Page 559 - A Little Life: A Novel

see Willem surrounded by streams and trees, which was always where he
looked most comfortable.
It was a good vacation, but by the end, he was ready to leave. One of the

reasons he had been able to convince Willem that they could go on this trip
at all was because his friend Elijah, who now ran a hedge fund that he
represented, was going on holiday to Nepal with his family, and they caught
flights both from and back to New York on his plane. He had worried that
Elijah might be in a talkative mood, but he hadn’t been, and he had slept,
gratefully, almost the entire way home, his feet and back blazing with pain.
The day after they returned to Greene Street he couldn’t lift himself out

of bed. He was in such distress that his body seemed to be one long exposed
nerve, frayed at either end; he had the sense that if he were to be touched
with a drop of water, his entire being would sizzle and hiss in response. He
was rarely so exhausted, so sore that he couldn’t even sit up, and he could
tell that Willem—around whom he made a particular effort, so he wouldn’t
worry—was alarmed, and he had to plead with him not to call Andy. “All

right,” Willem had said, reluctantly, “but if you’re not better by tomorrow,
I’m calling him.” He nodded, and Willem sighed. “Dammit, Jude,” he said,
“I knew we shouldn’t’ve gone.”
But the next day, he was better: better enough to get out of bed, at least.
He couldn’t walk; all day, his legs and feet and back felt as if they were
being driven through with iron bolts, but he made himself smile and talk
and move about, though when Willem left the room or turned away from

him, he could feel his face drooping with fatigue.
And then that was how it was, and they both grew used to it: although he
now needed his wheelchair daily, he tried to walk every day for as much as
he could, even if it was just to the bathroom, and he was careful about
conserving his energy. When he was cooking, he made certain he had
everything assembled on the counter in front of him before he started so he

wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth to the refrigerator; he turned
down invitations to dinners, parties, openings, fund-raisers, telling people,
telling Willem that he had too much work to attend them, but really he came
home and wheeled his way slowly across the apartment, the punishingly
large apartment, stopping to rest when he needed to, dozing in bed so he’d
have enough life in him to talk to Willem when he returned.
At the end of January he finally went to see Andy, who listened to him

and then examined him, carefully. “There’s nothing wrong with you, as