Page 310 - A Little Life: A Novel

behind it, a bookcase that covered the entire wall until the kitchen, hung
with art by his friends, and friends of friends, and other pieces that he had
bought over the years. The whole eastern end of the apartment was his: you

crossed from the bedroom, on the north side, through the closet and into the
bathroom, which had windows that looked east and south. Although he
mostly kept the shades in the apartment lowered, you could open them all at
once and the space would feel like a rectangle of pure light, the veil
between you and the outside world mesmerizingly thin. He often feels as if
the apartment is a falsehood: it suggests that the person within it is someone
open, and vital, and generous with his answers, and he of course is not that

person. Lispenard Street, with its half-obscured alcoves and dark warrens
and walls that had been painted over so many times that you could feel
ridges and blisters where moths and bugs had been entombed in its layers,
was a much more accurate reflection of who he is.
For Caleb’s visit, he had let the place shimmer with sunlight, and he
could tell Caleb was impressed. They walked slowly through it, Caleb

looking at the art and asking about different pieces: where he had gotten
them, who had made them, noting the ones he recognized.
And then they came to the bedroom, and he was showing Caleb the piece
at the far end of the room—a painting of Willem in the makeup chair he had
bought from “Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days”—when Caleb asked,
“Whose wheelchair is that?”
He looked where Caleb was looking. “Mine,” he said, after a pause.

“But why?” Caleb had asked him, looking confused. “You can walk.”
He didn’t know what to say. “Sometimes I need it,” he said, finally.
“Rarely. I don’t use it that often.”
“Good,” said Caleb. “See that you don’t.”
He was startled. Was this an expression of concern, or was it a threat?
But before he could figure out what he should feel, or what he should

answer, Caleb had turned, and was heading into his closet, and he followed
him, continuing his tour.
A month after that, he had met Caleb late one night outside his office in
the far western borderland of the Meatpacking District. Caleb too worked
long hours; it was early July and Rothko would present their spring line in
eight weeks. He had driven to work that day, but it was a dry night, and so
he got out of the car and sat in his chair under a streetlamp until Caleb came

down, talking to someone else. He knew Caleb had seen him—he had