ABSTRACT
when i ran into hildegard at the doors of the Admiralspalast in Berlin in November 1946, I was still pining for my ex-fiancée Dorothy S., with whom I had fallen in love two years earlier. Before falling in love with her, I had met Dorothy a few times in Champaign at dances held at Keeler House, the Jewish Independent girls’ house where she lived. She was a tall, long-haired brunette, with a beautiful face and a sultry expression. Her home was in Winnetka, an upscale North Shore suburb of Chicago, where her father, Dr. Herman S., was a cardiologist. After graduating from Illinois in June 1944, Dorothy went back to Winnetka to teach elementary school. I don’t recall why I had never asked her for a date. Maybe I was afraid that she would turn me down; or maybe I had been put off by my tep fraternity brothers denigrating her as a slut. It may seem paradoxical that I wouldn’t have wanted to take out a girl with the reputation of an easy lay. Yet, in my grotesque self-absorption I must have wanted a woman who considered me someone special, even if I didn’t reciprocate her feelings.
