Page 482 - A Little Life: A Novel

he could tell Willem about them, but he can’t, of course. He has made
Richard promise not to say anything to Willem either, but he knows Richard
isn’t exactly comfortable with the situation—he has noticed that he is never

given jobs that involve razors or scissors or paring knives, which is
significant considering how much of Richard’s work demands sharp edges.
One night, he peers into an old coffee can that has been left out on
Richard’s desk and sees that it is full of blades: small angled ones, large
wedge-shaped ones, and plain rectangles of the sort he prefers. He dips his
hand cautiously into the can, scoops up a loose fistful of the blades, watches
them pour from his palm. He takes one of the rectangular blades and slips it

into his pants pocket, but when he’s finally ready to leave for the night—so
exhausted that the floor tilts beneath him—he returns it gently to the can
before he goes. In those hours he is awake and prowling through the
building, he sometimes feels he is a demon who has disguised himself as a
human, and only at night is it safe to shed the costume he must wear by
daylight, and indulge his true nature.

And then it is Tuesday, a day that feels like summer, and Willem’s last in
the city. He leaves for work early that morning but comes home at
lunchtime so he can say goodbye.
“I’m going to miss you,” he tells Willem, as he always does.
“I’m going to miss you more,” Willem says, as he always does, and then,
also as he always does, “Are you going to take care of yourself?”
“Yes,” he says, not letting go of him. “I promise.” He feels Willem sigh.

“Remember you can always call me, no matter what time it is,” Willem
tells him, and he nods.
“Go,” he says. “I’ll be fine,” and Willem sighs again, and goes.
He hates to have Willem leave, but he is excited, too: for selfish reasons,
and also because he is relieved, and happy, that Willem is working so much.
After they had returned from Vietnam that January, just before he left to

film Duets, Willem had been alternately anxious and bluffly confident, and
although he tried not to speak of his insecurities, he knew how worried
Willem was. He knew Willem worried that his first movie after the
announcement of their relationship was, no matter how much he protested
otherwise, a gay movie. He knew Willem worried when the director of a
science-fiction thriller he wanted to do didn’t call him back as quickly as he
had thought he might (though he had in the end, and everything had worked

out the way he had hoped). He knew Willem worried about the seemingly