Page 570 - A Little Life: A Novel

mackerel sashimi—Willem’s favorite—before him. At one point he leans
against Willem’s side, from exhaustion and affection, but isn’t even aware
he’s done so until he feels Willem move his arm and put it around him.

Later, he wakes in their bed, disoriented, and sees Harold sitting next to
him, staring at him. “Harold,” he says, “what’re you doing here?” But
Harold doesn’t speak, just lunges at him, and he realizes with a sickening
lurch that Harold is trying to take his clothes off. No, he tells himself. Not
Harold. This can’t be. This is one of his deepest, ugliest, most secret fears,
and now it is coming true. But then his old instincts awaken: Harold is
another client, and he will fight him away. He yells, then, twisting himself,

pinwheeling his arms and what he can of his legs, trying to intimidate, to
fluster this silent, determined Harold before him, screaming for Brother
Luke’s help.
And then, suddenly, Harold vanishes and is replaced by Willem, his face
near his, saying something he can’t understand. But behind Willem’s head
he sees Harold’s again, his strange, grim expression, and he resumes his

fight. Above him, he can hear words, can hear that Willem is talking to
someone, can register, even through his own fright, Willem’s fright as well.
“Willem,” he calls out. “He’s trying to hurt me; don’t let him hurt me,
Willem. Help me. Help me. Help me—please.” Then there is nothing—a
stretch of blackened time—and when he wakes again, he is in the hospital.
“Willem,” he announces to the room, and there, immediately, is Willem,
sitting at the edge of his bed, taking his hand. There is a length of plastic

tubing snaking out of the back of this hand, and out of the other as well.
“Careful,” Willem tells him, “the IVs.”
For a while they are silent, and Willem strokes his forehead. “He was
trying to attack me,” he finally confesses to Willem, stumbling as he speaks.
“I never thought Harold would do that to me, not ever.”
He can see Willem stiffen. “No, Jude,” he says. “Harold wasn’t there.

You were delirious from the fever; it didn’t happen.”
He is relieved and terrified to hear this. Relieved to hear that it wasn’t
true; terrified because it seemed so real, so actual. Terrified because what
does it say about him, about how he thinks and what his fears are, that he
should even imagine this about Harold? How cruel can his own mind be to
try to convince him to turn against someone he has struggled so hard to
trust, someone who has only ever shown him kindness? He can feel tears in