A Little Life (2015), A Novel by Hanya Yanagihara: summary

The book is really touching and inspiring one. It was in shortlisted for three different book awards, and the winner of the British Book Industry for Fiction 2016. It richly deserves the prize, the writing is superb, and the characters are memorable, vivid, and realistic one.

The story follows the life of four roommates from a college in Boston, and they start living in New York. Jude as the main character, was a lawyer; Willem, an actor; Malcom, an architect; JB as a painter. He was cripple, good looking, successful lawyer, but haunted by his traumatic past, the sexual abuse in a Catholic monastery, then a Brother named Luke, a pedophile, took him run away and exploits the nine-year-old Jude as child prostitute in years. In the middle of tale, his friend, Willem, the famous actor, gives him a little life and hope, they loved each other, but Willem died at young age in a car accident.

The 720- long novel published by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, London 2016. This is the second book of the author, Hanya Yanagihara is American author and she lives in New York. This fiction depicts modern realistic life in a big city, the friendship that takes ups and downs, gay relationship, family, drama, complicated conflict, hard worker, love, sex (homosexuality), poverty, sentimentality, pathology, mathematics, law, painter, race, architect, despair life, and traumatic childhood related to sexually abused. 

A Little Life (2015), A Sentimental Drama by Hanya Yanagihara: summary

Lispenard Street

Four men just dealt with an agent, they rented a cheap apartment at Lispenard Street in New York. The apartment was not impressive. There was a small foyer, little larger than size of a doormat, from which pronged the kitchen (a hot, greasy little cube) to the right and dining area to the left that would accommodate perhaps a card table.

In their first year in college, the four of them had shared a space that consisted of a cinder-blocked common room. Malcom was the only one of the four of them who lived at home, and as JB liked to say, if he had Malcom’s home, he would live at home too. Malcom’s sister, Flora, who was three years older than him, had moved out of the basement apartment recently, and Jude had taken her place as a short-term solution. It was natural that he would live with Willem; they had been roommates throughout college.

Jean-Baptiste Marion, a Painter

JB worked as a receptionist at a small but influential magazine based in SoHo that covered the down town art scene. This was a strategic job for him; his plan, as he had explained to Willem one night, was that he’d try to befriend on of the editors there and then convince him to feature him in the magazine. He estimated this taking about six months. He was not a good receptionist, although the phones rang more or less constantly, he rarely picked them up. He rode the train to his mother’s on Sunday, he was unable to keep himself from experiencing a vague sort of self-congratulation, combined with something approaching gratitude that he had the life and family he did. And yet he was relieved to return home every week, where the food was plentiful and free, and where his grandmother would do his laundry.

His father, who had emigrated to New York from Haiti, had died when JB was three, and although JB always liked to think that he remembered his face- kind and gentle, with a narrow strip of mustache and cheeks that rounded into plums when he smiled. He was fatherless, and he knew that fatherless children mourned the absence in their lives. After his father died, his mother, who was the second-generation Haitian American, had earned her doctorate in education, teaching all the while at the public school near their house that she had deemed JB better than.

She had been the subject of an article in The New York Times for her innovative teaching methods, and although he had pretended otherwise to his friends, he had been proud of her. At home, there was his grandmother, who cooked whatever he wanted, and sang to him in French, and told him literally daily what treasure he was, and how he was the man in her life.

And there were his aunts, his mother’s sister, a detective in Manhattan, and her girlfriend, a pharmacist and second-generation herself (although she was from Puerto Rico, not Haiti), who had no children and so treated him as their own. His mother’s sister was sporty and taught him how to catch and throw a ball, and her girlfriend interested in art; one of his earliest memories had been a trip with her to the Museum of Modern Art, barely listening to his aunt as she explained how Pollack had made the painting. JB was the lone classicist among them. He painted.

Willem Ragnarsson, an Actor

Willem had been a waiter at Ortolan for almost two years. Before Ortolan, he had worked the weekend brunch and weekday lunch shift at a loud popular restaurant, where the customers would ask him if she was on the menu, and then laugh, naughty and pleased with themselves. It had been a friend of his graduate school, another actor named Roman, who had recommend him to a soap opera and had quit. It was easy to tell who at Ortolan was once an actor and was now a career waiter. 

He was a guest at his college, a guest in graduate school, and now he was a guest in New York, a guest in lives of the beautiful and the rich. He would never try to pretend he was born to such things, because he wasn’t; he was a ranch hand’s son from Wyoming, and his leaving didn’t mean that everything he had once was erased. He was his parents’s fourth child, and the only one still lived. His sister had died of leukemia when she was two, long before Willem had been born. This had been in Sweden, when his father who was Icelandic, had been working at a fish farm, where he met his mother, who was Danish. Then there had been a move to America, and a boy named Hemming, who had been born with cerebral palsy. Hemming was eight when Willem was born.

His second year of college, Hemming had had to have an emergency appendectomy. They said they caught it just in time. The flights were expensive, much more than he had anticipated. He researched bus routes, but it took three days to get there, three days to get back, and he had midterm exams he had to take and do well in if he was keep his scholarship, and his jobs to attend to. He drunk that night, he confided in Malcom, who got out his checkbook and wrote him a check. They argued back and forth until Willem finally accepted the check. Still it became important to him to repay Malcom somehow, even though he knew Malcom wouldn’t accept his money. It was Jude who had the idea of putting the money directly into Malcom’s wallet, and so every two weeks after he had cashed his check from the restaurant, he had stuff the money into it while Malcom was asleep. He never quite knew it Malcom noticed- he spent it so quickly, but Willem took some satisfaction and pride in doing it. 

One morning, a week later, his mother called: Hemming had died. When he was in graduate school, they died, in the same year: his father of a heart attack in January and his mother of a stroke the following October. The rancher who had employed his parents had long ago died, but his son, who now, owned the ranch, had always treated them well, and it had been he who employed them long after he might reasonably be expected to, and he who paid for their funerals as well.

His feeling for Jude were complicated. He loved – that part was simple- feared for him, and sometimes felt as much his older brother and protector as his friend. They all loved Jude and admired him.

Malcom Irvine, an Architect

Race had always been a challenge for Malcom, but their sophomore year, he had hit upon what he considered a brilliant cop-0ut: he wasn’t black; he was post-black. Malcom had convinced that racial discomfort he felt was temporary thing. He had never felt any particular agita about or pride in being black. His father had been the third black managing director at this investment firm, the third black trustee at the very white boys’s preparatory school that Malcom had attended, the second black CFO of a major commercial bank.

In fact, it wasn’t until college that he was made truly confront the different ways in which blackness had been experienced by other people, and perhaps more stunningly, how part his family’s money had set him from the rest of the country. Even today, almost a decade after meeting him, he still had trouble comprehending the sort of poverty that had been raised in- his belief when he finally realized that the backpack Jude arrived to college with had contained. Race seemed less and less a defining characteristic when one was six years out of college.

Money he set aside. He would inherit a huge amount, but he would like to make money, he would. He wasn’t one of those rich kids who tortured himself about it. In his early twenties, he had tried falling in and out of love with various people. He often thought that being gay was attractive mostly for its accompanying accessories, its collection of political opinions and causes and its embrace of aesthetics. He fancied himself already half in love with Willem, and at various point in love with Jude too. He had gone to architecture school for the worst reason of all, it seemed: because he loved buildings. He was twenty-eight; his imagination had deserted him; he was now a copyist.

Jude Saint Francis, a Lawyer

Side in a town house not far from Malcom’s parents, where he tutored a twelve-year-old boy named Felix. The boy’s father was a friend of Malcom’s parents, and it had been Malcom’s father who had gotten him the job. Mr. Irvine’s law school friends, who know over one of the city’s more powerful firms. That person was Howard Baker, who hired him after interviewing him for fifteen distracted minutes to tutor his son in Latin, math, German, and piano. He felt sorry for Felix. The loneliness of Felix’s life, of a Saturday spent sitting with a cripple nearly thirty-year-old lawyer who was there to earn money, and who would go out that night with people he loved.

Jude knew French and German, he was good in math, and he could play piano and sing. He knew how to help birth a calf, rewired the lamp. He had never been to a movie. He had never owned a computer or a phone. His silence was both a necessity and a protection. He admired all of his three roommates, but Willem was the one he trusted. At home, he had quickly learned there were three types of boys: The first might cause the fight (this was JB). The second type would join in, but wouldn’t run to get help, either (this was Malcom). And the third type was would actually try to help you out (this was the rarest type, and this was obviously Willem).

It had been Ana, a social worker, and the first person who had never betrayed him, who had talk to him about that he would get in. The surgeon told him, that the injury like his was an insult to the body, and one the body would never recover completely. He knew she was a social worker, who assigned to him, but it wasn’t until more than a month had passed. She oversaw his transfer into new home, his final home: the Douglasses. The family were evangelical Lutherans, but they didn’t make him attend church with them. But it was Ana who took him to most of his doctor’s appointment. Ana finally got him to write down what happened with Dr. Taylor and kept him from having to testify in court.

When he was accepted with a full scholarship. Fourteen months after they had met, she was the one in bed, she was in her illness and so weak. She said that he had nothing to be ashamed of and none of it has been his fault. It was the last thing she said before she was dead.

He had been the first to arrive in their room, when the second boy came in – it had been Malcom. It was only Ana that knew who he was, but now she was gone. His records were sealed.

Harold Stein, a Lecturer

Harold was a lecturer and the author of three books. He was trim and tall. Jude couldn’t remember anything particularly interesting he said in class, the paper he wrote that interested Harold and which led conversations with him outside the classroom, and eventually, to an offer become one of his research assistants. He began working for Harold on three afternoons and evenings in a week – on the rest of the days he had afternoon seminars at MIT, where he were getting his master’s and worked at the law library at night, and on Saturdays he worked in the library in the morning and in the afternoons at a bakery.

It had been Harold who encouraged him to apply. Judge Sullivan was known among his fellow circuit court judges for always hiring one clerk whose political views diverged from his own, the more vividly the better. Jude when to Washington for interview to be Sullivan’s clerk. Malcom had given him two of his old cotton suits, which he’d tailored and worn throughout both of his summer internships, but he had borrow his roommate’s suit for the Sullivan’s interview. Harold bought him a new suit, the generosity of Harold’s gift unsettled him. 

Harold lived in a three-story house in Cambridge, he bought the house just before he got divorced. He invited Jude for dinner. Julia was from an academic family from Oxford and had lived in America since graduate school at Standford; she and Harold had met five years ago through a friend. Harold wanted to know how he had been raised, he was greedy for information. Yet despite his discomfort, Jude kept coming back to Harold and kept accepting his dinner invitations. He was introduced to Harold’s best friend, Laurence, who was now an appellate court judge in Boston, and his wife, who taught English. 

As the months and then years passed, they developed a friendship in which the first fifteen years of his life remained unsaid and unspoken. A year after Harold’s son, Jacob, died, they had their first conversation. The divorce was very clean, very easy. His ex-wife, Liesl, moved to Portland, remarried. She was teaching at medical school. And then one day, she called him. It had been sixteen years. She was in town for a conference, and asked him if he wanted to have a lunch. She told him about her husband, an epidemiologist, and he told her about Julia. She had another child, a girl. When her daughter graduated from college, she sent him an announcement. He loved Julia, she was a scientist too, but she was always so different form Liesl.  

Andy, an Orthopedic Surgeon and a Friend

A few years after meeting Andy, when he was in law school. Andy was the only person he had been naked in front of as an adult, the only person who was familiar with every physical of his body. Andy had been a resident when they met, and he stayed in Boston for his fellowship, and his post-fellowship, and then he moved to New York within months of each other. He was an orthopedic surgeon, but he treated him for everything, from chest colds to his back and leg problems. He knew that he and Andy had gone to the same college, and that Andy was a decade older than he, and that Andy’s father was Gujarati and his mother was Welsh, and he had grown up in Ohio. He had met Andy’s parents as well.  

The fight had concerned what Andy had retroactively come to consider a botched a suicide attempt. This had been right before New Year’s and he had been cutting himself, he had cut too close to a vein, bloody mess into which he had been forced to involve Willem.

Jude’s Childhood

Before New York there had been law school, and before that, college, there was Philadelphia, slow trip across country, and before that, there was Montana, and the boys’ home, and before Montana was Southwest, and the motel rooms, and the lonely stretches of road and the hours spent in the car. And before that was South Dakota and the monastery.

It was Brother Peter, who taught him math, and was always reminding him of his good fortune, who told him he had been found in a garbage can. Later, Brother Michael claimed that wasn’t true. He was next to the trash bin. He reminded him, he came, and he was there, and he should concentrate on his future, and not on the past. The state couldn’t find anyone to take him. He was lucky they had found him. None of local hospitals had recorded a recent live birth that matched his description. So there were none, clearly. He was alone. Brother Luke was his favorite of the brothers, who rarely spoke and scolded him.

Brother Luke was responsible for the monastery’s garden and green house, and in the warm months, he would help him with small tasks. He knew from eavesdropping on the other brothers that Brother Luke had been a rich man before he had come to monastery. But then something happened, or he had done something. It was Brother Luke’s money that had paid for the green house. Mostly the other brothers avoided Luke made him think he might him be bad, although Brother Luke was never bad, not to him. He stole Brother Peter’s comb, he stole food, and he stole more and more. He had been beaten, Father Gabriel had hit him in the face for screaming.

When he regained consciousness, he was back in his bed. He was caught again, he was made to go to Father Gabriel’s office every night and take off his clothes, and the father would examine inside him for any contraband. And later, the things got worse, he would have tantrums, throwing himself against the stone walls of the monastery and screaming as loudly as he could. They hit him, they started keeping a belt looped on a nail on the school room wall. He started wetting his bed, and was made to go visit the father more often, and the more examinations the father gave him, the more he wet the bed. The father began visiting him in his room, and so did Brother Peter, and later Brother Matthew.

The year after he arrived in Montana, when he was thirteen, the home had participated in a tristate adoption fair. He had no tricks, he had no skills, he couldn’t charm. Mrs. Leary was fat, but her husband was simply big. They chose him, they said, because he seemed quite and polite; they wanted someone hardworking. The beatings got worse, the sessions got worse, and the lectures got worse. Increasingly he was becoming convinced that the brothers were going to get rid of him, and he was terrified, because the monastery was the only home he had ever had.

Run Away from Monastery and Brother Luke

He thought Brother Luke was his only hope. In his nine year old, they left the monastery. The brother promised him a new life to build a cabin in Texas. After they crossed in Nebraska, Brother Luke changed his appearance, and he also made Jude looked like every other boy now.

Brother Luke had been a math professor before he came to monastery, but he wanted to work with children, and so he had later taught sixth grade. But he knew about other subjects as well: history and books and music and languages. He knew so much more than the other brothers. Brother forbade him to watch television as long in the motel room. He brought a piano keyboard in his car and practiced him. They run out money, the brother told him to do what he did to Father Gabriel and the other brothers. Luke had gone to the bathroom, Jude and the man had had sex and then the man left. Brother Luke brought him more clients. Sometimes there was just one, but sometimes there were several.

Months passed. After many motels and many clients, they moved every ten days. He had volunteered for this, it was for cabin in the woods, where he would have his own loft. Now one bed was used for clients, and the other was theirs. Brother promised wanted to marry him, make a family, and raise kid. He had no longer thought of the cabin, he wanted back to monastery. He would sometimes cry and pray to be taken away. They left Texas together, the brother told him the forests in Washington was better. For months, years, he had struggled with clients. The brother told him have to show a little life when he was with client.

He was tiring and growing. He began throwing himself into walls. After the fall, he was returning himself to something pure. He got the bruises, the brother worried about the clients. The brother said he would teach him secret. Brother Luke was right: the cutting made him feeling better. When he did it, it was as if he was draining away the filth, the rage inside him. He was so dependent on Luke: for his food, for his protection, and now for his razor.

They were in Montana, when a police caught Brother Luke. The social worker, Ana told him that Luke was a monster, a pedophile. Before he turned fourteen, the counselor not only hit him, but also raped him, then he had been hospitalized. Not so long, he discovered Luke was dead. 

He run away from the shelter, the boy’s home, after he did self-defense from another counselor. As an adult, as a crippled adult, he run away. He had no roof, only street prostitute, he had gotten sick, he hadn’t know if it was from his time on the road. A man saved him from the street. Dr. Taylor gave him food and heal his illness. But the psychiatrist did worse thing to him, not only sex slave but hit him badly. No longer would he trust people so quickly. He was brought to hospital and Dr. Taylor was arrested. 

Ever since his first day of college, he had feared that someday someone from his past-a client; one of the boys from the home-would try to contact him. The people who knew him most, who had witnessed and made it-Brother Luke; Dr. Taylor; even Ana- were dead. He was safe.

The Adoption

After a decade, Harold wanted to adopt Jude as his legal son to inherit his wealth. JB made a lot of unfunny jokes, Malcom asked increasingly granular questions that he couldn’t answer. Andy said parents are pains but of course great too. Willem agreed. 

He felt wonderful, like a different person. He was someone’s son, and the times the knowledge of that is so overwhelming that he imagined it was manifesting itself physically.

Now, fifteen years after the four of them graduated, Jude had begun using the wheelchair regularly, the first time he had to in four years, since he was thirty-one. He had infection in his leg and it made it painful for him to walk long distances. Since he bought the apartment a year ago, he had spent a total of six weeks there.

JB did drugs but he was not an addict. When he was thirty-two, he had had his first show. He had become a genuinely, a star. There were articles written about him in the art press. But his friendship with Jude and Willem had been ruined. He had done something bad, and Willem had taken Jude’s side. The two of them, Jude and Willem had been their own unit, united against everyone. Malcom had eventually started dating a girl, and they made their own unit. He had always known he would be the first among the four of them to be a success. He worked harder than Malcom, he was more ambitious than Willem. (He didn’t count Jude in this race, as Jude’s profession was one operated on an entirely different set of metrics, one that didn’t much matter to him.)

Before the adoption, JB had warned him about the possibly really bad physical abuse. They noticed he never took off his clothes. The next day, he asked Laurence if he could find out if he had any juvenile records on his name. Laurence’s search turned up nothing. Malcom had been working on a project in Beijing. Willem had been in LA filming on his actual birthday.

The loneliness was a recent discovery, and was different from the other lonelinesses he had experienced. He now had nothing to fear. Now he protected himself: he had his own apartment with its triple-locked doors, and he had money. He had parents and he had friends.

He met a man at the party. Caleb just moved to the city from London, where he had spent the past decade as the president of a fashion label. He was forty-nine, and hadn’t lived in New York since he was in his thirties. He too went to law school. Caleb had recognized Jude’s face from JB Marion’s painting. The creative director at his last company owned it. A few weeks after they had started seeing each other, Caleb was disappointed to discover he was limp. But as much as Caleb hated his walk, he loathed his wheelchair. He didn’t like the fact that he was in wheel chair.

Caleb had come over in daylight, he had given him a tour of the apartment. He was proud of the apartment, and every day he was grateful to be in it. Malcom had kept Willem’s suite- as they called it-where it had been. And then there was the sex, which was worse than he had imagined. He liked Caleb’s solidity, his physical strength. He liked watching him moved like Willem.

The first time Caleb hit him, he was both surprised and not. He didn’t say anything, just whirled around and struck him. The next day his face began to turn colors, he made up a story. He was no longer human, he was a wolf. He was nothing to Caleb, he was prey, and he was disposable. In the weeks after the beating, he worked on forgetting Caleb. Willem had travelled a lot for his movies, he also had some girls. But it was Willem that expressed his feeling to him. Jude was so confused, but he realized Willem wasn’t Caleb. He was happy now, he had a little life, and he had Willem. But it was only in short term, both Willem and Malcom were in a car accident. He was so in despair, he cut himself again.

When he was younger, the cutting might took a few weeks to heal. But now it took months. He was back to cutting himself only once a week now. He was fifty-one, and Willem had been dead for eight months. It was a car accident that took Willem and Malcom. And now JB was sixty-one, Harold was eighty four, and JB had been dead for six years, and Jude had been dead for nine. JB’s most recent show was called “Jude, Alone”, there was fifteen painting of just him, imagined moments from the years after Jude died.

Harold cleaned out his stuff, he found an envelope. He should read his note from decade ago, from the first day adoption. It was eight pages long, and typed, and it was a confession; of Brother Luke, and Dr. Taylor, and what happened to him. All the answers he wanted about who and why he was, and now those answer only torment. He died so alone.

*****

May 6, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Buku fiksi sangat bagus dalam segi penulisan, luar biasa sehingga sangat layak mendapatkan penghargaan dari Inggris dan menjadi nominasi dari tiga penghargaan karya. Kisah drama sentimen yang mengharukan. Persahabatan empat orang dari satu kampus, yang merantau dan akhirnya sukses pada bidang masing-masing.

Tokoh utama, Jude, seorang pengacara pincang, walau sudah sukses ia masih dihantui masa lalu yang kelam. Pelecehan seks yang dialami sejak kecil hingga remaja membuatnya berkali-kali melukai badannya dan ingin bunuh diri. Kebiasaan menyakiti diri sebagai pelepasan siksaan dan penebusan dosa dan rasa jijik terhadap dirinya. 

Karya ini menggambarkan persahabatan, kehidupan modern kota besar, percintaan, hubungan gay, kekeluargaan, keputusasaan, kebahagiaan, matematika, hukum, pelukis, arsitek, kekerasan, seks dan pelecehan seks, pekerja keras, keberhasilan, realita kehidupan, kasih, semua dirangkai dalam kisah memilukan, diterbitan dari Picador, Inggris tahun 2015, setebal 720 halaman. 

Ringkasan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: A little Life (Sepenggal Kehidupan) karya Hanya Yanagihara

Empat anak muda baru saja lulus dari sebuah universitas di Boston, merantau ke kota impian New York. Keempatnya baru saja sepakat menyewa apartemen paling murah. Keempatnya telah terbiasa satu kamar ketika kuliah, ada JB, pemuda keturunan Haiti yang berambisi menjadi pelukis terkenal. Jude seorang pengacara lumpuh, Malcom, sarjana arsitek, dan si tampan Willem lulusan sekolah akting yang ingin menjadi aktor ternama.

Dari keempatnya, hanya Malcom yang memiliki rumah apalagi di kota New York, ayahnya adalah seorang direktur pada perusahaan terkemuka, walau ia anak orang kaya, ia ingin menghasilkan uang sendiri. Sebelum masuk kuliah, ia tidak pernah bangga dengan warna kulitnya. Ia melabel dirinya sebagai hitam modern. Tetapi isu warna kulit meredup, ketika ia bertemu teman-teman di kampus. Apalagi Jude, walau berkulit putih. tapi dari ranselnya pertama kali masuk kampus sangat mengenaskan. Akhirnya ia pun mensyukuri apa yang ia miliki, orang tua, fasilitas yang dimilikinya sejak kecil. Impiannya menjadi arsitek, simple saja hanya karena ia suka gedung. Ia sekarang menjadi seorang tukang foto kopi di sebuah perusahaan arsitektur.  

Berbeda halnya dengan Jean-Baptiste (JB), anak satu-satunya dan sangat dimanja oleh bibi, dan neneknya. Ayahnya seorang perantau dari Haiti dan telah meninggal dunia saat ia masih kecil. Ia tidak sempat mengenalnya. Ibunya, seorang guru, berprestasi. Setiap Minggu, JB berkereta api pulang ke rumah, membawa cucian yang selalu dibereskan neneknya, menikmati makanan berlimpah dan gratis. Sekali-kali ia membawa temannya yang lain. Bibinya, adik ibunya seorang polisi di New York menyayangi dan mengajarinya banyak hal.

Willem anak pekerja dan pengelola peternakan di Wyoming. Ayahnya dalah perantau dari Swedia, ibunya seorang wanita Denmark, keduanya bertemu saat bekerja di sebuah pertenakan di Eropa. Ia adalah anak bungsu dari empat bersaudara dan yang masih hidup. Orang tuanya masih menggunakan bahasa Swedia di rumah, hidup pas-pasan. Willem seorang rupawan, sangat bersedih atas kematian kakaknya yang sakit bertahun-tahun. Tetap ia tidak punya ongkos pulang, Malcom memberinya ongkos pesawat, karena via kalau perjalanan bis memakan waktu tiga hari. Tetap ia tidak bisa menerima begitu saja, ia menggantinya secara diam-diam memasukkan setiap gaji mingguannya ke dompet anak orang kaya itu. Malcom tidak pernah menyadarinya.

Wajahnya tampan dan menarik, dengan kaki pincang, ia selalu menarik perhatian.  Ketiganya mengagumi dan menyayanginya. Jude, dia anak panti yang tidak pernah mengetahui siapa ayah ibunya. Dia sangat handal kalkulus dan mengambil kuliah matematika di luar sekolah hukum yang ditekuninya. Dosennya dan juga penulis buku bernama Harold merekrutnya sebagai salah seorang dari asisten penelitinya.

Masa lalu tinggal di biara Katholik, ia handal dalam mengerjakan pekerjaan rumah, pengalaman hidup berpindah-indah mengajarinya cara menolong sapi melahirkan, berkebun, bertani. Menurut Romo Gabriel, ia hanya ditemukan di dekat tempat sampah tidak jauh dari tembok biara. Walau sudah dilakukan penelusuran, polisi tidka berhasil siapaorang tuanya. Rumah sakit dan klinik persalinan telah dicek, tapi tak satu pun cocok dengan bayi Jude.  

Ia anak yang penurut, tetapi terkadang jahil mencuri sisir seorang Frather, ia pun dihukum. Karena sering kelaparan ia kerap mencuri makanan, dan hukuman semakin kerap pula ia terima. Kelapa biara, selalu memanggilmya ke kantor bahkan walaupun tidak bersalah. Ia tidak pernah mengetahui bahwa itu adalah sebuah pelecehan seks. Frater-frater lainnya pun melakukannya secara bergiliran dan dialaminya menahun.

Dia tidak sanggup melayani mereka dan pukulan-pukulan kerap diterima, tetapi ia tidak tahu harus kemana, biara adalah tempat satu-satunya yang ia ketahui. Apalagi para frater sering mengingatkannya: dunia luar sangat jahat. Frater Luke yang bertugas dalam pertamanan, memperlakukannya dengan baik, menurutnya ia adalah orang yang paling baik padanya. Frater lain sering mengingatkannya agar menjauhi frater itu. Karena yang mengingatkannya juga sering memukuimya, ia merasa lebih nyaman dengan Frater Luke: tidak pernah memarahi dan memukulinya. Ia dengar Frater Luke adalah orang kaya, hanya karena sesuatu atau ia melakukan sesuatu ia bergabung dalam biara.

Pada usianya mendekati ke sembilan tahun, keduanya berhasil melarikan diri dari biara. Hidup dari satu motel satu ke motel lain, terkadang tinggal di jalanan dalam mobil. Mereka pun kehabisan uang. Frater Luke memintanya melakukan seperti apa yang ia kerap lakukan pada Romo Gabriel dan para frater lainnya, tapi ini untuk bertahan hidup. Frater Luke selalu berdiam di kamar mandi, saat Jude sedang bekerja. Kehidupan ini berlangsung berbulan-bulan hingga menahun.

Janji mendirikan kabin di hutan Texas pun akhirnya terwujud, tetapi tidak membuatnya bahagia, ia lelah melayani tetamu. Ia menyesal meninggalkan biara. Dengan kelihaiannnya, Frater Luke menjanjikan menikahinya, membuat rumah dan keluarga kalau usianya enam belas tahun. Motel demi motel, ratusan tamu ia layani, membuatnya lelah dan jenuh, apalagi ia kini bertambah dewasa. Ia merssa senang melemparkan badannya ke tembok, saat terjatuh dan terluka membuatnya merasa lega dari rasa malu dan jijik pada dirinya. Frater Luke memberinya solusi dengan mengajari menyayat tangannya. Ia pun merasa nyaman.

Hingga akhirnya polisi berhasil menangkap Frater Luke, dan Jude dimasukkan di dalam rumah penampungan. Ia bersekolah, Jude adalah anak yang pintar dan berbakat, Frater Luke mengajarinya sejarah, matematika, piano, Bahasa Jerman, Latin, dan Bahasa Perancis. Sebelum masuk di lingkungan biara, ia adalah professor, ingin menjari anak anak, ia suka anak-anak.

Dalam penampungan, ia juga mengalami hal yang sama, bahkan lebih buruk dari para konselornya, siksaan membuatnya ia pincang. Ia pun melarikan diri. Ditemukan seorang dokter bernama Dr. Taylor dalam keadaan sakit, berbagai penyakit berdiam di tubuhnya. Awalnya sang dokter baik, namun ia pun disiksa, dan dijadikan budak seks. Dia nyaris mati, berakhir di rumah sakit, Dr, Taylor ditangkap. Pekerja sosial bernama Ana menolongnya. Ia pun ditempatkan pada sebuah keluarga yang baik hingga akhirnya ia cukup umur dan bekerja pada toko roti. Ana-lah yang meyakinkan ia harus kuliah di Boston.

Sekarang masa lalunya sudah aman, baik Frater Luke, Dr. Taylor, dan pekerja sosial, Ana, wanita satu-satunya ia percayai untuk menumpahkan segala kisahnya; ketiga telah meninggal. Dalam puncak karirnya ia masih saja dibayangi perasaan takut, jika tiba-tiba ada mantan tamunya mempermalukannya. Perasaan kotor dan bersalah tetap menghantui dirinya, makin sering melukai badanya hingga mengkuatirkan ketiga teman. Tetapi ia tetap tidak pernah berterus terang. Ayah angkatnya, juga dosennya, Harold; kekasihnya Willem, juga sahabat terdekatnya; serta dua sahabat lainnya yakni JB dan Malcom.

Karirnya pun meroket di New York, begitu juga dengan Willem, sahabat terdekatnya, menjadi aktor ternama. Nama dan foto dirinya juga masuk dalam berita, keduanya menjadi sepasang kekasih. Willem adalah orang yang sangat mengerti dirinya dan membuatnya nyaman, walau JB yang juga seorang gay sempat menggodanya, ia menolaknya. Dia sempat menjadi hubungan dengan Caleb Porter, seorang manajer fashion berlabel.

Pengalaman pahit kembali ia alami; siksaan dan pukulan kerap diterimanya. Lelaki modis itu tidak terima dengan kepincangan Jude, ia pertama melihat dan tertarik pada Jude saat ia posisi duduk. Kebrutalan itu membuat ia kehilangan beberapa giginya, dan dirawat di rumah sakit dan beberapa tahun kemudian ia membaca orbituri Caleb di koran. Secara tragis Willem dan Malcom tewas dalam kecelakaan, duka kembali menyelimuti hidupnya. Ia kembali melukai dirinya.

Kisah kelamnya ia tutup rapat, hingga pada akhirnya, setelah kematiannya dan tiga teman lainnya; di usia Harold yang ke 84, ia menemukan sebuah surat ditujukan padanya; isinya tentang sebuah pengakuan dari biara: Frater Luke, Dr. Taylor, dan perjalanan kehidupannya. Ayah angkatnya tidak sanggup dengan jawaban pertanyaan yang sering ia tanyakan selama ini, Harold merasa gagal dan sedih. 

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6 Mei 2017