Mozart's Sister: A Novel (29 page)

“What do you mean, Tresel?”

“Just that. The solitary warrior, the dead wife, a man who goes away and you never know if he’ll return. All nonsense. It shouldn’t be grief that leads you to a man but joy. Now, go on, for goodness’ sake, or I will never finish this laundry!”

VI.

There was a strong core in Nannerl, at least at that time, in her chest; you could compare it to a pulsing sphere or a giant bubble; that core was present in every circumstance, and contained her true identity. If she became conscious of it and let the original melodies enclosed in it emerge, she felt the flowering of an emotion so overwhelming that it broke down every certainty that bound her to life; so she tried to take refuge in roads already traveled, in predetermined designs, and yet, obscurely, she knew that an attempt so inauthentic was destined to fail. And so she wasn’t satisfied with what she created, and found confirmation that what she created had no value and she, as creator, even less.

Nannerl rose in the night, walked around the instrument, sat down, and tried incessantly, uselessly, to settle that inner conflict. She examined the notes she had made at the princess’s concert and compared them with her work, asking herself what, precisely, was imperfect in it; perhaps that passage…She played it with her left hand, rewriting swiftly with her right and filling the piece of paper with marks; then she took another sheet and began again, changing something, changing many things, changing everything, and finally, in a burst of anger, she scribbled all over it and left the music room.

The solution must be in one of those treatises of Wolfgang’s. Or perhaps, rather than of a solution, one should speak of comfort, since Nannerl desired above all some authority to tell her that she was proceeding as she should. She went into her brother’s room, rummaged among his books, found one that seemed relevant to her case, and began to read it avidly, in the light of the lamp. But gradually she began to feel sleepy, more as an escape from torment than as a real physical need; and as she turned the pages she wondered if it would not be better to put it off, and yield to that oblivion.

Father, son, and cousin came home from the Palace very late. “Luckily there was the reception,” Thekla burst out, taking off her coat, “otherwise the evening would have been as dull as a funeral. But why did Nannerl leave? I mean, she should come and have some fun with us, until she’s married!”

“She’ll have fun afterward, you can be sure,” Wolfgang said, and the two laughed maliciously. Thekla’s laugh was a sharp, skull-piercing “Heh, heh, heh.”

“Silence, children. Respect the sleep of others, and mine above all,” Herr Mozart said, and went to bed.

As soon as he turned the corner, the position of the two cousins became more intimate. Wolfgang slipped an arm around her waist; she placed one hand on his buttocks, and thus entwined, silent and furtive, they reached Wolfgang’s room. Light filtered out from the half-closed door; he opened it softly and was greatly surprised to find Nannerl asleep on his table, her face resting on locked arms, her back rising and falling in the regular rhythm of her breath.

“What do we do now?” Thekla whispered. “Damn your sister!”

“Go to your room,” Wolfgang said. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Come on; you promised to spend the night with me.”

“We can’t do it every night; it’s not prudent, pretty little cousin. Go on, go to beddie.”

He gave her a kiss on the lips, and she, growing passionate, pushed her tongue deep in his mouth and lowered her hands along his body; but he jumped back, stifling a laugh, and sent her off with a pat on the rear.

When he turned, his heart skipped a beat: his sister, sitting straight up against the chair back, was staring at him unkindly.

“I ought to keep a catalogue of your conquests,” she said. “But this is unforgivable. Never touch her again, if you don’t want Papa to know, and also uncle.”

And she left the room. Wolfgang snorted: how predictable!

VII.

“May I come in? Herr Mozart, I’ve brought your fruit salad.”

“What did you put in it, Tresel?” he wailed in response.

“Only apples and pears, as you asked.”

“And how much sugar?”

“Two spoonfuls, as usual.”

“It’s too much, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you know sugar can go to your head?”

Periodically Leopold went to bed complaining of nonexistent troubles and tormenting Tresel with obsessive requests for food: for that alone, she couldn’t wait to return to her village. Once, the broccoli had kept him from sleeping because it was too heavy; another time it was the chicken breast that caused his insomnia, and the evening infusion mustn’t be too strong or, because of a supernatural bond between the herbs and his knees, he wouldn’t be able to walk correctly.

With a glance of understanding at the servant, Nannerl took the bowl. “Let’s put it here on the table, then if you get hungry we’ll see, all right, Father? Thank you, Tresel. You can go.”

And Nannerl began reading again, as he closed his eyes and prepared to listen. It was a historical essay, ponderous and monotonous as water dripping into a basin, and Nannerl’s low voice made it, in part intentionally, soporific; in a technique that was by now well practiced, she gradually slowed her diction, made her voice softer, and even pretended a yawn so that her father might be induced to imitate her, but that day he was in a strange mood, and certain small movements of his hands and nervous contractions of his lips signaled that he hadn’t the least intention of sleeping. Nannerl was impatient, eager to go and work on her opera, so when she finished the long, eternally long, chapter, she laid down the book and with a discreet rustling of skirts tried, very quietly, to leave the room.

“Who will write the requiem for my funeral?” Herr Mozart muttered suddenly.

Nannerl turned. “What did you say, Papa?”

He opened his eyelids and looked at her: “For my funeral I want a proper requiem!”

“But why are you having such gloomy thoughts?” she said calmly, returning to his side. “You’ll live to be at least a hundred. You’ll see. You’ll bury me, Wolfgang, and our children, if we have any.”

“I want you to compose it.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or take him seriously. “But, really, wouldn’t it be better if Wolfgang did it?”

“No. You have to do it.”

Having spoken he reached out his arm, took the bowl of fruit, and ate it with the greed of a child. Nannerl looked at him in astonishment while the old man swallowed the fruit and noisily drank the juice and licked the last grains of sugar from his fingertips, and then she rushed out and closed the door and had to lean against the wall.

VIII.

“‘I am grateful for your hand’—the melody of this aria is remarkable, Nannerl. Fresh, immediate, and with a passage of restlessness that emerges here, in the central part, to dissolve in the joy of a surprising finale. Compliments.”

“Thank you, Wolfgang,” she said, continuing to transcribe.

“But who wrote the text?”

“I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wrote it. I wrote the words and the music together.”

Wolfgang was silent for a long time. Her face was bent obstinately over the scores, and the scratching of pen on paper was the only sound in the room. Then, staring at her, he asked, “Do you intend to write the whole libretto?”

“I’ve already done it, in part.”

“And—don’t you think that’s too ambitious? I think you should demonstrate your compositional ability, not literary. It’s an entirely different skill.”

“I couldn’t find a libretto that satisfied me.”

“But what is the subject of the drama, if I may ask?”

“The subject is Armand.”

After another, very long silence, he said, “It seems to me a little thin.”

“To me, however, it seems more than sufficient! And in any case, Wolfgang, I want to talk about composition, not dramaturgy, if you don’t mind.”

“At your service, my queen,” he said with a sneer, and threw the scores down in front of her. Then, in a torrent, he spoke: “Let’s start with this aria: it’s the only one in which you haven’t drowned in the myth of your own perfection. Because your problem, Nannerl, is that you don’t accept your mistakes, or those of others. You personally never make any, or at least so you think; and if you made one, you would try to forget it.”

She glanced at him coldly, but he was concentrating too hard to notice.

“Maybe the subject inspired you, or belongs to you more than others,” he continued, “or maybe when you wrote it you weren’t asking yourself anxious questions; or for an instant you forgot yourself, thank God. In fact, this aria is good because it’s sincere and technically imperfect.”

“Where is the flaw?” she exclaimed.

“There, you see? You have to understand, Nannerl, that the search for perfection leads nowhere. You have to write in a more mindless way; or be clever, if you like, but imperfect. You have to stop wasting your days staring at the wall and the white sheet of paper overcome by the pressing fear of not succeeding, because the truth is, Nannerl, that if you forgot your fear you would work better, and much faster.”

She felt terribly tired, suddenly, and no longer knew what to think. It was true. She, too, particularly liked “I am grateful for your hand,” and couldn’t figure out the reason. “And what about the rest?” she asked weakly.

“Precise, faultless—and rather obvious. You remember what Christian Bach said?”

The notes swam before her eyes.

“He said that technique is the means, not the end; it’s what allows us to express passion. I see here only technique, Nannerl. Your passion isn’t there. Where did you put it?”

IX.

Victoria had been bold. She was wearing the short costume of an Amazon, and the strap of the quiver over her shoulder separated her breasts to unusually provocative effect; her father wasn’t at all happy about it and had tried to send her home to put on something more chaste, but she paid no attention to him. There were hundreds of guests at the party, and not all were in costume, but there was no one who didn’t wear at least a mask; and concealing their identities, the people of Salzburg, the nobility and the bourgeoisie, could play at not recognizing one another, at courting the wrong person, to then be undeceived and retrace their steps, with pretended, amused outrage. Armand, however, wore neither costume nor mask, in order not to seem ridiculous in the eyes of his colleagues or himself, and in his impressive colonel’s uniform he skirted the dancing area on the arms of his women, moving almost in time with the music.

Withered as a fruit forgotten in the sun, Katharina Margarethe von Esser followed them with a scornful glance.

“So the young Amazon is the famous d’Ippold girl,” the count whispered.

“Yes. But she is too attractive to be a pianist, don’t you think, my dear? Men look at her rather than listen to her, and women, too, but with less pleasure.”

“Apart from Nannerl Mozart. That girl is her protégée.”

The countess stared disapprovingly at the Marquis von Rinser, who had just joined the conversation and therefore aborted her very interesting disquisition on the differences between the sexes. “Please, do not utter that name in my presence. I say no more.”

The count began hinting vigorously to the marquis that he should drop the subject, but Rinser, because of the amount of alcohol he had drunk, was oblivious and asked, “Why not? Nannerl is a fine teacher.”

“Oh, do you think? I found the exact contrary, to tell you the truth. And I speak from experience, since it is certainly not my habit to express judgments not supported by concrete facts. If I hadn’t personally been the witness, not to mention the victim, of a serious breach of manners on the part of that woman, who deserves to spend the rest of her existence in a place where she can do no more harm, I would never permit myself to say what I say, dear Marquis. It’s sufficient to know that my Barbara has refused to get near a keyboard, thanks exclusively to that so-called fine teacher, and that any hope of giving my daughter a proper upbringing has been thwarted, and forever. Further, I will tell you that, in my infinite generosity, I had found for that woman, whose name I continue not to mention in order not to waste my breath, a suitor of high quality, a man of our milieu (here, too, I name no names, but out of discretion); and she, without the least respect for me or for him, rejected him, and in a rude and vulgar manner. And now she is going to marry that wretched man she found on her own; not that the celebration of a marriage not arranged by me is in itself a problem, but I am certain, absolutely certain, that my good, dear friend Frau Mozart, who unfortunately is no longer with us, would not have approved of that marriage. And I am even more certain that from Heaven above, where Anna Maria is, she looks down at her daughter and her heart swells with grief for yet another blunder that that girl is about to commit. I will conclude, Marquis, by calling your attention to the ancient Roman costume that the person in question is wearing: don’t you think, really, it is a genuine insult?”

Rinser went off muttering who knows what, his head in a whirl, and collapsed in an armchair.