Page 674 - A Little Life: A Novel

Andy every Friday. He must see JB every Saturday. He must see Richard
every Sunday. He must see Harold whenever Harold says he must. If he is
caught skipping a meal, or a session, or disposing of food in any way, he

will be hospitalized, and this hospitalization won’t be a matter of weeks; it
will be a matter of months. He will gain a minimum of thirty pounds, and
he will be allowed to stop only when he has maintained that weight for six
months.
And so begins his new life, a life in which he has moved past
humiliation, past sorrow, past hope. This is a life in which his weary
friends’ weary faces watch him as he eats omelets, sandwiches, salads. Who

sit across from him and watch as he twirls pasta around his fork, as he
plows his spoon through polenta, as he slides flesh off bones. Who look at
his plate, at his bowl, and either nod at him—yes, he can go—or shake their
heads: No, Jude, you have to eat more than that. At work he makes
decisions and people follow them, but then at one p.m., lunch is delivered to
his office, and for the next half hour—although no one else in the firm

knows this—his decisions mean nothing, because Sanjay has absolute
power, and he must obey whatever he says. Sanjay, with one text to Andy,
can send him to the hospital, where they will tie him down again and force
food into him. They all can. No one seems to care that this isn’t what he
wants.
Have you all forgotten? he yearns to ask. Have you forgotten him? Have
you forgotten how much I need him? Have you forgotten I don’t know how

to be alive without him? Who can teach me? Who can tell me what I should
do now?
It was an ultimatum that sent him to Dr. Loehmann the first time; it is an
ultimatum that brings him back. He had always been cordial with Dr.
Loehmann, cordial and remote, but now he is hostile and churlish. “I don’t
want to be here,” he says, when the doctor says he’s happy to see him again

and asks him what he would like to discuss. “And don’t lie to me: you’re
not happy to see me, and I’m not happy to be here. This is a waste of time
—yours and mine. I’m here under duress.”
“We don’t have to discuss why you’re here, Jude, not if you don’t want
to,” Dr. Loehmann says. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Nothing,” he snaps, and there is a silence.
“Tell me about Harold,” Dr. Loehmann suggests, and he sighs,

impatiently.