Page 121 - A Little Life: A Novel

They would be in Harold’s office, talking about something—the
University of Virginia affirmative action case going before the Supreme
Court, say—and Harold would ask, “What’s your ethnic background,

Jude?”
“A lot of things,” he would answer, and then would try to change the
subject, even if it meant dropping a stack of books to cause a distraction.
But sometimes the questions were contextless and random, and these
were impossible to anticipate, as they came without preamble. One night he
and Harold were in his office, working late, and Harold ordered them
dinner. For dessert, he’d gotten cookies and brownies, and he pushed the

paper bags toward him.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Really?” Harold asked, raising his eyebrows. “My son used to love
these. We tried to bake them for him at home, but we never got the recipe
quite right.” He broke a brownie in half. “Did your parents bake for you a
lot when you were a kid?” He would ask these questions with a deliberate

casualness that he found almost unbearable.
“No,” he said, pretending to review the notes he’d been taking.
He listened to Harold chewing and, he knew, considering whether to
retreat or to continue his line of questioning.
“Do you see your parents often?” Harold asked him, abruptly, on a
different night.
“They’re dead,” he said, keeping his eyes on the page.

“I’m sorry, Jude,” Harold said after a silence, and the sincerity in his
voice made him look up. “Mine are, too. Relatively recently. Of course, I’m
much older than you.”
“I’m sorry, Harold,” he said. And then, guessing, “You were close to
them.”
“I was,” said Harold. “Very. Were you close to yours?”

He shook his head. “No, not really.”
Harold was quiet. “But I’ll bet they were proud of you,” he said, finally.
Whenever Harold asked him questions about himself, he always felt
something cold move across him, as if he were being iced from the inside,
his organs and nerves being protected by a sheath of frost. In that moment,
though, he thought he might break, that if he said anything the ice would
shatter and he would splinter and crack. So he waited until he knew he

would sound normal before he asked Harold if he needed him to find the