lumpurwhat are we talking about when we talk about love

2021年1月22日发(作者：behaviorism)
Raymond Carver

My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes
that gives him the right.
The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled
the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his
second wife, Teresa--Terri, we called her
—
and my wife, Laura. We lived in
Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else.
There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around,
and we somehow got on the subject of love. Mel thought real love was nothing less
than spiritual love. He said he'd spent five years in a seminary before quitting to
go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary
as the most important years in his life.
Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he
tried to kill her. Then Terri said,
the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, 'I love you, I love you, you bitch.'
He went on dragging me around the living room. My head kept knocking on things.
Terri looked around the table.
She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung
down her back. She liked necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings.

what you'd call it, but I sure know you wouldn't call it love.

but it's true just the same. People are different, Mel. Sure, sometimes he may have
acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way maybe, but he loved me. There
was love there, Mel. Don't say there wasn't.
Mel let out his breath. He held his glass and turned to Laura and me.
threatened to kill me,
bottle.
Terri, hon, don't look that way.
cheek with his fingers. He grinned at her.


all.

and drank from it.
She smiled, and I thought that was the last of it.


you?

his name mentioned in passing. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know the particulars.
But I think what you're saying is that love is an absolute.
Mel said,
about, you don't try to kill people.
Laura said,
who can judge anyone else's situation?
I touched the back of Laura's hand. She gave me a quick smile. I picked up Laura's
hand. It was warm, the nails polished, perfectly manicured. I encircled the broad
wrist with my fingers, and I held her.


“When I left, he drank rat poison,
hands.
about ten miles out. They saved his life. But his gums went crazy from it. I mean
they pulled away from his teeth. After that, his teeth stood out like fangs. My
God,
glass.


Mel handed me the saucer of limes. I took a section, squeezed it over my drink, and
stirred the ice cubes with my finger.

Poor Ed,

Mel was forty- five years old. He was tall and rangy with curly soft hair. His face
and arms were brown from the tennis he played. When he was sober, his gestures, all
his movements, were precise, very careful.

didn't love me the way you love me. I'm not saying that. But he loved me. You can
grant me that, can't you?

Laura leaned forward with her glass. She put her elbows on the table and held her
glass in both hands. She glanced from Mel to Terri and waited with a look of
bewilderment on her open face, as if amazed that such things happened to people you
were friendly with.


bought to threaten Terri and me with. Oh, I'm serious, the man was always
threatening. You should have seen the way we lived in those days. Like fugitives. I
even bought a gun myself. Can you believe it? A guy like me? But I did. I bought
one for self-defense and carried it in the glove compartment. Sometimes I'd have to
leave the apartment in the middle of the night. To go to the hospital, you know?
Terri and I weren't married then, and my first wife had the house and kids, the dog,
everything, and Terri and I were living in this apartment here. Sometimes, as I say,
I'd get a call in the middle of the night and have to go in to the hospital at two
or three in the morning. It'd be dark out there in the parking lot, and I'd break
into a sweat before I could even get to my car. I never knew if he was going to
come up out of the shrubbery or from behind a car and start shooting. I mean, the
man was crazy. He was capable of wiring a bomb, anything. He used to call my
service at all hours and say he needed to talk to the doctor, and when I'd return
the call, he'd say, 'Son of a bitch, your days are numbered.' Little things like
that. It was scary, I'm telling you.


himself?
Laura is a legal secretary. We'd met in a professional capacity. Before we knew it,
it was a courtship. She's thirty-five, three years younger than I am. In addition
to being in love, we like each other and enjoy one another's company. She's easy to
be with.



What happened?
Mel said,
told the manager. They came in with a passkey, saw what had happened, and called an
ambulance. I happened to be there when they brought him in, alive but past recall.
The man lived for three days. His head swelled up to twice the size of a normal
head. I'd never seen anything like it, and I hope I never do again. Terri wanted to
go in and sit with him when she found out about it. We had a fight over it. I
didn't think she should see him like that. I didn't think she should see him, and I
still don't.


But I sat with him. He didn't have anyone else.


willing to die for it. He did die for it.

it for. I've seen a lot of suicides, and I couldn't say anyone ever knew what they
did it for.
Mel put his hands behind his neck and tilted his chair back.
that kind of love,
Terri said,
California who used to be a Green Beret. Mel told him who to look for if something
happened to him.
Terri drank from her glass. She said,
were afraid. Mel was, weren't you, honey? I even called the police at one point,
but they were no help. They said they couldn't do anything until Ed actually did
something. Isn't that a laugh?
She poured the last of the gin into her glass and waggled the bottle. Mel got up
from the table and went to the cupboard. He took down another bottle.


“Well, Nick and I know what love is,
She bumped my knee with her knee.
said, and turned her smile on me.
For an answer, I took Laura's hand and raised it to my lips. I made a big
production out of kissing her hand. Everyone was amused.


honeymoon, for God's sake. You're still gaga, for crying out loud. Just wait. How
long have you been together now? How long has it been? A year? Longer than a
year?



Mel opened the gin and went around the table with the bottle.

to love. To true love,
We touched glasses.



Outside in the backyard, one of the dogs began to bark. The leaves of the aspen
that leaned past the window ticked against the glass. The afternoon sun was like a
presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity. We could have
been anywhere, somewhere enchanted. We raised our glasses again and grinned at each
other like children who had agreed on something forbidden.

And then you can draw your own conclusions.
added an ice cube and a sliver of lime. We waited and sipped our drinks. Laura and
I touched knees again. I put a hand on her warm thigh and left it there.

beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don't doubt it. I love
Terri and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of
love I'm talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone
special, as well as love of the other person's being, his or her essence, as it
were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day-to-day caring about
the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I
must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like
Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed.

now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love?
What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me. Then
there's Ed. Okay, we're back to Ed. He loves Terri so much he tries to kill her and
he winds up killing himself.

over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each
other. You've both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other
people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been
married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing
too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us--
excuse me for saying this--but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think
the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the
surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All
this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not
even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight
if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the
first one to admit it.

you getting drunk? Honey? Are you drunk?

what I think. I mean, we're all just talking, right?
on her.

She picked up her glass.

he said.

Mel looked at Laura. He looked at her as if he could not place her, as if she was
not the woman she was.

Mel said.
He picked up his glass.



He said,
point. You see, this happened a few months ago, but it's still going on right now,
and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking
about when we talk about love.