A few weeks before he died, Bergman left Hammars for Dämba one last time. He was wheelchair-bound by then and in frail health, so it took some effort to lift him up the stairs to the music room, where Laretei, elegantly turned out, was waiting to play his favorite Brahms waltzes on one of the two grand pianos
he’d installed for her years earlier. They had grown closer following Ingrid’s death, after Bergman called her out of the blue one night to say, “I don’t want to disturb you, but will you play for me?” Their “Sunday evenings at Dämba,” as he called them, soon became a weekly event. “Sometimes we’d close the door and talk about our life together, and our conversations became more and more frank and honest,” recalls Laretei, who was then 84. On this night, however, they were joined by Linn; her husband, writer Niels Fredrik Dahl; Rodell; and Marcel. After Laretei had finished playing, she looked over and saw that Bergman was asleep. He’d drifted in and out, he told her. “He said it was the best sleep he’d had for months,” she says, “because he was in the music.”
“Thank you,” he added. “Now it’s time for Bergman to go home.”
