Seducing Ingrid Bergman (31 page)

I start to say something.

She finds my hand, holds it. ‘Don’t spoil it,’ she says.

The blue light from the window forms an oblong on the floor. I hold her for a moment. My hands leave damp patches on her jacket. She gives me one last regretful over-the-shoulder look, a final glance, remote and soundless. It’s as though we’re swimming under water, smiling through masks. And abruptly our love becomes a rumour, an obscure adventure, a mystery, no longer real.

I see her open the door, descend the staircase. I hear myself call her name, but it’s as if she can’t hear me or doesn’t want to, and she puts one foot in front of the other and suddenly I know that I have to let her go, that it’s the right thing, the necessary thing, and I watch as she walks towards the shadows, becoming part of them, moving away from me, shrinking like a light sunk under the waves.

She’s gone for good this time. I know that she won’t come back. And while she’s tucked up warm in bed with her husband or whoever, I know I’ll be thousands of miles away, hurrying up some gangplank to cover another war.

I recognize the sorrow of lost spaces, of possibilities gone. Things might have turned out differently, but they didn’t.

Still, I tell myself, the earth will keep on turning, the sun will continue to rise, and I console myself for a moment with the fact that we achieved a kind of splendour; we made each other laugh.

Something of her continues on inside me – a trace, shadowy, unfathomable, and at the end of everything what more can anyone ask for than a love that makes you believe in it, that makes you feel bigger than yourself, that makes you happy and alive for a time?

Beyond the window, the light begins to quicken. The trees sway, full of colour and movement.

The sun emerges like a gift.

*   *   *

My bag is packed, my two cameras ready, but something feels wrong.

One thing you realize after covering wars for all these years – they are all the same. In war, there are no distinctions. A good man stinks as much as a bad man when he’s dead.

Something else you realize: you have to take a position. Whether it’s a murderous Mexican election or the bombardment of China by the Japanese, you need to feel as if you’re on the right side, that you’re doing something good, otherwise it’s pointless and you can’t stand what goes on. But then you grow used to the routine and, without realizing, you become a part of it, so that nothing matters except the need to survive. And if by some miracle you manage to make it through, the odd thing is you long to go back again because that’s all you know, that’s what’s familiar, that’s the way you live your life and everything else seems trivial.

I used to think that the world was perfectible. I used to think that the perfect girl existed, too.

And here I am now on my way to Vietnam.

How did that happen?

Something clicks. An ugly conjunction like a thunderhead. Everything aligns, slots right into place.

Life
’s photographer in Hanoi is sick. I happen to be free.

My mother tells me not to go. My brother tells me not to go. Irwin advises me against it. ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you had enough?’ But my wallet is empty, my debts piling up, and the largesse of my friends has reached its limit.

An inner voice reassures me, urges me on. ‘It’s all right. You’re doing the right thing. You’ve done it a hundred times before.’

The magazine offers me a lot of money, while the editor tells me I can come back whenever I want.

And the truth is, the only thing I know is taking photographs. I should also know one other thing: risking your life can become a bad habit.

I feel like an insect trapped inside a bathtub, the slippery sides unclimbable, the water beginning to pour.

In my one recurring dream, I don’t know where I am. It could be any of the haunted corners of the globe. But always there’s a flash, and it’s as if a furnace door opens or the mouth of hell itself. The noise shatters my eardrums, followed by a wind that stings my eyes. I try to breathe, but can’t. For a moment I seem to be floating and everything happens very slowly, but when I come down it is with a crash. The pain is incredible. My head hurts like crazy and my heart knocks inside my ears. Debris lies scattered all over. A fine rain of soot covers everything. There’s a terrible stench of burnt flesh and the sound of gunfire explodes upwards like a flock of crows.

I wake up safe.

Next to me is my bag with its flashbulbs, bedroll and two last letters. I’ve never felt less debonair.

I grab my camera, load a new film, set the lens to infinity, and click.

*   *   *

The sun blazes, the heat barbarous, the air humid and thick like glass. The feathery edges of a small cloud twist and dissolve into the deep blue sky. There’s a smudge of black smoke on the horizon. The fields reek on either side, the rot of vegetation assaulting my nostrils, clinging to my skin. To the right of the rutted road runs a stream. Further off, puddles glint like mirrors, blinding me.

I’m sitting in the back of a jeep, itchy in my fatigues and perspiring heavily. My Contax and my Nikon hang around my neck. The ride from Doai Than to Thanh Ne is bumpy, the driver going too fast for the terrain. There’s a jolt as we hit a pot-hole and disconcertingly in the next few minutes the engine starts to rattle. The gears clank. There’s clearly something wrong. The jeep putters and grinds to a halt on the thin dirt road, with dark fumes churning from the exhaust. A truck loaded with infantry steers round us, the driver in mockery beeping his horn.

The heat grows more intense. My throat feels parched. Insects hiss like a lit fuse. The Vietnamese driver and his colleague jump out. They have the hood up and are looking at the engine, speaking rapidly in Vietnamese. They point and gesture hotly, and it’s hard to tell whether they’re having an animated debate or a full-blown argument.

I watch a scrawny ox drop one turd after another in the field next to us. It stinks. I smell it straightaway in the sun. Flies swarm, settle in a black cloud, start a thick buzzing. The ox lopes off, swishing its tail, oblivious of the war and the slaughter going on around it.

I check the time. Two o’clock. The hottest part of the day.

Restless, impatient, I jump down to take a piss and relieve myself against a tree. The seethe of insects continues like static on the radio. I watch for a minute as the men work on the engine. I light a cigarette. In slow, loud French, I say, ‘Listen, I’m just going up the road a little.’ I point to where the road curves to the left. I make a circular sign to indicate that I’ll walk around and that they can pick me up later.

Preoccupied, the driver and his colleague look up and seem to register what I’m saying. They nod briefly and return to their business under the hood.

*   *   *

In chainmail and full medieval armour, Ingrid stands alone on stage in front of the curtain, receiving a rapturous ovation. She bows repeatedly, taking in the applause as flowers are thrown singly and in bunches onto the apron of the stage. The metal of her breastplate gleams under the lights.

Minutes later in the dressing room, the director pops a champagne cork, and glasses are filled until they spill.

The room is crammed with a dozen people, all celebrating the success of the play. Ingrid removes the heavy web of chainmail from her arms and legs, but leaves the breastplate on. Gratefully she takes a drink of champagne, feels the liquid ripple coldly down her throat.

Her fellow actors and crew raise their glasses in a toast. Shyly she acknowledges the salute.

‘Have you seen the reviews?’ the director says.

Still charged with emotion, Ingrid shakes her head.

He hands her a copy of
Collier’s
. The review of her performance is unqualified in its adulation, a rehearsal of the superlatives. There is her photograph in left three-quarter profile, with the headline in big letters: ‘Joan of Arc Resurrected’.

Her eye picks out words like ‘stupendous’, ‘marvellous’, ‘stunning’ and ‘compelling’ before wandering to the next page. There she sees an advertisement for Alfred Hitchcock’s new film,
Rear Window
, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and below that a picture of Robert Capa, with an accompanying article: ‘War Photographer Dies’. The photograph shows Capa with a happy-go-lucky smile, expressive eyebrows and a cigarette clamped cockily to the side of his mouth.

*   *   *

I walk up the road a bit. The sound of gunfire comes from every direction: artillery rounds behind me; small arms fire pinging in the woods some distance off to the left; shells and mortars pounding a village about a mile ahead.

I climb down into the gully between the road and the long grass, and start across the field, avoiding the largest puddles.

That’s me in the middle distance taking shots of the soldiers as they trudge along the soggy path between two fields. There I am, moving back a little, trying to get a better angle. Away from the road, the metallic hiss of the insects increases. The shadows are short, the sun directly overhead. My boots are covered in mud.

Meanwhile at the jeep, the two men continue to debate the best way to fix the engine, their heads bent low under the hood, their hands now black with oil.

Without warning, beyond them there’s a vivid flash followed by an explosion in the field to the left. The earth rises in a wall. The vibration shakes the jeep and almost causes the hood to fall.

In the same instant, stunned by the blast, the driver and his colleague duck their heads. The smoke from the explosion comes from roughly the position I was standing in just a few moments ago. But the density of the smoke and its blackness make it hard for them to see.

Soldiers from the road take cover in the gully. One or two start moving warily towards the spot. There are seconds of confusion, panic.

I can’t remember what happens next.

The world lurches. A curve of terror forms in my belly. Fear burns in my throat. And abruptly I find myself lying twisted, stricken, listening to my own impaired breathing, inhaling the air in thin sips. I want to gulp great mouthfuls, to take rejuvenating scoops of oxygen, but for some reason that seems impossible. I feel something denser than water pressing relentlessly against my chest.

Oh, God.

I try to speak but it’s as if my words have been scrambled or as if I’m talking underwater. I try to get up but my legs seem non-existent, my mouth open, the wind breaking against my face, strangely warm.

My head whirls like a parachute released, open and endlessly falling. And it’s as if the ground with its ribbons of road and stripes of field rushes suddenly up to hit me, bang.

*   *   *

Ingrid’s face freezes. Her whole body stiffens. Her hand shoots to her mouth.

The sound around her ceases. She scans the article, stares at the photograph. The image of Capa dissolves as if the emulsion has run and become liquefied. Her eyes quickly fill with tears.

She hasn’t seen him for several years now. In between, she has left Petter, pursued an affair with an Italian director, whose love blew into her life and whose passion exploded over her like a volcano, leaving her family and her career smothered in a film of hot ash.

She has suffered the full righteous fury of the studio, the moral opprobrium of the public and felt the weight of the heavens fall upon her head. Suffice to say, it hasn’t been easy. At times she feels as if she’s been living on the lip of an abyss, the edges of the precipice melting. She’s still clinging on and feels the steepness of the slide inside her now.

Capa has remained supportive in his letters and generous in his presents, while still leading his rootless, zigzagging life, sustained by some original spark that pushes him on. She has always been grateful for his influence. And now she can’t believe that this man who was so full of courage and adventure, who brimmed with joy and optimism, this man who meant so much to her, can possibly be dead.

With remarkable self-control, she puts down the magazine next to a single-stemmed white rose on the dresser.

The director sees her, senses something is wrong.

‘Excuse me,’ she says.

‘Ingrid? Is everything okay?’ The director exchanges puzzled glances with other members of the cast and crew. He skims through the review, finds nothing offensive, shrugs, and looks towards the door just in time to see her disappear. The others turn to him. ‘It’s been a long night,’ he says.

*   *   *

I have stood on a mine. That much is obvious.

My cameras are smashed. I can feel the remains of one of them still fused to my hand. My left leg itches like mad. The taste of blood enters my mouth.

My head tells my hand to move, but nothing happens. It won’t budge. The connection is gone.

Shit.

I try to swallow. The blood bubbles inside my throat. I make an effort to turn my head. Nothing. Only my eyes move occasionally, and then the space around me moves with them.

I hear myself say, ‘No,’ quietly as in a prayer and everything grows silent. I feel the breath sucked out of me as if by a pump.

Next to me lies a mangled harmonica, just a few feet away but out of reach.

I feel my eyes close slowly, open again.

Something thick runs from one of my nostrils. I try to sniff it up, but can’t. It’s too painful. And the pain increases so that it feels like a knife is sliding behind my eyes.

I’m still aware vaguely, in a kind of hallucinatory stupor, of where I am: in a field, with the sun blazing above and black flies starting to buzz in mad circles around me.

A white-hot light shoots through the roots of my hair. The pain is unbelievable. My head is an inferno. My insides are on fire.

This isn’t good, I realize. In fact, this is very bad.

I sense something massive and implacable push at me, rip me open from within.

Not now
, I think.

*   *   *

Ingrid makes her way through the dark back of the stage as though through a small labyrinth, still feeling the oppressive weight of half her armour.

She makes a silent effort to remain calm, but her legs start shaking. Her heart hammers. She feels the throb inside her head.