Page 173 - A Little Life: A Novel

have argued about with JB, as the two of them were the novel-readers of the
group: a whole list of things the four of them would have once picked over
together that they now instead discussed in twos or threes. At first, it had

been disorienting, after so many years of operating as a foursome, but he
had gotten used to it, and although he missed JB—his witty self-
involvement, the way he could see everything the world had to offer only as
it might affect him—he also found himself unable to forgive him and,
simultaneously, able to see his life without him.
And now, he supposed, their fight was over, and the painting was his.
Willem came down with him to the office that Saturday and he unwrapped

it and leaned it against the wall and the two of them regarded it in silence,
as if it were a rare and inert zoo animal. This was the painting that had been
reproduced in the Times review and, later, the Artforum story, but it wasn’t
until now, in the safety of his office, that he was able to truly appreciate it—
if he could forget it was him, he could almost see how lovely an image it
was, and why JB would have been attracted to it: for the strange person in it

who looked so frightened and watchful, who was discernibly neither female
nor male, whose clothes looked borrowed, who was mimicking the gestures
and postures of adulthood while clearly understanding nothing of them. He
no longer felt anything for that person, but not feeling anything for that
person had been a conscious act of will, like turning away from someone in
the street even though you saw them constantly, and pretending you
couldn’t see them day after day until one day, you actually couldn’t—or so

you could make yourself believe.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” he admitted to Willem,
regretfully, because he didn’t want the painting, and yet felt guilty that
Willem had axed JB out of his life on his behalf, and for something he knew
he would never look at again.
“Well,” said Willem, and there was a silence. “You could always give it

to Harold; I’m sure he’d love it.” And he knew then that Willem had
perhaps always known that he didn’t want the painting, and that it hadn’t
mattered to him, that he hadn’t regretted choosing him over JB, that he
didn’t blame him for having to make that decision.
“I could,” he said slowly, although he knew he wouldn’t: Harold would
indeed love it (he had when he had seen the show) and would hang it
somewhere prominent, and whenever he went to visit him, he would have