Page 290 - A Little Life: A Novel

“What is?” Willem says, and he can feel the conversation turn. “That
someone should be attracted to you? This isn’t the first time this has
happened, you know. You just can’t see it because you won’t let yourself.”

He shakes his head. “Let’s talk about something else, Willem.”
“No,” says Willem. “You’re not getting out of this one, Jude. Why is it
ridiculous? Why is it absurd?”
He is suddenly so uncomfortable that he actually does stop, right on the
corner of Fifth and Forty-fifth, and starts scanning the avenue for a cab. But
of course, there are no cabs.
As he considers how to respond, he thinks back to a time a few days after

that night in JB’s apartment, when he had asked Willem if JB had been
correct, at least in some part: Did Willem resent him? Did he not tell them
enough?
Willem had been silent for such a long time that he knew the answer even
before he heard it. “Look, Jude,” Willem had said, slowly, “JB was—JB
was out of his mind. I could never be sick of you. You don’t owe me your

secrets.” He paused. “But, yes, I do wish you’d share more of yourself with
me. Not so I could have the information but so, maybe, I could be of some
help.” He stopped and looked at him. “That’s all.”
Since then, he has tried to tell Willem more things. But there are so many
topics that he has never discussed with anyone since Ana, now twenty-five
years ago, that he finds he literally doesn’t have the language to do so. His
past, his fears, what was done to him, what he has done to himself—they

are subjects that can only be discussed in tongues he doesn’t speak: Farsi,
Urdu, Mandarin, Portuguese. Once, he tried to write some things down,
thinking that it might be easier, but it wasn’t—he is unclear how to explain
himself to himself.
“You’ll find your own way to discuss what happened to you,” he
remembers Ana saying. “You’ll have to, if you ever want to be close to

anyone.” He wishes, as he often does, that he had let her talk to him, that he
had let her teach him how to do it. His silence had begun as something
protective, but over the years it has transformed into something near
oppressive, something that manages him rather than the other way around.
Now he cannot find a way out of it, even when he wants to. He imagines he
is floating in a small bubble of water, encased on all sides by walls and
ceilings and floors of ice, all many feet thick. He knows there is a way out,

but he is unequipped; he has no tools to begin his work, and his hands