CHAPTER TEN

Los Angeles / Stromboli—1949

Somewhere around eight o’clock that night, a black studio limo slipped silkily into our driveway. The driver stayed in the car, never turning off the engine, as my parents and I—we’d been waiting on the porch steps—opened the door and climbed in. I remember clutching my mother’s smallest Samsonite suitcase tight, running through a checklist of its contents in my mind—an extra skirt, a heavy sweater, a fresh bra—then wondering in a wave of panic if I had brought any Kotex. My period might start early, you never knew, and here we were, already driving at high speed to the airport.

“Mother—” I whispered.

She squeezed my hand. I could feel the skin pulled taut over her delicate bones. “I put some in,” she said. “But don’t worry, they have drugstores in Italy.”

I could tell she was having one of her headaches, but she insisted on coming to the airport to see us off, which relieved me. The idea of this dizzying trip was suddenly overwhelming.

“Bringing Jesse is ridiculous; you’re pulling her into a crazy world and a crazy situation,” Mother had protested.

“It’s the world that pays for her fancy convent education,” my father retorted.

How did this bizarre trip make sense? The truth of it? My father was willing to try anything in one desperate attempt to snatch Ingrid Bergman away from Roberto Rossellini and tuck her back into the heart of an adoring American public. Why? Because he knew that if he didn’t get her back she would be eaten alive by that same “adoring” American public. I saw his urgency, and, in my mother’s eyes, the growing realization of what was at stake for us. If Ingrid Bergman lost her following, my father would lose his most famous and lucrative client.

Our plane, a fat-bodied silver Pan Am Constellation, sat at the gate, looking very strong and safe, as we said goodbye to Mother and climbed the stairs. A smiling stewardess in navy blue and high heels stood waiting to greet us, pressing postcards with glossy pictures of the plane into our hands.

“To share your trip with your friends,” she murmured.

On the tarmac below us, a small group of well-dressed men and women clustered together, grinning, hands over each other’s shoulders, as a second stewardess took their photograph. Everybody seemed to be on holiday, but one look at my father’s face told me not to treat this as anything other than the dead-serious trip that it really was.

I glanced back just before entering the plane and saw Mother at the gate. Feeling suddenly guilty that she wasn’t along for this splendid adventure, I waved. She smiled and blew me a kiss, a gesture that brought to mind the way she had blown soap bubbles into the air to delight me when I was a child. I blew an awkward kiss back, then took my seat and waited for the enormous engines to roar into life and lift us out of all that was familiar.

It wasn’t my first flight, and I was a bit out of sorts when the stewardess thought it was, but dinner was elegant—baked lobster served on white china, with crystal glassware for my Coke. Father never stopped smoking, but no one else did, either. Within a few hours, a pale haze hung over the cabin. Maybe it was to get the sting out of my eyes, or maybe it was because of the thunderous vibration of the Constellation’s engines, but after the first four or five hours, I fell asleep, not even awakening when we refueled.

A pair of narrow-eyed men in open-necked shirts—one of them wearing a gold necklace—greeted us at Fiumicino Airport. Industry representatives, my father said quickly when I asked who they were as they strode ahead of us out of the terminal. He looked furious.

“Where are they taking us?”

“A quick plane to Naples, then the ferry to that damn island. Rossellini took her back to Stromboli for some kind of cast party. If he thinks we’re not following, he’s crazy. We’re going straight from that airport to the harbor, and straight to a boat that takes us to the fucking island.”

He didn’t apologize for his language, which made me feel both worldly and daunted at the same time. I looked at him quickly. He needed a shave.

I barely remember the second plane to Naples. But then came a terrifying ride through the narrow, twisting streets of the city to the harbor, skidding past vendors, dodging traffic cops in white helmets who were standing tall on platforms and pirouetting, their commanding arms held high, their bodies as taut as orchestra conductors’. Our escorts ignored them. I gripped the door handle, disappointed that I wouldn’t see Rome, at least get a glimpse of the Vatican before we ended up in flames somewhere.

Finally, we were at the harbor. I held tight to my bag as we climbed on board and hoped I wouldn’t be seasick. I wasn’t. But my period did start shortly after we lifted anchor and headed out onto the Tyrrhenian Sea. And I tried not to cry, because I knew, without asking, that there were no drugstores on the island of Stromboli.

And there it was, straight ahead, the island of Stromboli, a strangely black patch of earth dominated by a mountain—not just a mountain, a huge, looming volcano. I hadn’t quite absorbed the fact of the volcano before. But it was real, a monster of a thing, which even now—sending a jolt of fear through me—belched out lazy blobs of lava onto the crater rim.

“Don’t worry,” the boat captain said, his genial Italian accent doing nothing to break the unsettling imagery. “There hasn’t been a major eruption since 1930; nothing to fear.”

“Why is the land so dark?” I asked.

“That’s the ash from the last eruption. It left the beaches and rocks—nothing much else here—as black as sin.”

I shifted uneasily, wishing my father would break away from what seemed like a tense argument with those studio representatives, whoever they were, and come stand by me while we docked. I stared at the black land and wondered, How could Ingrid Bergman, my adored Ingrid, be here, on this desolate island, and what was I supposed to do?

And where could I get some Kotex?

A small knot of Italians with set faces waited on the dock. They reached for our bags, exchanged some cryptic words with Father, and beckoned us to follow them up a path to a long shedlike building covered in metal shingles that flapped nosily with each puff of wind. It sat precariously on the side of the mountain, looking ready to fall down at any moment.

“There he is, the bastard,” Father muttered to me.

I could see a figure in the doorway. We were almost there when, suddenly, the sun came from behind the clouds and I could make out quite clearly the restless, handsome face of the balding man straddling the entrance. His features were sharply defined, his skin was tanned, and his lips curled in a lazy smile. Hands at his hips, elbows out. My first impression wasn’t of these details, though—it was of the energy he exuded. It didn’t pour out of him, it exploded.

My father’s face turned calm and calculating. “Here we go,” he said.

This, I knew without asking, was Roberto Rossellini.

“You do realize you’re too late,” the man said in English as we approached the doorway. His accent caressed the language in a way that gave me a delightful shiver.

“Too late?” My father raised an eyebrow.

“To watch any of the filming of Stromboli—isn’t that why you are here?” Rossellini said. He sighed theatrically. “What a long way to come just for that, but you Americans are always in a hurry. We wrapped a few days ago; nothing to worry about—it’s brilliant! Come, we celebrate. Have some good Italian wine.” Stepping aside, he welcomed us in.

The smoky room was crowded with what looked less like a typical movie crowd of cameramen, producers, and actors than a gathering of village people: the men in shabby pants with drawstrings; the women in peasant dresses and kerchiefs. I remembered my father talking about Rossellini’s quirky ways of using local people, not professional actors, for his movies.

And then I saw a flash of red. It was Ingrid, in the same skirt she had worn in the Photoplay pictures, smiling and waving and looking very happy.

My father saw her at the same time. Without a word, as Rossellini turned aside to trade a joke with an island shopkeeper, Father moved swiftly over to Ingrid, leaving me alone.

“Gabriel,” she sang out teasingly, spotting him. “Welcome, my dear. Are you here as a friend or an avenging angel?”

I couldn’t hear his reply. When the two of them had vanished through a back door, I glanced swiftly at Rossellini. He looked in their direction, but was seemingly unconcerned as he poured himself a glass of wine.

I desperately wanted to sleep. But mostly I needed a bathroom.

“Toilet?” murmured an elderly woman, watching me sympathetically.

I nodded, clutching my valise with its urgent contents.

I was never more grateful for my mother than when I was able to close the door of an outside privy and fish out the sanitary napkin that would save me from humiliation and total despair.

That’s when I heard my father’s voice. I couldn’t hear the words, but the tension and anger in them shocked me. Who was he talking to? Was he still with Ingrid?

When I came out, he was waiting, hands jammed in his jacket pockets, his face almost ashen.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I think it’s over. Dead. Jesus, this is bad.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. His hand was trembling.

I was frightened. He never talked like this. “What do you mean?”

“She says she won’t come back. She’s besotted with this guy, and once the news gets out, she’s finished. There’s no saving her from herself.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

He pointed up the hill, his voice cracking now. “With that witch hunt going on at home, and now this…”

I think he had almost forgotten I was there. What could I do? I squinted against the sun, looked up the hill, and saw a flash of red. Yes, it was Ingrid, all alone, settling herself on a rock.

My father glanced over to the nearby dock. “Get some lunch in the lodge, Jesse. Grab a sandwich—that bastard Rossellini owes us that much.” He took a deep breath, visibly strengthening himself. “I’ll try to reason with her one more time. Maybe I can get Rossellini to understand what she’s throwing away.” He paused, staring out over the water. “I’ll tell the captain to stick around for a while.” He strode quickly toward the anchored boat, which bobbed up and down in a restless sea.

I started to obey, staring after him, my heart thumping hard. This was my father, the strong, confident man who provided the sunlight in my life. But, no, it wasn’t—this was someone else, a frightened man. I could feel his fear closing in, claiming us both.

Pivoting, I stared up at Ingrid. A surge of reckless confidence swept over me. Maybe I could help. I turned back and ran up the hill.

She sat on a smooth rock, red skirt spread around her, a slight breeze ruffling her hair, knitting. She welcomed me with a faint smile. “Hello, Jesse; I saw you at the lodge door with your father. Are you still studying Shakespeare?”

She remembered. “Nobody can bring Portia alive the way you did,” I said.

“Thank you. But you didn’t come all this way to tell me that. I’m sorry you and your father made the trip for nothing.” Her fingers were almost a blur as she swiftly worked her needles.

What could I say? What was I supposed to do?

“I knit now, too,” I offered. “I’m knitting a pair of socks for my boyfriend.”

“My, you’re old enough for a boyfriend already?”

“He goes to Saint Aquinas. He’s captain of the school basketball team.” What was I babbling about? How could I help my father?

Ingrid stopped knitting and slowly let her hands rest in her lap.

“I know why you’re here,” she said.

I had to do something. “Miss Bergman, you’ve been my hero most of my life. You mean so much, I’ve learned so much from you—”

“What have you learned?”

“About grace and kindness; about love and nobility and being brave—”

“And you wouldn’t know about any of those virtues without the ‘me’ you’ve seen on the movie screen?”

“You are a big part of it. You came to my school, you made us proud; you were a perfect, holy nun. Everybody loves you.”

She sighed. “Oh, Jesse. I am no saint, I am an ordinary woman. Don’t ask too much of your heroes.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I blurted out what was left inside my head and heart. “Please come back,” I begged. “It’s sad that your marriage is ending, but people will forgive you. Please, we need you.”

“No, no.” She jumped to her feet, suddenly impatient. “Don’t you people realize what you are doing? You are asking me to fulfill your fantasies, and I can’t do that! I’m not some nun or saint, I’m living my own life, not yours!”

You people? I was stunned. Who was this? Her face was flushed; her hands were clenched. I couldn’t muster a word. Her knitting fell to the ground.

She reached down to pick it up. “Have you noticed what I’m knitting, Jesse?”

I peered closely. I was staring at a tiny garment, like a sweater, all in blue. A sweater. A baby sweater.

I looked up into her eyes, horrified. Surely not.

“Yes, that’s what it is,” she said in answer to my unasked question. “Tell your father I meant it—his entreaties come too late. Now, go. Leave me alone, all of you.” She raised a protective hand, letting it hover over the visible swell of her stomach.

We stared at each other across a vast terrain of experience. Girls got caught, I knew that. We would giggle and count on our fingers when a girl dropped out of school and disappeared, or, at best, married quickly at a Low Mass in the usual white veil and dress, with only parents attending. This was different. A baby, in public, out of wedlock? This was taking a route with no way back. Not Ingrid Bergman. But, yes, it was, and I was having my first glimmer of the fact that absolutes are tricky in the real world. There was no impenetrable mortar holding them in place, no mechanism to define the good and discard the bad, nothing guaranteed to hold beliefs and values firmly in place.

“I still admire you,” I managed.

“I imagine that’s hard for you to say at this point.”

“No. Not really. I—I don’t know.” I was struggling to absorb what was happening.

“For heaven’s sake, just enjoy my movies and be done with it,” she said. She pushed back her hair, her eyes sad.

There was nothing else I could think to say, and I backed off, fighting tears.

“Jesse, we probably won’t see each other again,” she continued. “But be assured, I am happy. I am doing what I want to do and living the life I want to live, and if Sister Mary Benedict would be horrified, I don’t care.”

The face of the suffering nun in The Bells of St. Mary’s, lifted in prayer, asking God to give her strength to accept her banishment from the school she loved, suddenly filled my brain. Would she condemn Ingrid?

“No, she wouldn’t,” I blurted.

But she wasn’t listening anymore.