Mozart's Sister: A Novel (28 page)

From the window came the sound of an approaching carriage. The room really was noisy, and at that moment Victoria hoped that Nannerl would choose it. But she said nothing, opened the shutters and looked out: along the river a royal carriage proceeded, large and decorated with gold, drawn by six horses, preceded and followed by a troop of guards. Princess Maria Antonia, sister of Maximilian III, was making an official visit to Salzburg.

Armand came over to her. “There is an editor…who would like to publish your music.”

II.

“You have to find the courage to expose yourself or you’ll never know if you’re really worth something,” Wolfgang said, jumping about the parlor of the Mozart house. “It’s time, Nannerl, it’s time to let your creativity emerge. The conditions are all in place!”

“I don’t want people to be able to buy my music,” Nannerl said. “It’s as if they could look inside me.”

“Nonsense. You really wouldn’t like to know that someone, somewhere in the world, is interpreting a piece of yours?”

“I don’t need that sort of banal satisfaction. It’s not for me.”

“Really? Dear sister, you can fool yourself as long as you like, but you don’t fool me: you’re just afraid that someone will tell you your music isn’t any good.”

Armand stepped forward, showing off his diplomatic skill. “Excuse me, that’s not possible, do you think, Wolfgang? Nannerl’s talent and your teaching cannot but produce excellent results.”

“My teaching? Ah, then I am to help her compose! You’ve organized everything, eh, Colonel d’Ippold? Your friend the publisher, the mentor…I really am ecstatic—you’re the man with marvelous schemes,” he declared, while his gaze turned sardonic. “It must be an effect of the stick you’ve got up your a—”

“Will you stop it?” Nannerl burst out.

“I humbly beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to insult your fiancé besides, he knows how congenial he is to me.” He turned and stuck his tongue out so that it touched his chin; it was seen and, to keep things peaceful, ignored. “In fact, he is the perfect man, I daresay,” he went on, wandering about the room. “He loves you, he respects you, he stimulates you, he prepares the ground for you—and by the way, dear future brother-in-law, what is the name of this publisher?”

“Alois Flatscher,” Armand answered in a low voice.

“Flatscher? Odd, I’ve never heard of him. Whom has he published?”

“Various authors. In any case, if you don’t mind, I would prefer to take care of the matter myself, in all its aspects, except the musical, of course, which I leave to you two.”

“Well, whatever you like,” Wolfgang said, shrugging.

“Thank you very much. And now would you mind leaving us alone just for a moment?”

“Oh, you want me out of the way? No problem, I’m going!” he said with mock disappointment, reaching the doorway in a single leap. An instant before going out, he turned: “If you kiss and start slobbering, just remember to clean up.”

And he slammed the door.

In the silence, Armand sat down beside Nannerl. Defeated, hurt, she murmured, “I haven’t composed for years. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Write music for me: it would make me happy and proud.”

This alone might impel her to let what was buried in her, that special part, reemerge. Tempted, she said, “Yes, but what kind? Something for piano, or arias, or what? Could I speak to him, this Herr Flatscher?”

“There’s no need; and be certain that whatever you write, he’ll publish it.”

“But why would he publish my music? What does he know about me? He’s never even met me.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said gently. “You write what you like, what you’ve always loved. An opera in the Italian style is always popular; you could attempt that.”

“A whole opera? I could never do it.”

“Why not? You have talent, and passion, and intelligence. You’re just as good as that Antonio Salieri who is so talked about, believe me!”

III.

Cousin Thekla from Augsburg was neither pretty nor distinguished nor refined. She was, in fact, excessive in every aspect, even more than Wolfgang; but she was liked by others, thanks to a knowing, childish cleverness. She leaped down from the carriage, threw herself on her cousin, and enfolded him in hands, feet, arms, legs, and knees, kissing his forehead and his hastily shaved cheeks; bits of beard pricked her lips, but she didn’t mind at all and continued to plant kisses while he, half suffocated, laughed.

“Wolfgang! I’m so happy happy happy to see you again! You, more than anyone: you know you’re my favorite, little Wolfgang. Don’t be offended, uncle.”

In the doorway was Leopold Mozart, limping and bad-tempered. “I’ve been waiting three hours for you,” he burst out in a cracked voice. “Did you stop to play along the way?”

“Forgive me, please, dear, kind uncle,” she answered, embracing him so enthusiastically that she was in danger of breaking his ribs. Suddenly she detached herself and cried, with a hop, “Where’s Nannerl? I have to show her my maid-of-honor dress!”

Fräulein Mozart was at the window, and she gazed at the scene without seeing it; she didn’t look out, she didn’t move the curtain aside or make any gesture of greeting. She had in her hands a large volume; she held her place with a finger. It was a volume that had been read, reread, and underlined, not by her but by her brother; amid the words, musical lines had been inserted with examples of harmonic solutions. She opened it and attentively reread a passage, then, thoughtfully, closed it.

IV.

“Why isn’t your congenial fiancé here at the concert?”

“Because I asked him to stay home, and his daughter with him.”

“You told him not to come? And he agreed without protest?” Wolfgang asked, widening his eyes.

“He, yes. Only Victoria expressed some objections.”

“I must correct myself: Armand is not the perfect man but the perfect imbecile. He does nothing but indulge you, even when your requests are ridiculous!”

“My relations with him don’t concern you.”

“But your behavior does, if you don’t mind. Can you explain what annoyance the d’Ippolds would cause you?”

“The same as you. Go sit down and don’t bother me.”

“Do you think you’ll arrive at a spiritual state if you listen to the princess’s arias in solitude? Relax and enjoy the evening, Nannerl. It’s the best way to get something productive out of it.”

“I will as soon as you get lost!” she burst out, then went to the table where the refreshments had been laid out, took a glass of wine, and drained it in two gulps.

The most eager spectators began to disappear in the direction of the
salone,
a procession of bright fabrics that narrowed into a funnel to pass through the archway and then scattered among the rows of seats. Timidly, Fräulein Mozart crouched in the shadow cast by a column: in front of her she could see a section of the audience, and right at the back, on the dais beside the archbishop, was Princess Maria Antonia, looking just as she had when Nannerl had met her at the court of Munich—perhaps she was even wearing the same dress. She didn’t seem at all aged. She was surely one of those creatures who when they are young seem old, arousing the pity of their peers and the desperation of their mothers; yet at a certain point they stop, and while for everyone else time runs inexorably onward, their faces show not a wrinkle more than they did in youth. Perhaps only a little arthritic, she waited for the evening in her honor to begin: a selection of her arias was to be interpreted by a singer who, once known above all for her breasts, had, as these grew old (since she was of a normal species), shrewdly replaced them with a refinement of her artistic gifts: Paulina Eleonora Gellert.

Suddenly Nannerl found herself completely alone, while the last few spectators went to sit down, and holding the empty glass, she began to walk in front of the doorway, which a page would soon close. Servants were clearing the remains of the refreshments, like stagehands who pick up the props in the interval between two acts; they knew her and paid no attention to her, and this pleased her. Slowly she went over to the table and, noticing an untouched glass of wine, exchanged her own for it. “To your health,” one of the servants said, in a friendly manner.

From the entrance to the concert hall the page called to her: “What are you doing, Fräulein Mozart? Would you like to come in or not?”

She looked at the waiter timidly, as if with the air of asking advice, but he shrugged. Then she went to the page and offered him the glass: “Would you like it?” Without waiting for an answer she thrust it into his hand, to his astonishment, and went into the music room.

She remained standing at the back, against the wall, for the entire concert. She saw her father in the first row turning to look for her, and her brother, sitting beside Thekla, gesturing to her to join them; but she ignored them. She didn’t know the princess’s arias, since she had never heard them and the scores were not in circulation; they had never been printed, and this was their first public performance in Salzburg. At first it seemed to her that they were nothing special, and rather than listening she smiled to herself at the soprano’s affected movements; but gradually she was able to abandon her critical attitude and let the sounds take possession of her, and she began to appreciate the freshness of the melodies and the rather clever fusion of music and words. Suddenly she opened her purse, took out a notebook and pencil, and quickly made a note; as she listened, she chewed on the end of the pencil, and then, with an automatic gesture, she went on writing, with increasing excitement, until, by the end of the last piece, not a single line was left blank.

She put the notebook in her purse, hurried out of the hall even before the applause began, and sped home. Her heart felt light and her lips softened in a gentle smile. It seemed to her that she had become a girl again; it seemed to her that she could be a girl again, if only she wanted to, if only she were allowed to touch again lost emotions. It was no more than a small action of the mind, an action as simple as snapping your fingers, and much more pleasant; and if she had known that it was so simple and pleasant, she wouldn’t have wasted years of life in—no, in fact nothing, nothing had been wasted. From that moment on every past experience would be transfigured and reinvented because, as her brother rightly said, the time had come to let her creativity emerge.

She took off her coat, grabbed a candlestick, and went rapidly through the dark rooms; she stopped at a door, knocked, and whispered, “Are you still awake?”

She burst in before getting a response. Tresel, the ancient and tremulous Tresel, was in her nightgown, sitting on her bed.

“I want to compose an opera,” she announced. “A whole opera!
The Gallant Officer.
I’m going to dedicate it to Armand!”

In a deep voice, the servant commented, “It’s about time.” Then she lay down and put out the lamp.

V.

The truth was that Tresel had never really liked the d’Ippolds, and didn’t look favorably upon the marriage. Until the moment she left the Mozart household, she continued to work with the stubborn energy of a far younger woman; she cleaned, shopped, cooked, and washed the clothes. One laundry day she spoke openly to Nannerl. The cauldron was filled to the brim with hot, cloudy water, and using a big wooden spoon, she pushed the gray clothes toward the bottom and dragged them up, and again crushed them down to the bottom. There was an odor of dirty water, of boiled staleness, and the steam lay on her white hair and further reddened her red-veined cheeks. Under her armpits were two dark stains, and from her forehead, from time to time, a drop of sweat fell into the pot, mixing with the old odors of her masters, and to Fräulein Mozart it seemed that she herself was in the big pot, mixed with the sheets, and that, with that spoon, the servant was beating her.

“I know what you think,” she stated. “That, considering the daughter he’s got, he must not be much of a man. It’s true, right?”

Tresel ran the back of her gnarled hand over her forehead and returned to mixing.

“I forgave Victoria long ago for stealing my score,” Nannerl insisted. “It’s an old story. Have you not yet forgotten it?”

Tresel confined herself to shaking her head lightly, as if before a child too silly or too stubborn to understand the most obvious thing. Then she stirred up the coals, because the fire was slowly going out, and cautiously took a little water out of the vat, which she would use for the next washing or for the bath. And meanwhile she murmured, “You’re wrong. The girl is the least of my worries.”

“Then, what’s wrong?”

She gave her a swift, penetrating glance. “He’s not the man for you. That’s what’s wrong.”

“But what do you know about it? You hardly know him!”

The maid ended the conversation by turning her back: if Nannerl didn’t want her opinion, she shouldn’t ask for it. Nannerl, however, circled around her: “You can’t leave me like that. If you begin to say something, you have to finish—is that clear?”

“What do you love about him?”

“A lot of things.”

“No, on the contrary. One only: the fact that he is unhappy.”