Page 640 - A Little Life: A Novel

But when they did, Malcolm had realized that he’d mismeasured, and the
bookcases were three inches too wide, which caused the edge of the unit to
jut into the hallway. He hadn’t minded, and neither had Willem, but

Malcolm had wanted to fix it.
“Don’t, Mal,” they had both told him. “It’s great, it’s fine.”
“It’s not great,” Malcolm had said, mopily. “It’s not fine.”
Finally they had managed to convince him, and Malcolm had left. He and
Willem painted the case a bright vermilion and loaded it with their books.
And then early the next Sunday, Malcolm appeared again, looking
determined. “I can’t stop thinking about this,” he said. And he’d set his bag

down on the floor and drawn out a hacksaw and had started gnawing away
at the structure, the two of them shouting at him until they realized that he
was going to alter it whether they helped him or not. So back up to the roof
went the bookcase; back down, once again, it came, and this time, it was
perfect.
“I always think of that incident,” he said, as the others listened. “Because

it says so much about how seriously Malcolm took his work, and how he
always strove to be perfect in it, to respect the material, whether it was
marble or plywood. But I also think it says so much about how much he
respected space, any space, even a horrible, unfixable, depressing apartment
in Chinatown: even that space deserved respect.
“And it says so much about how much he respected his friends, how
much he wanted us all to live somewhere he imagined for us: someplace as

beautiful and vivid as his imaginary houses were to him.”
He stopped. What he wanted to say—but what he didn’t think he could
get through—was what he had overheard Malcolm say as Willem was
complaining about hefting the bookcase back into place and he was in the
bathroom gathering the brushes and paint from beneath the sink. “If I had
left it like it was, he could’ve tripped against it and fallen, Willem,”

Malcolm had whispered. “Would you want that?”
“No,” Willem had said, after a pause, sounding ashamed. “No, of course
not. You’re right, Mal.” Malcolm, he realized, had been the first among
them to recognize that he was disabled; Malcolm had known this even
before he did. He had always been conscious of it, but he had never made
him feel self-conscious. Malcolm had sought, only, to make his life easier,
and he had once resented him for this.