Page 394 - A Little Life: A Novel

He closed his eyes and nodded. “Where’s Willem?” he asked. “Where’s
Harold?”
“Willem had to go back to Sri Lanka to finish shooting,” said the doctor.

“He’ll be back”—he heard the sound of paper flipping—“October ninth. So
in ten days. Harold’s coming at noon; it’s when he’s been coming, do you
remember?” He shook his head. “Jude,” the doctor said, “can you tell me
why you’re here?”
“Because,” he began, swallowing. “Because of what I did in the shower.”
There was another silence. “That’s right,” said the doctor, softly. “Jude,
can you tell me why—” But that was all he heard, because he had fallen

asleep again.
The next time he woke, the man was gone, but Harold was in his place.
“Harold,” he said, in his strange new voice, and Harold, who had been
sitting with his elbows on his thighs and his face in his hands, looked up as
suddenly as if he’d shouted.
“Jude,” he said, and sat next to him on the bed. He took the ball out of his

right hand and replaced it with his own hand.
He thought that Harold looked terrible. “I’m sorry, Harold,” he said, and
Harold began to cry. “Don’t cry,” he told him, “please don’t cry,” and
Harold got up and went to the bathroom and he could hear him blowing his
nose.
That night, once he was alone, he cried as well: not because of what he
had done but because he hadn’t been successful, because he had lived after

all.
His mind grew a little clearer with every day. Every day, he was awake a
little longer. Mostly, he felt nothing. People came to see him and cried and
he looked at them and could register only the strangeness of their faces, the
way everyone looked the same when they cried, their noses hoggy, rarely
used muscles pulling their mouths in unnatural directions, into unnatural

shapes.
He thought of nothing, his mind was a clean sheet of paper. He learned
little pieces of what had happened: how Richard’s studio manager had
thought the plumber was coming at nine that night, not nine the following
morning (even in his haze, he wondered how anyone could think a plumber
would come at nine in the evening); how Richard had found him and called
an ambulance and had ridden with him to the hospital; how Richard had

called Andy and Harold and Willem; how Willem had flown back from