我问我的老药师赖爷。"你对谈情说爱懂多少？他说："谈情说爱是什么？"
I asked Ketut, my old medicine man, "What do you know about romance?" He said, "What is this, romance?"
"别放在心上。"
"Never mind."
"请说吧，谈情说爱是什么意思？"
"No—what it is? What this word means?"
"谈情说爱就是，"我说明，"男女相爱。或有时候男男相爱，或女女相爱。亲吻、性和结婚——这些玩意。"
"Romance." I defined. "Women and men in love. Or sometimes men and men in love, or women and women in love. Kissing and sex and marriage—all that stuff."
"我这辈子没和太多人有性，小莉。只跟我太太。
"I not make sex with too many people in my life, Liss. Only with my wife."
"你说得对——是没太多人。但你说的是第一个太太或第二个太太？"
"You're right—that's not too many people. But do you mean your first wife or your second wife?"
"我只有一个太太，小莉。她已经过世。"
"I only have one wife, Liss. She dead now."
"弥欧姆呢？"
"What about Nyomo?"
"弥欧姆不算我的太太，小莉。她是我哥哥的太太。"见我一脸迷惑，他又说，"这在巴厘岛很常见。"他说道。赖爷的哥哥是稻农，与赖爷比邻而居，娶了弥欧姆。他们一起生了三个孩子。而赖爷和他太太无法生孩子，于是收养赖爷哥哥的一个儿子以传续香火。赖爷的太太过世后，弥欧姆开始住在两个家宅，将时间对分给两家人，照顾她的丈夫和丈夫的弟弟，照料两家自己的孩子。就巴厘岛人而言，她完全是赖爷的老婆（烹饪、打扫、照管一家的宗教仪式），除了他们不做爱之外。
"Nyomo not really my wife, Liss. She the wife of my brother." Seeing my confused expression, he added, "This typical Bali," and explained. Ketut's older brother, who is a rice farmer, lives next door to Ketut and is married to Nyomo. They had three children together. Ketut and his wife, on the other hand, were unable to have any children at all, so they adopted one of Ketut's brother's sons in order to have an heir. When Ketut's wife died, Nyomo began living in both family compounds, splitting her time between the two households, taking care of both her husband and his brother, and tending to the two families of her children. She is in every way a wife to Ketut in the Balinese manner (cooking, cleaning, taking care of household religious ceremonies and rituals) except that they don't have sex together.
"为什么不？"我问。
"Why not?" I asked.
"太老了！"他说。而后他叫弥欧姆过来，把这个问题转述给她听，告知她这位美国女士想知道他们为何不做爱。这想法让弥欧姆几乎笑破肚皮。她还走过来用力打我的手臂。
"Too OLD!" he said. Then he called Nyomo over to relay the question to her, to let her know that the American lady wants to know why they don't have sex with each other. Nyomo about died laughing at the very thought of it. She came over and punched me in the arm, hard.
"我只有一个太太，"赖爷继续说，"她已过世。"你想念她吗？"
"I only had one wife," Ketut went on. "And now she dead." "Do you miss her?"