Page 461 - A Little Life: A Novel

the position terrified him. He had asked for responsibility without
understanding completely how much damage he could do. Was he able to
do this? He thought of Jude’s horror of sex and knew that behind that horror

lay another, one he had always surmised but had never inquired about: So
what was he supposed to do? He wished there was someone who could tell
him definitively if he was doing a good job or not; he wished he had
someone guiding him in this relationship the way Kit guided him in his
career, telling him when to take a risk and when to retreat, when to play
Willem the Hero and when to be Ragnarsson the Terrible.
Oh, what am I doing? he chanted to himself as his feet smacked against

the road, as he ran past men and women and children readying themselves
for the day, past buildings as narrow as closets, past little shops selling stiff,
brick-like pillows made of plaited straw, past a small boy cradling an
imperious-looking lizard to his chest, What am I doing, oh what am I
doing?
By the time he returned to the hotel an hour later, the sky was shading

from white to a delicious, minty pale blue. The travel agent had booked
them a suite with two beds, as always (he hadn’t remembered to have his
assistant correct this), and Jude was lying on the one they had both slept in
the night before, dressed for the day, reading, and when Willem came in, he
stood and came over and hugged him.
“I’m all sweaty,” he mumbled, but Jude didn’t let go.
“It’s okay,” Jude said. He stepped back and looked at him, holding him

by the arms. “It’s going to be fine, Willem,” he said, in the same firm,
declarative way Willem sometimes heard him speak to clients on the phone.
“It really is. I’ll always take care of you, you know that, right?”
He smiled. “I know,” he said, and what comforted him was not so much
the reassurance itself, but that Jude seemed so confident, so competent, so
certain that he, too, had something to offer. It reminded Willem that their

relationship wasn’t a rescue mission after all, but an extension of their
friendship, in which he had saved Jude and, just as often, Jude had saved
him. For every time he had gotten to help Jude when he was in pain, or
defend him against people asking too many questions, Jude had been there
to listen to him worrying about his work, or to talk him out of his misery
after he hadn’t gotten a part, or to (for three consecutive months,
humiliatingly) pay his college loans when a job had fallen through and he

didn’t have enough money to cover them himself. And yet somehow in the