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Bergman loathed parties and was averse to travel outside his usual working orbit of Fårö and Stockholm. Once when he did venture to Rome to see Federico Fellini, his favorite film director, Liv could barely budge him from the hotel room. He insisted that they return every day to the first restaurant they had tried; luckily for both they had not stopped at a snack bar. At dinner he always ordered for both of them. When she recently dined at a restaurant with Bergman and his new wife, Ingrid, Liv watched curiously to see if the pattern persisted. Sure enough, Liv reports, Ingrid glanced cautiously at the master after ordering each item.
Proust and Pet. Liv's ideal of conjugal life with Bergman was very conventional. She had a vision of them walking arm and arm along a softly lighted green walk, baby carriage in front and nanny and dog behind. It was a vision out of an old romantic movie or her favorite author, Proust. Ingmar was not interested in wheeling a baby carriage, however, and Liv lapsed into the frightened schoolgirl again. She was not only afraid that the nanny's feelings would be hurt if she pushed the carriage, but she was even worried that the dachshund would feel rejected if she paid too much attention to the baby. As a result, the day she returned from the hospital the nanny pushed the baby carriage, Liv walked behind her, and the dog, which had the imaginative name of Pet, brought up the rear. Ingmar was not part of the procession.
"At home I was running from one room to the other, feeling bad all the time," Liv recounts. "They all needed me. When I was with one, the others were unhappy. Never did I do what I wanted to do." She pauses for a moment in retelling the story. "Now I am trying to do what I want to do in life. This is another thing I learned from Ingmar. He is not afraid to do what he wants to do. We were really living his life."
Lovers to Friends. Eventually Liv and Bergman agreed to a three-month trial separation, and she took Linn, who was nursery-school-age by this time, home to Oslo. With distance between her and Bergman, relations seemed to improve. They talked nightly on the phone, sometimes for as long as two hours. Liv finally told Bergman she wanted to come back. He responded cordially but vaguely, and soon Liv received a letter telling her it was all over. "There is nothing," she says, "that you can say to a letter."
Now that they are no longer lovers, Liv and Bergman are friends. They had no difficulty working together on Cries and Whispers or on a six-part series for Swedish television called Scenes Out of a Marriage, Bergman's longest project so far. They can even laugh together. Once after Cries was finished shooting for the day Liv suggested that they all go to the circus in a nearby town. "I'm not going. I'm going to have a breakdown," joked Bergman. "Can we come to that instead?" asked Liv sweetly. "It sounds a lot more exciting." Incredibly enough, four of Bergman's women worked on the Cries set in apparent harmony. Besides Liv in one of the leading roles, Bergman's wife Ingrid was his assistant, his fourth wife Käbi Laretei played the piano for the sound track, and little Linn had a walk-on part. Since the parting Bergman has even grown to love the dog, which he keeps with him.