Page 590 - A Little Life: A Novel

That night his dreams wake him. It is one of the side effects of the
particular antibiotic he is on, these dreams, and this time, they are worse
than ever. Night after night, he dreams. He dreams that he is in the motel

rooms, that he is in Dr. Traylor’s house. He dreams that he is still fifteen,
that the previous thirty-three years haven’t even happened. He dreams of
specific clients, specific incidents, of things he hadn’t even known he
remembered. He dreams that he has become Brother Luke himself. He
dreams, again and again, that Harold is Dr. Traylor, and when he wakes, he
feels ashamed for attributing such behavior to Harold, even in his
subconscious, and at the same time fearful that the dream might be real

after all, and he has to remind himself of Willem’s promise: Never, ever,
Jude. He would never do that to you, not for anything.
Sometimes the dreams are so vivid, so real, that it takes minutes, an hour
for him to return to his life, for him to convince himself that the life of his
consciousness is in fact real life, his real life. Sometimes he wakes so far
from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he

asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?”
And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is
originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re
Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of
Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of
Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien
Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of

Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs.
“You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts
organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen.
“You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You
have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent
pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m

away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know.
You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person
I know, in every way.
“You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen
Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it.
“You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me,
again and again.