Page 668 - A Little Life: A Novel

because beneath him is a hole bored into the earth so deep that he cannot
see where it ends. He is petrified to let go because he will fall into the hole,
but eventually he knows he will, he knows he must: he is so tired. His grasp

weakens a bit, just a little bit, with every week.
So it is with guilt and regret, but also with a sense of inevitability, that he
cheats on his promise to Harold. He cheats when he tells Harold he is being
sent away to Jakarta for business and will miss Thanksgiving. He cheats
when he begins growing a beard, which he hopes will disguise the
gauntness in his face. He cheats when he tells Sanjay he’s fine, he’s just had
an intestinal flu. He cheats when he tells his secretary she doesn’t need to

get him lunch because he picked something up on the way into the office.
He cheats when he cancels the next month’s worth of dates with Richard
and JB and Andy, telling them he has too much work. He cheats every time
he lets the voice whisper to him, unbidden, It won’t be long now, it won’t be
long. He isn’t so deluded that he thinks he will be able to literally starve
himself to death—but he does think that there will be a day, closer now than

ever before, in which he will be so weak that he will stumble and fall and
crash his head against the Greene Street lobby’s cement floors, in which he
will contract a virus and not have the resources to make it retreat.
At least one of his lies is true: he does have too much work. He has an
appellate argument in a month, and he is relieved to be able to spend so
much time at Rosen Pritchard, where nothing bad has ever befallen him,
where even Willem knows not to disturb him with one of his unpredictable

appearances. One night he hears Sanjay muttering to himself as he hurries
past his office—“Fuck, she’s going to kill me”—and looks up and sees it is
no longer night, but day, and the Hudson is turning a smeary orange. He
notes this, but he feels nothing. Here, his life suspends itself; here, he might
be anyone, anywhere. He can stay as late as he likes. No one is waiting for
him, no one will be disappointed if he doesn’t call, no one will be angry if

he doesn’t go home.
The Friday before the trial, he is working late when one of his secretaries
looks in to tell him he has a visitor in the lobby, a Dr. Contractor, and would
he like him sent up? He pauses, unsure of what to do; Andy has been
calling him, but he hasn’t been returning his calls, and he knows he won’t
simply leave.
“Yes,” he tells her. “Bring him to the southeastern conference room.”