Seducing Ingrid Bergman (5 page)

‘Do you think she’s coming?’ he asks.

Just at the moment we’re about to give up, Ingrid arrives, wearing a green silk dress, cherry-red lipstick and a red gardenia in her hair. A touch of the exotic.

It’s hard to believe that she’s here. Everyone looks astonished. Conversation ceases in the restaurant as Ingrid Bergman, the movie star, walks tall and straight towards our table. A circle of silence opens up around us, with people pointing and the waiters conferring in hushed tones.

We shake hands. Her touch is a little icy. Her palm is bigger than I’d anticipated, her fingers long, her grip surprisingly firm. Our problem with names is resolved as she introduces herself simply as ‘Ingrid’. Ingrid it is, then. I like the taste of the word in my mouth.

She apologizes for being late.

‘We’re patient,’ I say.

‘Good,’ she says. ‘I won’t hurry next time.’ Her smile draws us in, shifting in tone between mischief and simple goodness.

We remember our courtesy and compete to stand behind her chair.

She sits down a little warily as if balancing something on her head.

‘So, you liked our note?’

‘It made me laugh,’ she says. ‘Though I’d always rather eat than stare at a vase.’

We both lean forwards.

She sits back.

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Starving,’ she says, picking up a menu.

I stare at the menu but don’t take much in. All of a sudden, I’ve lost my appetite.

‘I hope you have enough money,’ she says, without looking up. ‘I’m used to having a good time.’

I offer her a cigarette. She refuses.

Irwin says, ‘You must be fed up with men asking you out.’

‘They rarely do.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

She sets down the menu. ‘I think they’re afraid of me.’

I expected a touch of hauteur, and maybe this is what she tries to convey, but instead what comes across is a playfulness, an irrepressible merriment expressed through a light in her eyes, a self-shining thing like phosphorus. I notice that she never stops smiling.

Within a few instants, the champagne arrives. Glasses are filled by the maître d’, who is suddenly obliging and endlessly attentive. It’s funny to see his attitude transformed from surliness to servility as he fawns around Ingrid, placing the napkin tactfully across her lap, straightening a spoon.

‘I thought you said your budget was for beer,’ she says.

‘Have you tasted the beer?’

Her hands come together on the table. She touches her glass without lifting it. The imaginary object balanced on her head has yet to slip.

Around us, people continue to stare. They must be amused to see her coolness and our desperate attempts to impress.

‘You look different from your photographs.’

‘Is it the hair?’

‘It’s more that you’re in colour.’

Ingrid wrinkles her brow – her way of signalling that we might be trying too hard.

The maître d’ withdraws. Ingrid raises her glass. She understands the situation perfectly, of course. Her eyebrows arch. She smiles to herself. I guess she’s relishing the attention as well as being entertained by the spectacle of two grown men making fools of themselves.

We chink glasses, drink. And as we drink, she begins to respond more encouragingly to our stories. I know that she’ll laugh if they hit her at the right angle.

I tell her about the time I found myself in No Man’s Land, with the Nazis shooting from one side because of my uniform, and the Americans shooting from the other because of my accent and German cameras.

‘Lucky they were both bad shots,’ she says. She removes the gardenia from the side of her head and places it on the table. It looks green in the dim lights, like something from the ocean floor. ‘Where did you learn English?’

‘I just learnt,’ I tell her, ‘by talking.’ I resist an impulse to pick up the gardenia and play with it.

‘How many languages do you speak?’

‘Five.’

‘What do you dream in?’

I make the sign for clicking a camera. ‘Pictures.’

‘Don’t ask him what kind of pictures!’ Irwin says.

‘You know the stills they used of Spain in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
?’

‘That was you?’

I wonder for a moment whether she still thinks in Swedish, and if she does, whether she thinks differently and whether or not I’d like what she’s thinking.

This time, when I offer her a cigarette, she doesn’t refuse.

Irwin says, ‘It takes a lot of courage to come on tour and perform in front of a bunch of sex-starved GIs.’

‘I dine with some of them afterwards.’

‘You mean the generals?’

‘The regular men.’

‘Is that what you’re doing now?’ Irwin asks.

If Ingrid is in any way offended by this last remark, then she doesn’t show it. I feel like kicking him under the table, but settle for a pointed stare.

‘They show me photographs of their wives and sweethearts.’

‘You do this often?’

‘I call their families when I get home.’

‘You do? Really?’

‘Really.’ She takes the gardenia from the table, places it back in her hair.

‘If I give you my number, will you call me?’ I say.

She laughs. Her head tilts. The object I imagine poised on top slips off at last.

We head to a nightclub in Montmartre. A small dance band plays ‘I Can’t Get Started’. Irwin takes Ingrid’s arm for the first dance.

I watch the two of them flicker in and out of the shadows, shimmer and twist with feathery grace. As the music quickens, Irwin spins her out confidently across the floor. He holds her lightly around the waist like a fragile vase. They look good together, and she seems to be enjoying herself.

I cut in. Reluctant to yield, Irwin mutters something under his breath. He might even swear at me.

Ingrid’s face shines in the light from the bar as we dance. In fact everything about her shines. She seems lit from within, and the glow spreads outwards to brighten the chairs and tables, adding a gleam to the orchestra and the couples dancing in the room.

She slips off her shoes, dangling them both over my shoulders so that the heels graze my back.

I tell her I might crush her feet.

‘You don’t mind that I’m taller?’

‘Next you’ll tell me that you make more money.’

‘A smart woman would never say that.’

When she smiles, I notice, this crimp appears at each side of her mouth, tense little dents of muscle.

I point to the ring on her finger. ‘You’re married.’

She nods. ‘To a dentist.’

I need to lean close so she can hear me above the music. ‘It’s true.’

‘What is?’

‘You have great teeth.’

Her mouth widens in an irresistible smile.

We dance some more, and I surprise myself by blurting that she’s beautiful. I need to shout because of the dance band and the hum of conversation in the club. ‘What’s it like to be beautiful?’

‘Stop.’

‘To wake up every morning, look in the mirror and see how beautiful you are?’

‘In Stockholm everyone looks like me.’

‘I’ve been to Stockholm,’ I tell her. ‘No one looks like you.’

The air inside the club thickens. The band plays ‘Sunny Side of the Street’, followed by a few fast trumpety numbers. Finely tuned to the rhythm, Ingrid spins. The animal gladness of dancing makes her happy, her body twisting in response to the beat.

‘You dance well.’

‘My husband taught me.’

‘I hate him already.’

She doesn’t respond, just dances in a kind of tranced, absent way.

I look at her. And after all the horror and atrocity, all the cruelty and injustice of the war, it’s astonishing to see the loveliness of this woman, to see the way she smiles, her lips glistening, her legs moving in time with the music. It feels good to laugh, not out of fear or self-defence but because something is just funny.

Having worked up a thirst, we join Irwin at the table for a drink.

He wastes no time in asking, ‘Is Bergman your husband’s name?’

She doesn’t answer straightaway, but lets the ice at the bottom of her glass play across her lips. When she puts the drink down, the ice rattles like dice in a box. ‘He’s a Lindstrom.’

‘You don’t look like a Lindstrom.’

‘I don’t feel like one.’ She looks sideways, glancing at the dark sea of couples swaying on the dance floor. She turns to me, shouts over the music. ‘And what about Capa? Is that really Hungarian?’

‘When you’re deported under one name,’ I tell her, ‘you return under another.’

Ingrid laughs. And there is in her laugh something flirtatious, the way she tilts her head. ‘Why Capa?’

‘My girlfriend invented it.’

‘Your girlfriend? Is she a dentist, too?’

I speak directly into her ear. She bends her head forwards to make it easier. My lips for a second touch her hair. ‘No magazine would buy my pictures, so she hatched this plan and claimed they were taken by a glamorous American photographer called Robert Capa who was famous in the States. The editors bought them straight away.’ My palms open as if to reveal a secret.

In straining to listen, her mouth stretches wide. ‘And where is she tonight, this girlfriend?’

I hear her laugh. It doesn’t fit in with what I’m about to say. I say it anyway.

‘She was crushed by a tank near Madrid.’

Ingrid recoils as though she’s just touched a hot pipe. ‘I’m sorry.’

A waiter comes over, looks questioningly at me, then at the empty glasses on the table.

‘Let me get another,’ I say.

‘No, I’ll get this,’ Ingrid says.

Determinedly she takes out her purse, insists on paying and will not be persuaded otherwise.

*   *   *

Before we know it, it’s three in the morning. Irwin is slumped in his chair at the table. His eyes are hooded. He’s completely soused.

Ingrid and I drain our glasses.

‘Well? Are you surprised?’ she says.

‘At what?’

‘Admit it. You were expecting a Swedish milkmaid.’

Maybe not a milkmaid, I think, but there’s still something peachy-cheeked and eatable about her. ‘You had a nice time?’

She doesn’t answer, but instead looks over at Irwin and glances back at me to indicate we should do something.

With her help, I escort Irwin out of the nightclub. Together we bundle him into a taxi. I hand some money to the driver, give him the name of the hotel.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I tell him, gently slapping his cheek in an attempt to rouse him.

He stirs, grabs me aggressively, even threateningly by the lapel.

‘Be nice to her,’ he whispers.

‘What?’

There’s a strained expression on his face and an odd emphasis in his voice.

‘Just be nice to her, that’s all.’

Ingrid hangs back and doesn’t hear.

I close the door. The taxi drives off, with Irwin laid flat in the back, struggling to keep his eyes open.

‘Is he going to be okay?’ Ingrid asks.

‘If he can survive the Nazis,’ I tell her, ‘he can handle a few bottles of Krug.’

The roads are empty but lit, the cobbles shiny as if immersed in water. A light breeze flickers across our faces.

Ingrid drags a strand of hair away from her mouth. ‘It’s such a beautiful night,’ she says. ‘Let’s walk.’

‘You’re not tired?’

‘I want to see the river.’

We descend the steep narrow streets that curve gently from Montmartre, continue down along the rue de Clichy, carry on past the Opéra, and head towards the Seine.

Hard to believe there were swastikas on the Champs Elysées not so long ago. The city is dusty but miraculously untouched either by artillery bombardment or street fighting. In fact you’d hardly know there’d been a war on or that Paris had been occupied by the Nazis except for a few bullet holes on the rue de Rivoli.

Though power cuts afflict the suburbs, the city centre remains mostly lit. The sky is suffused with a dull electric glow. The day’s heat is released like a sigh into the darkness. Across the river, I can make out the blue silhouette of roofs. Above us, the moon floats sad-faced and tragic. Beneath one of the bridges, two barges are moored. A light is on in one of them.

Ingrid bends low to remove her shoes for a second time tonight. She holds them in her hand while inspecting the holes in the feet of her stockings.

I light a cigarette.

Without looking up, she says, ‘I have to leave tomorrow.’

‘An appointment with your dentist?’

She doesn’t smile. ‘I have a show. In Berlin.’

‘That’s too bad.’

I hold the moment of quiet that follows.

She stands straight again. ‘Maybe we’ll meet some other time.’

‘I’d like that.’

An impulse to do something athletic enters my head. The fresh air, the energy of the alcohol and the exhilaration of the moment combine within me. I perform a handstand at the corner of the Pont Royal.

‘What are you doing?’ She looks around to see if anyone else notices. The streets are deserted. The moon’s reflection crimps in the river. Something in the water gulps.

‘Trying to show off.’ I can hear the note of strain in my voice. I stagger a little, trying to hold my balance, a cigarette still clamped to the corner of my mouth. The ground is damp under my hands. Little bits of grit adhere to my fingers.

‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’

‘Yes.’

I can hold it no longer. My legs fall to the ground. I stand up, rub the dirt from my palms, look at her. She’s tired now, I can tell. She wants no more fooling. Her eyes grow solemn.

A gentle wind frets the river. Reflections tremble in the water. Ingrid lifts the same slipping strand of hair from her eyes. The moment becomes serious. I feel myself brushed by her look.

‘You’re a crazy guy, you know, Capa.’ Her head hangs at a contemplative angle, her hips tipped outwards, her torso leaning sympathetically the other way.

‘You call a guy crazy for being in Paris with you? The crazy guys are the ones who are elsewhere.’

She takes the gardenia from her hair, and hands it to me. A gift.

As I hold it shyly, she kisses me, just once but properly on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she says.

‘For what?’