like the cover image of one of those cheap tearjerker romances that had existed back when people still read books. The longish blond hair, the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, muscles and spermatic cords distributed along 190 centimeters, and something in his appearance causes erratic behavior in passersby who encounter him. Memories, perhaps. Sexuality has almost completely disappeared in the city or is limited only to tourists, men who stare and whistle and scratch their crotches. The local men have changed, though most wouldn’t be able to say exactly what had changed. Peter feels uncomfortably tense from the stress of standing out, for whatever reason, whether it is a result of skin color, body type, intelligence. To be different from average people is to be in a constant state of crisis. Most people want to get rid of anything that’s different from them, anything that doesn’t look like them they want to see dead. Most people are comfortable being subject to this general view. Inconspicuous, out of harm’s way. What an extraordinarily lovely boy.

Practically Michelangelesque.

Thinks the

PHILOSOPHER

SEXUAL PREFERENCES: homosexual. Presumably

CLINICAL PICTURE: no abnormalities

HOBBIES: collects wooden toys

Who rolls past Peter in a blue, self-driving tourist bus. He contemplates London. Such a pretty city, and yet also culturally cradlesque. The philosopher likes to make up words. He loves words and this city here is really something different. Different from the countryside where he lives, like very few live anymore, with a fireplace, with a library, and the investigation of the complete works of James Joyce. The philosopher had spent the last ten years retranslating an unpublished German translation of Ulysses, for which he first translated the German translation into English only to translate it back into German. Now, when his work was supposed to be published—parentheses: he was one of the few Joyce experts who as a native English speaker could also translate into German, a rare talent—now the widow of the German translator refuses to allow a new translation of her dead husband’s translation. The call came yesterday. Today the philosopher, as he likes to jokingly call himself. Used to. Has just come to London. To distract from the sorrow. From the rage. Of ten years lost. Well, what does lost mean. He had enjoyed working on the manuscript. Poorly paid. But enjoyable.