Page 204 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Me too,” says Harold. “Guys, this is all really sweet of you.”
He, too, has brought a present for Harold and Julia, but as the day has
passed, it’s come to seem ever-smaller and more foolish. Years ago, Harold

had mentioned that he and Julia had heard a series of Schubert’s early lieder
performed in Vienna when they were on their honeymoon. But Harold
couldn’t remember which ones they had loved, and so he had made up his
own list, and augmented it with a few other songs he liked, mostly Bach
and Mozart, and then rented a small sound booth and recorded a disc of
himself singing them: every few months or so, Harold asks him to sing for
them, but he’s always too shy to do so. Now, though, the gift feels

misguided and tinny, as well as shamefully boastful, and he is embarrassed
by his own presumption. Yet he can’t bring himself to throw it away. And
so, when everyone is standing and stretching and saying their good nights,
he slips away and wedges the disc, and the letters he’s written each of them,
between two books—a battered copy of Common Sense and a frayed edition
of White Noise—on a low shelf, where they might sit, undiscovered, for

decades.
Normally, Willem stays with JB in the upstairs study, as he’s the only one
who can tolerate JB’s snoring, and Malcolm stays with him downstairs. But
that evening, as everyone heads off for bed, Malcolm volunteers that he’ll
share with JB, so that he and Willem can catch up with each other.
“ ’Night, lovers,” JB calls down the staircase at them.
As they get ready for bed, Willem tells him more stories from the set:

about the lead actress, who perspired so much that her entire face had to be
dusted with powder every two takes; about the lead actor, who played the
devil, and who was constantly trying to curry favor with the grips by buying
them beers and asking them who wanted to play football, but who then had
a tantrum when he couldn’t remember his lines; about the nine-year-old
British actor playing the actress’s son, who had approached Willem at the

craft services table to tell him that he really shouldn’t be eating crackers
because they were empty calories, and wasn’t he afraid of getting fat?
Willem talks and talks, and he laughs as he brushes his teeth and washes his
face.
But when the lights are turned off and they are both lying in the dark, he
in the bed, Willem on the sofa (after an argument in which he tried to get
Willem to take the bed himself), Willem says, gently, “The apartment’s

really fucking clean.”