years in Tunesia and about the father of her son.
She remained single remembering those happy, heaven like years with Jurgen in the village.
She was unable to have a new relationship after what she had experienced in Tunisia.

When her son was old enough to go to College, Judy came home from work one day.
She started preparing dinner when the doorbell rang.
She opened the door and there Jurgen was standing.
They fell into each others arms.

Later Jurgen told her that he had not been able to live in the Tunisian village happily anymore after Judy and his son had left.
He had come to realize that being in the Tunisian village was like a constant escape.
That he had to face up his desertion.
That he had to go back to Germany and work things out there.
That’s what he had done because he realized that was the only way to return to the love he shared with Judy and his son.

Jurgen came to live with Judy and the son.
But within a few years, after the son left the house to study at a University, Jurgen and Judy packed their bags and returned to live again in the village in Tunisia.





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