Page 114 - A Little Life: A Novel

on the floor before the three cardboard boxes in which he stored his clothes,
and lifted his new sweaters and shirts and socks and shoes from their
envelopes of white tissue paper, placing them in his lap one at a time. They

were the nicest things he had ever owned, and it seemed somehow shameful
to put them in boxes meant to hold file folders. And so finally, he
rewrapped them and returned them carefully to their shopping bags.
The generosity of Harold’s gift unsettled him. First, there was the matter
of the gift itself: he had never, never received anything so grand. Second,
there was the impossibility of ever adequately repaying him. And third,
there was the meaning behind the gesture: he had known for some time that

Harold respected him, and even enjoyed his company. But was it possible
that he was someone important to Harold, that Harold liked him more than
as just a student, but as a real, actual friend? And if that was the case, why
should it make him so self-conscious?
It had taken him many months to feel truly comfortable around Harold:
not in the classroom or in his office, but outside of the classroom, outside of

the office. In life, as Harold would say. He would return home after dinner
at Harold’s house and feel a flush of relief. He knew why, too, as much as
he didn’t want to admit it to himself: traditionally, men—adult men, which
he didn’t yet consider himself among—had been interested in him for one
reason, and so he had learned to be frightened of them. But Harold didn’t
seem to be one of those men. (Although Brother Luke hadn’t seemed to be
one of those men either.) He was frightened of everything, it sometimes

seemed, and he hated that about himself. Fear and hatred, fear and hatred:
often, it seemed that those were the only two qualities he possessed. Fear of
everyone else; hatred of himself.
He had known of Harold before he met him, for Harold was known. He
was a relentless questioner: every remark you made in his class would be
seized upon and pecked at in an unending volley of Whys. He was trim and

tall, and had a way of pacing in a tight circle, his torso pitched forward,
when he was engaged or excited.
To his disappointment, there was much he simply couldn’t remember
from that first-year contracts class with Harold. He couldn’t remember, for
example, the specifics of the paper he wrote that interested Harold and
which led to conversations with him outside the classroom and, eventually,
to an offer to become one of his research assistants. He couldn’t remember

anything particularly interesting he said in class. But he could remember