Page 80 - A Little Life: A Novel

fashioned a mechanism—a complex, blocky thing made from bolts and
wire—that he claimed secured it completely.
He had always been mystified by Jude’s hyper-preparedness, his

dedication to finding disaster everywhere—he had long ago noticed Jude’s
habit of, upon entering any new room or space, searching for the nearest
exit and then standing close to it, which had initially been funny and then,
somehow, became less so—and his equal dedication to implementing
preventative measures whenever he could. One night, the two of them had
been awake late in their bedroom, talking, and Jude had told him (quietly,
as if he was confessing something precious) that the bedroom window’s

mechanism could in fact be opened from the outside, but that he was the
only one who knew how to unjam it.
“Why are you telling me this?” he’d asked.
“Because,” Jude had said, “I think we should get it fixed, properly.”
“But if you’re the only one who knows how to open it, why does it
matter?” They didn’t have extra money for a locksmith, not to come fix a

problem that wasn’t a problem. They couldn’t ask the superintendent: After
they had moved in, Annika had admitted that she technically wasn’t
allowed to sublet the apartment, but as long as they didn’t cause any
problems, she thought the landlord wouldn’t bother them. And so they tried
not to cause problems: they made their own repairs, they patched their own
walls, they fixed the plumbing themselves.
“Just in case,” Jude had said. “I just want to know we’re safe.”

“Jude,” he’d said. “We’re going to be safe. Nothing’s going to happen.
No one’s going to break in.” And then, when Jude was silent, he sighed,
gave up. “I’ll call the locksmith tomorrow,” he’d said.
“Thank you, Willem,” Jude had said.
But in the end, he’d never called.
That had been two months ago, and now they were standing in the cold

on their roof, and that window was their only hope. “Fuck, fuck,” he
groaned. His head hurt. “Just tell me how to do it, and I’ll open it.”
“It’s too difficult,” Jude said. By now they had forgotten Malcolm and JB
were standing there, watching them, JB quiet for once. “I won’t be able to
explain it.”
“Yeah, I know you think I’m a fucking moron, but I can figure it out if
you only use small words,” he snapped.