Make Your Way 7, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

Read the story by Raymond Carver and answer questions 1 to 18. 6 We had both been involved with other people that spring, but when June came and school was out we decided to let our house for the summer and move from Palo Alto to the north coast country of California. Our son, Richard, went to Nancy’s mother’s place in Pasco, Washington, to live for the summer and work toward saving money for college in the fall. His grandmother knew the situation at home and had begun working on getting him up there and locating him a job long before his arrival. She’d talked to a farmer friend of hers and had secured a promise of work for Richard baling hay and building fences. Hard work, but Richard was looking forward to it. He le on the bus in the morning of the day a er his high school graduation. I took him to the station and parked and went inside to sit with him until his bus was called. His mother had already held him and cried and kissed him goodbye and given him a long letter that he was to deliver to his grandmother upon his arrival. She was at home now nishing last-minute packing for our own move and waiting for the couple who were to take our house. I bought Richard’s ticket, gave it to him, and we sat on one of the benches in the Call if you need me station and waited. We’d talked a little about things on the way to the station. ‘Are you and mom going to get a divorce?’ he’d asked. It was Saturday morning, and there weren’t many cars. ‘Not if we can help it,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to. at’s why we’re going away from here and don’t expect to see anyone all summer. at’s why we’ve rented our house for the summer and rented the house up in Arcata. Why you’re going away, too, I guess. One reason anyway. Not to mention the fact that you’ll come home with your pockets lled with money. We don’t want to get a divorce. We want to be alone for the summer and try to work things out.’ ‘You still love mom?’ he said. ‘She told me she loves you.’ ‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘You ought to know that by now. We’ve just had our share of troubles and heavy responsibilities, like everyone else, and “Call if you need me” 1 What facts does the first sentence establish? 2 What does the narrator talk to his son about on the way to the bus station? 3 What do you make of their relationship? 4 What do you make of the fact that the narrator checked out the new home with his girlfriend? 5 What was her reaction to it? 6 What is the significance of the other couple moving into their house? 7 Animals feature prominently in the story. List all of them. 8 What significance do you think they have? 9 What memories do the couple share and talk about? 10 Why does the woman suddenly miss Richard? 11 Why does she say “I miss everybody tonight?” Why tonight? 12 Why does the woman say “Don’t hurt me”? 13 Why does she feel “high” and “loaded”? 14 At this point, do you think there is still a chance of them staying together? Why / Why not? 15 Why is there so much final kindness? 16 What do you think of the fact that the narrator immediately calls his girlfriend after his wife has left him? Does that change the story in any way? 17 What kind of break-up does Carver describe? Is this how break-ups happen? 18 What other ways are there? to bale sth.: etw. bündeln to work things out: die Sache(n) in den Griff kriegen 132 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv