Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

Or was it the day that they were passing through Utah to Idaho, on their way to Washington? They rarely ventured into actual towns — their America was denuded of trees, of flowers, theirs was just long stretches of roadway, the only green thing Brother Luke’s lone surviving cattleya, which continued to live and leaf, though not bud — but this time they had, because Brother Luke had a doctor friend in one of the towns, and he wanted him to be examined because it was clear he had picked up some sort of disease from one of the clients, despite the precautions Brother Luke made them take. He didn’t know the name of the town, but he was startled at the signs of normalcy, of life around him, and he stared out of his window in silence, looking at these scenes that he had always imagined but rarely saw: women standing on the street with strollers, talking and laughing with one another; a jogger panting by; families with dogs; a world made of not just men but also of children and women. Normally on these drives he would close his eyes — he slept all the time now, waiting for each day to end — but this day, he felt unusually alert, as if the world was trying to tell him something, and all he had to do was listen to its message.

Brother Luke was trying to read the map and drive at the same time, and finally he pulled over, studying the map and muttering. Luke had stopped across the street from a baseball field, and he watched as, if at once, it began to fill with people: women, mostly, and then, running and shouting, boys. The boys wore uniforms, white with red stripes, but despite that, they all looked different — different hair, different eyes, different skin. Some were skinny, like he was, and some were fat. He had never seen so many boys his own age at one time, and he looked and looked at them. And then he noticed that although they were different, they were actually the same: they were all smiling, and laughing, excited to be outside, in the dry, hot air, the sun bright above them, their mothers unloading cans of soda and bottles of water and juice from plastic carrying containers.

“Aha! We’re back on track!” he heard Luke saying, and heard him fold up the map. But before he started the engine again, he felt Luke follow his gaze, and for a moment the two of them sat staring at the boys in silence, until at last Luke stroked his hair. “I love you, Jude,” he said, and after a moment, he replied as he always did—“I love you, too, Brother Luke”—and they drove away.

He was the same as those boys, but he was really not: he was different. He would never be one of them. He would never be someone who would run across a field while his mother called after him to come have a snack before he played so he wouldn’t get tired. He would never have his bed in the cabin. He would never be clean again. The boys were playing on the field, and he was driving with Brother Luke to the doctor, the kind of doctor he knew from his previous visits to other doctors would be somehow wrong, somehow not a good person. He was as far away from them as he was from the monastery. He was so far gone from himself, from who he had hoped to be, that it was as if he was no longer a boy at all but something else entirely. This was his life now, and there was nothing he could do about it.

At the doctor’s office, Luke leaned over and held him. “We’re going to have fun tonight, just you and me,” he said, and he nodded, because there was nothing else he could do. “Let’s go,” said Luke, releasing him, and he got out of the car, and followed Brother Luke across the parking lot and toward the brown door that was already opening to let them inside.

The first memory: a hospital room. He knew it was a hospital room even before he opened his eyes because he could smell it, because its quality of silence — a silence that wasn’t really silent — was familiar. Next to him: Willem, asleep in a chair. Then he had been confused — why was Willem here? He was supposed to be away, somewhere. He remembered: Sri Lanka. But he wasn’t. He was here. How strange, he thought. I wonder why he’s here? That was the first memory.

The second memory: the same hospital room. He turned and saw Andy sitting on the side of his bed, Andy, unshaven and awful-looking, giving him a strange, unconvincing smile. He felt Andy squeeze his hand — he hadn’t realized he had a hand until he felt Andy squeeze it — and had tried to squeeze back, but couldn’t. Andy had looked up at someone. “Nerve damage?” he heard Andy ask. “Maybe,” said this other person, the person he couldn’t see, “but if we’re lucky, it’s more likely it’s—” And he had closed his eyes and fallen back asleep. That was the second memory.

The third and fourth and fifth and sixth memories weren’t really memories at all: they were people’s faces, their hands, their voices, leaning into his face, holding his hand, talking to him — they were Harold and Julia and Richard and Lucien. Same for the seventh and eighth: Malcolm, JB.

The ninth memory was Willem again, sitting next to him, telling him he was so sorry, but he had to leave. Just for a little while, and then he’d be back. He was crying, and he wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t seem so unusual — they all cried, they cried and apologized to him, which he found perplexing, as none of them had done anything wrong: he knew that much, at least. He tried to tell Willem not to cry, that he was fine, but his tongue was so thick in his mouth, a great useless slab, and he couldn’t make it operate. Willem was already holding one of his hands, but he didn’t have the energy to lift the other so he could put it on Willem’s arm and reassure him, and finally he had given up.

In the tenth memory, he was still in the hospital, but in a different room, and he was still so tired. His arms ached. He had two foam balls, one cupped in each palm, and he was supposed to squeeze them for five seconds and then release them for five. Then squeeze them for five, and release them for five. He couldn’t remember who had told him this, or who had given him the balls, but he did so anyway, although whenever he did, his arms hurt more, a burning, raw pain, and he couldn’t do more than three or four repetitions before he was exhausted and had to stop.

And then one night he had awoken, swimming up through layers of dreams he couldn’t remember, and had realized where he was, and why. He had gone back to sleep then, but the next day he turned his head and saw a man sitting in a chair next to his bed: he didn’t know who the man was, but he had seen him before. He would come and sit and stare at him and sometimes he would talk to him, but he could never concentrate on what the man was saying, and would eventually close his eyes.

“I’m in a mental institution,” he told the man now, and his voice sounded wrong to him, reedy and hoarse.

The man smiled. “You’re in the psychiatric wing of a hospital, yes,” he said. “Do you remember me?”

“No,” he said, “but I recognize you.”

“I’m Dr. Solomon. I’m a psychiatrist here at the hospital.” There was a silence. “Do you know why you’re here?”

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.