Nexus

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 Woof! Woof woof! Woof! Woof!

 Barking in the night. Barking, barking. I shriek but no one answers. I scream but there's not even an echo.

 Which do you want—the East of Xerxes or the East of Christ?

 Alone—with eczema of the brain.

 Alone at last. How marvelous! Only it is not what I expected it to be. If only I were alone with God!

 Woof! Woof! woof!

 Eyes closed, I summon her image. There it is, floating in the dark, a mask emerging from the spindrift: the Tilla Durieux bouche, like a bow; white, even teeth; eyes dark with mascara, the lids a viscous, glistening blue; hair streaming wild, black as ebony. The actress from the Carpathians and the roof-tops of Vienna. Risen like Venus from the flatlands of Brooklyn.

 Woof! Woof woof! Woof! Woof!

 I shout, but it sounds for all the world like a whisper.

 My name is Isaac Dust. I am in Dante's fifth heaven. Like Strindberg in his delirium, I repeat: What does it matter? Whether one is the only one, or whether one has a rival, what does it matter?

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