Page 291 - A Little Life: A Novel

scrabble uselessly against the ice’s slick. He had thought that by not saying
who he was, he was making himself more palatable, less strange. But now,
what he doesn’t say makes him stranger, an object of pity and even

suspicion.
“Jude?” Willem prompts him. “Why is it absurd?”
He shakes his head. “It just is.” He starts walking again.
For a block, they say nothing. Then Willem asks, “Jude, do you ever
want to be with someone?”
“I never thought I would.”
“But that’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t know, Willem,” he says, unable to look at Willem’s face. “I
guess I just don’t think that sort of thing is for someone like me.”
“What does that mean?”
He shakes his head again, not saying anything, but Willem persists.
“Because you have some health problems? Is that why?”
Health problems, says something sour and sardonic inside him. Now,

that’s a euphemism. But he doesn’t say this out loud. “Willem,” he pleads.
“I’m begging you to stop talking about this. We’ve had such a good night.
It’s our last night, and then I’m not going to see you. Can we please change
the subject? Please?”
Willem doesn’t say anything for another block, and he thinks the moment
has passed, but then Willem says, “You know, when we first started going
out, Robin asked me whether you were gay or straight and I had to tell her I

didn’t know.” He pauses. “She was shocked. She kept saying, ‘This is your
best friend since you guys were teenagers and you don’t know?’ Philippa
used to ask me about you as well. And I’d tell her the same thing I told
Robin: that you’re a private person and I’ve always tried to respect your
privacy.
“But I guess this is the kind of stuff I wish you’d tell me, Jude. Not so I

can do anything with the information, but just because it gives me a better
sense of who you are. I mean, maybe you’re neither. Maybe you’re both.
Maybe you’re just not interested. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”
He doesn’t, he can’t say anything in response, and they walk another two
blocks: Thirty-eighth Street, Thirty-seventh Street. He is conscious of his
right foot dragging against the pavement the way it does when he is tired or
dispirited, too tired or dispirited to make a greater effort, and is grateful that

Willem is on his left, and therefore less likely to notice it.