A Little Life

In another flashback to Jude’s years in the monastery, Jude’s life continues its mostly miserable daily patterns of various kinds of abuse, but Brother Luke provides a safe haven. He makes Jude feel intelligent and special and gradually begins making up stories about how they could run away from the monastery together and live in a cabin in the woods. One day, he tells Jude that he wants to turn these stories into a reality. Jude agrees, and the two make plans to run away in the night in two months, shortly after Jude turns nine. When the night arrives, they successfully flee.

Back­ in the present, Jude finds himself unable to recover from the trauma of his relationship with Caleb. His memories of the beatings follow him every day; he begins to conceive of them as a pack of beasts stalking him, mixing with his traumatic memories from childhood. Though he takes on an increasingly huge workload at the law firm, he can never distract himself thoroughly enough.

As he continues to find himself unable to move on from the beating, he begins to consider suicide as a more and more plausible solution. He formulates a plan, finalizing his will and writing letters to his closest friends. He even schedules a fake appointment with a plumber for the day following his planned suicide; this way, Richard, who will think he is at work, will let the plumber into Jude’s apartment, and his body will be discovered. With everything in place, he sits down in the shower, slashes his wrists, and waits for death.

In another flashback, Brother Luke and Jude drive until they reach Texas, altering their clothes and hair along the way in case the brothers report their absence to the police. They establish a routine: Traveling from motel to motel, Luke continues Jude’s education with lessons during the day and goes out at night, allegedly to scout locations for the pair’s cabin in the woods. One night he comes back and tells Jude they do not have enough money for a cabin. Distraught, Jude offers to get a job. The next night, Luke returns to the motel and tells Jude he found work for him: He lined up “clients” and tells Jude, “You’re going to do what you did with Father Gabriel and a couple of the brothers” (398), by which Jude knows he means sexual acts. Here begins a new routine in which Luke brings male “clients” to Jude almost every night.

Eventually, after Jude is forced into sex with so many men that he loses count, Luke himself begins raping Jude every night, but he tries to explain that sex with him is different because the two are “in love.” This routine continues as the two drive from state to state, never staying at one motel for long. Gradually, Jude realizes that the cabin plan was a lie all along and will never happen.

In the novel’s present, Jude flickers in and out of consciousness at the hospital, dimly aware of visitors coming and going. He is dismayed that his suicide attempt did not work. After a brief stay in the hospital’s psychiatric ward, he is released with the strong recommendation that he continue taking the medication his doctors have been providing and see a therapist twice a week. He first stays with Harold and Julia at their vacation home, Truro, and then moves back into his own apartment, where Willem stays with him. Harold, Julia, and Willem have to do most things for him as the nerves in his arms are still healing.

As he begins to regain health, he stops taking his medication and notices he feels less foggy but also regains the feeling that his traumatic memories are surrounding him like demonic beasts. After he wakes from a horrible nightmare one night, Willem asks who “Brother Luke” is, having heard Jude say the name in his sleep, but Jude does not explain. Jude begins making plans to resume normal life, like picking a date to return to work and scheduling a vacation to Morocco with Willem. Realizing that he missed Willem’s 43rd birthday, he instructs Willem to think of something he wants as a gift. Days later, Willem has an answer: He wants Jude to tell him who Brother Luke is and why he gives Jude nightmares. Jude makes the unprecedented commitment to tell Willem but says he will need time to think about how he wants to explain. After Willem prods him to start small, such as explaining how he got the scar on his hand, Jude begins the story of the monks burning his hand as a punishment for stealing.

Part 4’s final flashback shows that Jude and Luke’s routine carries on for multiple years. Jude gets sexually transmitted infections regularly, and Luke takes him to a doctor for antibiotics. He starts hurting himself as a form of self-punishment to deal with his shame; he hits himself and knocks into things to conjure bruises. When he notices this, Luke teaches Jude how to cut himself.

One night, the police knock on Luke and Jude’s motel room door, yelling that they have a warrant for the arrest of “Edgar Wilmot,” Luke’s real name. Luke rushes into the bathroom and locks the door. The police break the door down, and after unsuccessfully attempting to get Luke to unlock the bathroom door, they break that down as well. Jude sees that Luke hung himself from a ceiling hook with electrical wire. Frightened, Jude tries to flee, but the police apprehend him and take him to a doctor. From the doctor visit, he is sent to a home for parentless children, where his peers ostracize him and several counselors continue the pattern of sexual abuse that has followed him since the monastery.