Page 480 - A Little Life: A Novel

he’d say when he left in the morning, and “How was your day?” when he
came home at night.
“Fine,” he’d say. He knew Willem was wondering what to do and how he

felt about the situation, and he tried to be as unobtrusive as possible in the
meantime. At night they lay in bed, and where they usually talked, they
were both quiet, and their silence was like a third creature in bed between
them, huge and furred and ferocious when prodded.
On the fourth night, he couldn’t tolerate it any longer, and after lying
there for an hour or so, both of them silent, he rolled over the creature and
wrapped his arms around Willem. “Willem,” he whispered, “I love you.

Forgive me.” Willem didn’t answer him, but he plowed on. “I’m trying,” he
told him. “I really am. I slipped up; I’ll try harder.” Willem still didn’t say
anything, and he held him tighter. “Please, Willem,” he said. “I know it
bothers you. Please give me another chance. Please don’t be mad at me.”
He could feel Willem sigh. “I’m not mad at you, Jude,” he said. “And I
know you’re trying. I just wish you didn’t have to try; I wish this weren’t

something you had to fight against so hard.”
Now it was his turn to be quiet. “Me too,” he said, at last.
Since that night, he has tried different methods: the swimming, of course,
but also baking, late at night. He makes sure there’s always flour in the
kitchen, and sugar, and eggs and yeast, and as he waits for whatever’s in the
oven to finish, he sits at the dining-room table working, and by the time the
bread or cake or cookies (which he has Willem’s assistant send to Harold

and Julia) are done, it’s almost daylight, and he slips back into bed for an
hour or two of sleep before his alarm wakes him. For the rest of the day, his
eyes burn with exhaustion. He knows that Willem doesn’t like his late-night
baking, but he also knows he prefers it to the alternative, which is why he
says nothing. Cleaning is no longer an option: since moving to Greene
Street, he has had a housekeeper, a Mrs. Zhou, who now comes four times a

week and is depressingly thorough, so thorough that he is sometimes
tempted to dirty things up intentionally, only so he can clean them. But he
knows this is silly, and so he doesn’t.
“Let’s try something,” Willem says one evening. “When you wake up
and want to cut yourself, you wake me up, too, all right? Whatever time it
is.” He looks at him. “Let’s try it, okay? Just humor me.”
So he does, mostly because he is curious to see what Willem will do. One

night, very late, he rubs Willem’s shoulder and when Willem opens his