Page 620 - A Little Life: A Novel

him be destroyed, he thought. Let him be ruined. Let him feel what I feel.
Let him lose everything, the only things, that matter. He wanted to siphon
every dollar from all of them, all the companies, all the people working for

them. He wanted to leave them hopeless. He wanted to leave them empty.
He wanted them to live in squalor. He wanted them to feel lost in their own
lives.
They were being sued, each of them, for everything Willem would have
earned had he been allowed to live a normal lifespan, and it was a
ridiculous number, an astonishing number, and he couldn’t look at it
without despair: not because of the figure itself but because of the years that

figure represented.
They would settle with him, said his lawyer, a notoriously aggressive and
venal torts expert named Todd with whom he had been on the law review,
and the settlements would be generous.
Generous; not generous. He didn’t care. He only cared if it made them
suffer. “Obliterate them,” he commanded Todd, his voice croaky with

hatred, and Todd had looked startled.
“I will, Jude,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
He didn’t need the money, of course. He had his own. And except for
monetary gifts to his assistant and his godson, and sums that he wanted
distributed to various charities—the same charities Willem gave to every
year, along with an additional one: a foundation that helped exploited
children—everything that Willem had he had left to him: it was a photo

negative of his own will. Earlier that year, he and Willem had set up two
scholarships at their college for Harold’s and Julia’s seventy-fifth birthdays:
one at the law school under Harold’s name; one at the medical school under
Julia’s. They had funded them together, and Willem had left enough in a
trust so that they always would be. He disbursed the rest of Willem’s
bequests: he signed the checks to the charities and foundations and

museums and organizations that Willem had designated his beneficiaries.
He gave to Willem’s friends—Harold and Julia; Richard; JB; Roman;
Cressy; Susannah; Miguel; Kit; Emil; Andy; but not Malcolm, not anymore
—the items (books, pictures, mementoes from films and plays, pieces of
art) that he had left them. There were no surprises in Willem’s will,
although sometimes he wished there would have been—how grateful he
would have been for a secret child whom he’d get to meet and would have

Willem’s smile; how scared and yet how excited he would have been for a