Mozart's Sister: A Novel (12 page)

She got up and hastily tidied herself, smoothing her dress with her hands; she loosened her hair, then knotted it again, pressed the rebel curls behind her ears, ran her fingers over her eyes, her eyebrows, her cheeks, wet her lips, and straightened her shoulders; finally, with firm steps, she reached the door of the cellar and opened it.

The candelabra was already lighted. A man grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his hand and embraced her, with an arm around her breast that took away her breath; terrified, she wriggled free but then realized that she had nothing to fear. Armand let her go, and she turned and saw that he had a finger on his mouth, imposing silence on her after so much, too much, reasoning and recounting. And then, unspeakably slowly, he took her by the shoulders, bent his head, and placed his lips on hers.

It was a light kiss that left her dismayed. Was that kissing? But he did it again, and this time he parted her lips and became more ardent. She didn’t know how to react. She felt Armand’s mustache prick her, and his teeth bite her, and the wetness of mouths, and was not sure if it was a pleasant thing. The major realized it and took his lips away; he looked at her bitterly, perhaps in regret. Nannerl had a terrible desire to wipe her lips with her hand, but she thought the movement would offend him and overcame that urge. She wished also to ask for a mountain of explanations, but he preferred silence, and so she was silent. The thought of leaving passed quickly through her mind and quickly vanished. Just to do something, she took Armand’s hand and, almost unconsciously, touched his nails with her fingertips: they were bitten down, cruelly, to the root. He immediately pulled his hand away.

“Forgive me. Please, won’t you forget what happened,” he murmured, and with disappointment in his face, he started to leave.

What? Risk everything to end in this moment? She had opened her heart, revealed her most intimate thoughts, to a man she would never see again? Oh no, it couldn’t be. She stood before him and with an air of challenge rose on tiptoe and kissed him.

This time Armand did nothing. He held his lips half open, and meanwhile she pecked at them with hers, explored them, tasted them. Then she stepped back and began to caress them with her fingers, staring at them with curious eyes, pinching his mustache, touching his nostrils, following the dark profile up to his forehead, to the hairline, to the long hair behind that she loosened from its tie, and drew the face of the man over hers.

That was a true kiss. And each held the other’s face, and hands caressed hair, and lips ran over chin, cheeks, forehead, and met for an exchange of breath that an exchange of words could never equal, and they could have continued infinitely, for they felt a wonderful, true intimacy.

The Journey to Italy

I have spent too many nights struggling between the phantoms of the day and plans, and memories, and regrets, but tonight it’s not a painful anxiety that keeps me from sleeping, or a fear of having ruined everything; rather, it’s an overwhelming joy, a jumble of images of a burning sweetness. And yet again the desire to write to you comes to me, Armand, not so much to put order into my mind’s turmoil as to share it with you, you who are its cause and inspiration.

It was very late when I got home, after our encounter in the cellar of the Palace, and my family was already sitting at the table. It was all so different to my eyes. Time flowed peacefully around me, and I managed, for the first time, to take care of my own needs. I even found my appetite, which surprised those around me. And then I asked permission to go to my room, and I shut myself in, and while only a few hours earlier I had felt my limbs quivering with the need to act, simply to act, this time I lay down in company with the thought of you, in company with stillness and silence. The passing of the minutes caresses me, does not wound me; life smiles at me, does not oppress me. And the circumstances that brought us together return to my mind.

I.

“Nannerl, you’re purple. Try to calm down.”

“Did you see how the singer is dressed? How can she control her breath when her waist is strangled like that?”

“Where she can’t go with her voice she’ll go with her bosom. Don’t worry, my queen: the reason for her reputation isn’t art but what she has above the waist—in the front, to be precise.”

“That’s certainly no comfort to me!”

“She’ll make an impression, you can be sure. And when the applause comes, you will feel an emotion that has no equal. I guarantee it. Now give me that glass.” And he took it out of her hands.

“I’m serious, though—no tricks: it has to stay a secret.”

Wolfgang was sniffing the glass with a look of disgust. “What sort of stuff are you drinking?”

He emptied it into an amphora, but she took another and gulped it down, and the patricians of Salzburg doubled in number before her eyes. Above them all towered Leopold Mozart, even taller than usual, and with his features transformed into those of a grotesque god of the underworld: Why had he come? Hadn’t he said that he would prefer to stay home and read, rather than put up with yet another entertainment? And yet there he was, conversing with Count von Esser, and offering him a pinch of tobacco. Perhaps he had already asked him for another letter of recommendation for Italy.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” Wolfgang announced at the center of the room. “I am sorry to distract you from your very important conversations, but if the moment seems to you propitious, we will start the musical entertainment.”

He had remained short, and he appeared younger than his thirteen years, but he had a powerful voice and a forceful presence, and everyone hurried to find a seat. With some irritation, Herr and Frau Mozart had to take places at the back of the room.

“It is not for me to enumerate the vocal virtues of the celebrated Paulina Eleonora Gellert,” he continued, while the soprano made her way to the front, preceded by her breasts, “or the pianistic ones of my sister, Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, whom you all know well. I prefer to let my arias be interpreted by the two artists and to speak for me; I therefore confine myself to hoping that you will enjoy the show.”

He returned to the audience amid light applause, and there was silence.

In all her eighteen years, Nannerl had never played so badly. Overcome by an inexplicable panic, made more acute by the alcohol, she couldn’t control her fingers, which moved up and down the keyboard on their own; the notes were botched and hesitant. Luckily, the soprano sang well—in spite of the whalebone stays that had surely reduced her diaphragm to crumpled paper—and her jutting bosom and skillful gestures focused the attention of the entire audience. At the end, however, no one had time to applaud her.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Wolfgang cried, jumping up onto his chair. “The author of the arias that you have just heard is not, in fact—me!”

The blood drained from Nannerl’s face, and Paulina’s bosom seemed ready to burst, indignant, from her dress.

“It’s my sister who composed them: Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart! To this excellent musician, therefore, you must direct your applause, and not to me! Please, ladies and gentlemen: let the sound of your palms be at least equal to your pleasure!”

Scandal? Faint praise? Astonished ovation? Nannerl never knew what the reaction of the lords of the city was, for like a broken marionette she slid off the piano stool and fainted.

II.

“How long has this nonsense been going on?”

In the shadowy lamplight of the kitchen, Leopold’s face was truly that of a god of the underworld.

“I told you, Papa, it was the first time.”

“You be quiet! I want your sister to answer!”

“Wolfgang is telling the truth, Papa. We hadn’t ever done it before.”

“And whose idea was it?”

Nannerl was silent, uneasy, and her brother answered for her. “Truly, Father, it was mine.”

“I told you to be quiet. Let Nannerl speak.”

“Well, yes, it was Wolfgang who proposed playing my arias.”

“And you should not have agreed!” he thundered. “So, you have continued to compose!”

“Well, yes…but only a few lieder, little songs…a quartet…But no one ever knew, Papa.”

“A quartet? How the devil could you write a quartet without the least knowledge of counterpoint?”

This time Nannerl was silent for a long time. Wolfgang was dying to answer for her, but with a peremptory gesture Leopold ordered him to be silent.

“Well…the truth…the fact is that…Wolfgang gave me some lessons, every so often.”

“What?”

“Nannerl didn’t want to. I insisted, Papa.”

“That doesn’t count! She should have refused! And now you are to be quiet. Is that clear?”

Anna Maria came forward, timidly. “My dear, what happened is certainly very serious, but couldn’t we discuss it tomorrow? We are all so tired.”

“Our departure is approaching, and I have to make a decision of crucial importance. If you want to go to sleep, go ahead; the rest of us will not move. Now, Nannerl, I want to see the scores of all your music.”

Hidden by her long skirt, the girl’s knees seemed to give way even as she passed through the doorway, heading for her room. Her mother followed, carrying the candle and muttering, “Dear daughter, what is in your stubborn head? Why do you continue to challenge your father as if he were your worst enemy?”

“Wolfgang shouldn’t have made that speech in front of everyone.”

“Maybe so, sweetheart, but the more serious error was yours.”

The old secret pouch was hidden under her mattress. It was threadbare by now, and so full of scores that it resembled a big brick covered with fabric. She carried it into the kitchen and handed it to her father as if it were a sacrificial lamb; and in Leopold’s impatient hands it ripped completely.

He examined a couple of scores, then started: “I remember this lied! Wolfgang, it’s yours. You submitted it to me some time ago!”

“Actually, Papa,” Wolfgang said, “Nannerl composed it, not me.”

Leopold’s eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets, the veins of his forehead about to explode. “How many times, you wretched children, have you tricked me?”

The children didn’t dare respond.

“And I also remember this rondeau…and this duet? I even complimented you on the theme! What have you done, Wolfgang? Have you been continuously submitting to me your sister’s music?”

“Papa, you left me no other choice,” said Nannerl.

“I left you no choice but to make fun of me? Is that what you mean, you insolent girl?” He was shouting by now. There was no doubt that the neighbors could hear, and that those cries would be the subject of gossip for weeks.

A heavy silence fell, against which the strangled breathing of the head of the family stood out. His wife went to him, frightened: “My love, calm down…Don’t get so agitated…Sit down, please.” She led him to a chair, gave him something to drink, caressed his forehead without stopping until he seemed calmer.

“Just tell me one thing, Wolfgang,” Leopold said in a rasping voice. “Has any music of Nannerl’s been published under your name?”

“No, Papa!” she answered in a rush. “I would never—”

“Be quiet!” he said hoarsely. “I asked your brother a question, not you.”

The boy was quick to respond. “Everything that has been published is mine, and no one else’s.”

“You’re telling the truth?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are you sure? I cannot tolerate the idea that your work is spurious, do you understand?”

“I solemnly swear. And in any case, don’t worry. I am the first to be careful about the integrity of my work.”

That proud affirmation surprised Nannerl, but it wasn’t the moment to comment. Leopold, for his part, appeared somewhat relieved.

“Now shall we go to sleep, dear?” Anna Maria said quietly.

The man didn’t answer yes or no, so with gentle firmness she made him get up. He abandoned himself to the will of his wife and, exhausted, closed his eyes as she led him along the hall to the bedroom.

III.

The morning rays crept in obliquely through the window, which was wide open in spite of the cold weather, illuminating a group of sweaty men. Herr Mozart, looking for the best place to put the new pianoforte, kept changing his mind, tripling the work of the movers and surely causing them to curse to themselves; he refused to listen to suggestions from Wolfgang, who stood apart with a strange expression on his face. Nannerl paused in the doorway in amazement.

“You have made an excellent choice, Herr Mozart!” said a lanky young man. “It’s the best of my pianofortes. It will give you the greatest satisfaction!”

“Thank you,” Leopold answered, “but it will do so to my daughter in particular. She, in fact, is the one who will be using it.” He pointed toward her with the sweeping gesture of a master of ceremonies.

“Fräulein Mozart, what a pleasure! I am a great admirer of yours: I’ve heard you play many times.”

“My daughter is a fine concert performer, there is no doubt; but I am convinced that this piano will help give a more suitable order to her life. All right, there, in the center. That’s perfect. Stop.”