Page 677 - A Little Life: A Novel

have to do what he had always done. But he hadn’t, had just stroked his
head, and after a while, as he twitched and grunted, his body tensing itself
with pain, its heat filling his joints, he realized that Harold was singing to

him. It was a song he had never heard before but that he recognized
instinctually was a child’s song, a lullaby, and he juddered and chattered
and hissed through his teeth, opening and closing his left hand, gripping the
throat of a nearby bottle of olive oil with his right, as on and on Harold
sang. As he lay there, so desperately humiliated, he knew that after this
incident Harold would either become distant from him or would draw closer
still. And because he didn’t know which would happen, he found himself

hoping—as he never had before and never would again—that this episode
would never end, that Harold’s song would never finish, that he would
never have to learn what followed it.
And now he is so much older, Harold is so much older, Julia is so much
older, they are three old people and he is being given a sandwich meant for
a child, and a directive—Eat—meant for a child as well. We are so old, we

have become young again, he thinks, and he picks up the plate and throws it
against the far wall, where it shatters, spectacularly. He sees the sandwich
had been grilled cheese, sees one of the triangular slabs slap itself against
the wall and then ooze down it, the white cheese dripping off in gluey
clumps.
Now, he thinks, almost giddily, as Harold comes close to him once more,
now, now, now. And Harold raises his hand and he waits to be hit so hard

that this night will end and he will wake in his own bed and for a while be
able to forget this moment, will be able to forget what he has done.
But instead he finds Harold wrapping him in his arms, and he tries to
push him away, but Julia is holding him too, leaning over the carapace of
his wheelchair, and he is trapped between them. “Leave me alone,” he roars
at them, but his energy is dissipating and he is weak and hungry. “Leave me

alone,” he tries again, but his words are shapeless and useless, as useless as
his arms, as his legs, and he soon stops trying.
“Jude,” Harold says to him, quietly. “My poor Jude. My poor
sweetheart.” And with that, he starts to cry, for no one has ever called him
sweetheart, not since Brother Luke. Sometimes Willem would try—
sweetheart, Willem would try to call him, honey—and he would make him
stop; the endearment was filthy to him, a word of debasement and

depravity. “My sweetheart,” Harold says again, and he wants him to stop;