“Okay,” says Willem, and takes a deep breath, and he steadies himself. Oh no, he thinks. “Do you remember Robin’s friend Clara?”
“Sure,” he says. “The one I met at Clementine.”
“Yes!” says Willem, triumphantly. “That’s her!”
“God, Willem, give me some credit; it was just last week.”
“I know, I know. Well, anyway, here’s the thing—she’s interested in you.”
He is perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“She asked Robin if you were single.” He pauses. “I told her I didn’t think you were interested in seeing anyone, but I’d ask. So. I’m asking.”
The idea is so preposterous that it takes him a while to understand what Willem’s saying, and when he does, he stops, and laughs, embarrassed and disbelieving. “You’ve got to be kidding, Willem,” he says. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why is it ridiculous?” asks Willem, suddenly serious. “Jude, why?”
“Willem,” he says, recovering himself. “It’s very flattering. But—” He winces and laughs again. “It’s absurd.”
“What is?” Willem says, and he can feel the conversation turn. “That someone should be attracted to you? This isn’t the first time this has happened, you know. You just can’t see it because you won’t let yourself.”
He shakes his head. “Let’s talk about something else, Willem.”
“No,” says Willem. “You’re not getting out of this one, Jude. Why is it ridiculous? Why is it absurd?”
He is suddenly so uncomfortable that he actually does stop, right on the corner of Fifth and Forty-fifth, and starts scanning the avenue for a cab. But of course, there are no cabs.
As he considers how to respond, he thinks back to a time a few days after that night in JB’s apartment, when he had asked Willem if JB had been correct, at least in some part: Did Willem resent him? Did he not tell them enough?
Willem had been silent for such a long time that he knew the answer even before he heard it. “Look, Jude,” Willem had said, slowly, “JB was—JB was out of his mind. I could never be sick of you. You don’t owe me your secrets.” He paused. “But, yes, I do wish you’d share more of yourself with me. Not so I could have the information but so, maybe, I could be of some help.” He stopped and looked at him. “That’s all.”
Since then, he has tried to tell Willem more things. But there are so many topics that he has never discussed with anyone since Ana, now twenty-five years ago, that he finds he literally doesn’t have the language to do so. His past, his fears, what was done to him, what he has done to himself—they are subjects that can only be discussed in tongues he doesn’t speak: Farsi, Urdu, Mandarin, Portuguese. Once, he tried to write some things down, thinking that it might be easier, but it wasn’t—he is unclear how to explain himself to himself.
“You’ll find your own way to discuss what happened to you,” he remembers Ana saying. “You’ll have to, if you ever want to be close to anyone.” He wishes, as he often does, that he had let her talk to him, that he had let her teach him how to do it. His silence had begun as something protective, but over the years it has transformed into something near oppressive, something that manages him rather than the other way around. Now he cannot find a way out of it, even when he wants to. He imagines he is floating in a small bubble of water, encased on all sides by walls and ceilings and floors of ice, all many feet thick. He knows there is a way out, but he is unequipped; he has no tools to begin his work, and his hands scrabble uselessly against the ice’s slick. He had thought that by not saying who he was, he was making himself more palatable, less strange. But now, what he doesn’t say makes him stranger, an object of pity and even suspicion.
“Jude?” Willem prompts him. “Why is it absurd?”
He shakes his head. “It just is.” He starts walking again.
For a block, they say nothing. Then Willem asks, “Jude, do you ever want to be with someone?”
“I never thought I would.”
“But that’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t know, Willem,” he says, unable to look at Willem’s face. “I guess I just don’t think that sort of thing is for someone like me.”
“What does that mean?”
He shakes his head again, not saying anything, but Willem persists. “Because you have some health problems? Is that why?”
Health problems, says something sour and sardonic inside him. Now, that’s a euphemism. But he doesn’t say this out loud. “Willem,” he pleads. “I’m begging you to stop talking about this. We’ve had such a good night. It’s our last night, and then I’m not going to see you. Can we please change the subject? Please?”
Willem doesn’t say anything for another block, and he thinks the moment has passed, but then Willem says, “You know, when we first started going out, Robin asked me whether you were gay or straight and I had to tell her I didn’t know.” He pauses. “She was shocked. She kept saying, ‘This is your best friend since you guys were teenagers and you don’t know?’ Philippa used to ask me about you as well. And I’d tell her the same thing I told Robin: that you’re a private person and I’ve always tried to respect your privacy.
“But I guess this is the kind of stuff I wish you’d tell me, Jude. Not so I can do anything with the information, but just because it gives me a better sense of who you are. I mean, maybe you’re neither. Maybe you’re both. Maybe you’re just not interested. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”
He doesn’t, he can’t say anything in response, and they walk another two blocks: Thirty-eighth Street, Thirty-seventh Street. He is conscious of his right foot dragging against the pavement the way it does when he is tired or dispirited, too tired or dispirited to make a greater effort, and is grateful that Willem is on his left, and therefore less likely to notice it.
“I worry sometimes that you’ve decided to convince yourself that you’re somehow unattractive or unlovable, and that you’ve decided that certain experiences are off-limits for you. But they’re not, Jude: anyone would be lucky to be with you,” says Willem a block later. Enough of this, he thinks; he can tell by Willem’s tone that he is building up to a longer speech and he is now actively anxious, his heart beating a funny rhythm.
“Willem,” he says, turning to him. “I think I’d better take a taxi after all; I’m getting tired—I’d better get to bed.”
“Jude, come on,” says Willem, with enough impatience in his voice that he flinches. “Look, I’m sorry. But really, Jude. You can’t just leave when I’m trying to talk to you about something important.”
This stops him. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. And I’m grateful, Willem, I really am. But this is just too difficult for me to discuss.”
“Everything’s too difficult for you to discuss,” says Willem, and he flinches again. Willem sighs. “I’m sorry. I always keep thinking that someday I’m going to talk to you, really talk to you, and then I never do, because I’m afraid you’re going to shut down and then you won’t talk to me at all.” They are silent, and he is chastened, because he knows Willem is right—that is exactly what he’d do. A few years ago, Willem had tried to talk to him about his cutting. They had been walking then too, and after a certain point the conversation had become so intolerable that he had hailed a cab and frantically pulled himself in, leaving Willem standing on the sidewalk, calling his name in disbelief; he had cursed himself even as the car sped south. Willem had been furious; he had apologized; they had made up. But Willem has never initiated that conversation again, and neither has he. “But tell me this, Jude: Are you ever lonely?”