Kathy to Hilary, February 18, 1972, Tehran, Iran 2.18
Very weird to find this letter I hadn’t mailed, although I can see why!, and to see how it’s all turned out.
Tehran in winter. 
Farzad and I have broken up. We drove around after pizza one night and couldn’t agree where to go. I said let’s just quit. Quit going out. It’s the second time I’d tried to end it. I made myself so obnoxious saying my best friends at school are Israelis--he hates Jews--I only think he liked me because my birthday is the same as Hitler’s--I was so unpleasant that he dumped me out on Roosevelt Avenue. I walked and walked and walked all the way home, practically singing the whole way.
He came by a week or so later, all dressed and polished, all ready for a date, but with someone else, not me. He had on the leather coat he had made, the German Gestapo coat. Very strange. A date already? I think when he tells me this. We make small talk, but I can see he’s trying to return what he calls my cruelty. So my successor is 35, American looking. (“When you meet anything that’s going to be human [American] and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”) [C. S. Lewis, I think] After hearing the circumstances of their meeting I say, “but she’s a whore!” And F shakes his head and I see it all. “You are then,” I say, and he nods. “Doesn’t it make you feel bad?”
All he was doing I realized is return my cruelty. I didn’t care. I didn’t realize when you get involved with someone, sometimes it feels like there’s no way to escape. Any traces of love on his part have disappeared and all he could do was cut me down. I kept thinking “violence is the recourse of the impotent man,” and tried not to stoop to his level.
I’ve had the nicest sort of feeling for several days--Freedom. I’ll still look for a soul-mate in whatever shape or form but for now I’m glad to go where I please! So you were right all along, Miss Hillabelle (you should never have told me Blaire calls you that). I should listen to you more often!
I’ll spare you another page. What are you listening to? Reading? Thinking? What’s up?
Love....
6:28:41 AM 
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