Mozart's Sister: A Novel (5 page)

“Nannerl, this is the last time you touch a violin,” he said. “Give it to me.” And he held out his hand, palm up.

Her hands did not obey. They had turned rigid, becoming one with the sound box.

“The violin is not an instrument for girls. You are not to play it ever again. Do you understand me, Nannerl?”

The little girl’s heart disappeared. In its place was a void, stillness, silence. Leopold seized the instrument and disappeared into the music room.

VII.

The great day has dawned! At the door of 9 Getreidegasse, impatient hooves pawed the ground, strong hooves that would consume the miles, and Joseph Bullinger pulled his coat tightly around him and looked up in annoyance at the third-floor window: How long could it take?

Hard to say. Anna Maria was pursuing Wolfgang, trying to dress him, and Nannerl was following Anna Maria and trying to dress herself. Open trunks and boxes of music were underfoot, and a servant was hurriedly packing a portable harpsichord. Leopold grabbed his son by the collar, handed him to his mother, and descended the stairs with the harpsichord on his back, shouting at her to hurry. She called down that more than this she could not manage. She asked her son to stand on an enormous trunk overflowing with clothes, to help her close it, but it was still slightly open, so Wolfgang jumped on it. That did the trick, though his mother almost lost an index finger. Panting, Leopold reappeared and pushed the trunk to the door. The din woke even the neighbor, who slept like a rock, and raising his hands to Heaven, he cried, “Praise the Lord, that family of lunatics is leaving!”

Nannerl packed music in a small trunk and carried it down the stairs, then went back up and got another, and then yet another; Wolfgang, wanting to do no less, seized a large box, but his father tore it from him, crying, “Be careful, my angel, please!” Anna Maria made sure that the shutters were closed in every room, rearranged the cloths that covered the furniture, then shifted them, then put them back as they had been; she gave the apartment a last melancholy glance—who could say when she would see her things again—closed the door, and went down the stairs.

The boy darted in and out of the carriage, lay on the seats, opened and closed the windows; the girl and the father settled the bags on the back; the servant tied the instruments to the roof; and the reverend couldn’t wait to return to his meditations. As soon as Anna Maria appeared, he traced in the air a large sign of the cross, reciting,
“Benedico vos in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
And finally the family climbed in and latched the doors, the servant bowed, and the coachman whipped the horses, who took off with a whinny of euphoria: Farewell, Salzburg! Great Europe, we are eager for you!

VIII.

It was a vis-à-vis carriage, of the type with two (very uncomfortable) facing seats; on one side sat father and son, on the other, mother and daughter. Now that the pilgrimage had begun, a sudden weariness replaced excitement, and Wolfgang rested his head on Leopold’s legs while Nannerl sank into her mother’s large, soft breast.

“Papa, is it true that I’ll be able to try the piano?” the little boy asked, his voice already thick with sleep.

“What do you know about the piano?”

“Nannerl says it’s much nicer than the harpsichord.”

The girl pricked up her ears but said nothing, and Leopold spoke as if she didn’t exist, caressing Wolfgang’s head. “Your sister can say what she likes, but you don’t have to listen to her. Guess who your papa will introduce you to instead: Johann Christian Bach. You know who he is, don’t you?”

The answer came from the land of dreams. “The son of Johann Sebastian Bach.”

“Excellent, my boy. He lives in London, which is far away, but perhaps we’ll get there; and then he’ll give you lessons in composition. He’s an important man, and he can do a lot for your career.”

Anna Maria hugged her daughter to her, and Nannerl abandoned herself to the warm, scented sweetness of that touch: she, too, would meet Christian Bach; she would show him her music, too.

The carriage had reached the outskirts of the city and was crossing a bridge over the river. There was no way its passengers could have glimpsed a small female figure half hidden under the parapet; perhaps Leopold might have recognized her, but just at that moment he drew the curtain. As soon as the coach had grown distant, the girl cautiously rose and, with an expression of suffering, touched her stomach, whose dimensions were now unmistakable. She settled on her head the tall wig, which she had put on with a macabre sense of ritual; she had even powdered her face and put on an old, low-cut lace-trimmed evening dress. Then she lifted her skirts and struggled up onto the balustrade.

From that moment she had no hesitation: she took a deep breath, filling her lungs, and jumped, turning so that she went headfirst. The flight was rapid, the thud muted, but the impact killed her instantly. Thus, in the muddy waters of the Salzach, ended the life of a voluptuous salon harpsichordist.

IX.

Nannerl saw only the Prince Elector’s shoes, or rather the left shoe, for a greyhound had laid its nose on the right. It was some distance from backstage to the place of honor, but that shoe was as shiny as a dewy leaf, and the gold pin that clasped it seemed to emit light.

Maximilian III awaited the court concert with a welcoming smile on his perfect face, sitting deep in his armchair and occasionally leaning forward to pet the dog. A woman who resembled him, if a little older, sat beside him, with strawlike hair above protruding eyes of an indistinct brown: it was Princess Maria Antonia, his sister. She was magnificently dressed, and yet she appeared untidy.

On the stage, the chamberlain was ending his introductory remarks, while behind the curtain, Leopold was nearly having a heart attack. “I implore you, children…I implore you…Be calm, eh? You’ve got to perform well—and make a good impression for me.” Meanwhile he smoothed his shirt cuffs and pinched the puffed sleeves. Anna Maria began to pull Nannerl’s corset even tighter and the girl gently protested: “Mama, don’t tighten it anymore. I won’t be able to play—I can’t even move.”

“You’ll manage if you stop being naughty!”

She turned, astonished, but at that moment the chamberlain came down from the podium, Anna Maria slipped into the audience, and Leopold mounted the stage.

“Good evening…Your Grace…magnificent Excellency…Prince! Good evening, illustrious ladies and gentlemen. I am happy and honored to have brought to this splendid court, into your enchanting presence, these spectacular prodigies—the Little Mozarts!”

The two advanced solemnly, clinging to each other like Siamese twins, with that soldier’s march that their father had made them practice for entire afternoons. Herr Mozart wasn’t aware of it, but the result was rather comical, and a few of the ladies in the audience hid giggles behind their fans.

“You will see what an incomparable talent is contained in the small body of this boy of only six, the future musical leader of the courts of all Europe: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! This girl is the most astounding harpsichord player you have ever heard, and she is only eleven years old: Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart!”

Maria Antonia whispered to the Elector: “Eleven? That girl is at least fifteen!” He tightened his lips in acknowledgment and nodded. In reality he hadn’t heard a word: like many men contending with wives, mothers, or sisters, he switched off his hearing automatically when she spoke to him.

“And I, naturally, am the father, Leopold Mozart, vice kapellmeister at the Court of Salzburg, on leave at the moment, in order to promote my children’s art throughout the world. We come now to the program: Nannerl will begin the evening by performing the First Sonata of Johann Gottfried Eckard, then Wolfgang will interpret a partita for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach. At the end of the concert I will be honored to accept any small token of your appreciation.” He bowed, whispered to his daughter, “Now!” and hurried to sit beside his wife.

Wolfgang settled himself on a stool at one side of the stage, and Nannerl sat at the harpsichord. Apart from the Elector, who observed the two children with curiosity, the audience appeared indifferent; some repressed a yawn, others clapped their hands in a semblance of welcome.

Leopold felt as if he were sitting on a hot grill. He whispered to his wife, “Nannerl is growing like a reed. She’s beginning to look too big. Soon you’ll have to bind her chest.”

“Goodness, there’s time enough for that!”

“Let’s hope.”

Praying that everything would go well, Nannerl began the sonata, which was extremely difficult. Few musicians dared to perform Eckard’s works, not wanting to risk embarrassment; but Nannerl’s hands, with their strong, shapely fingers, independent of one another, seemed to forge the keyboard to their pleasure, rather than adapting to it. Her only problem was the corset, which was crushing her chest so that she could hardly breathe. It forced her to keep her back straight as a broomstick, which wasn’t so serious, since even if she couldn’t lean over, she could move to the sides; besides, the flapping of her wide sleeves was not an encumbrance and her arms could bend as they needed to. But that pressure on her chest made her short of breath and therefore nervous, and although the room was not well heated and her dress had a low neckline, she began to feel her throat, shoulders, and forehead burning.

Wolfgang immediately realized her discomfort. While continuing to play, she gave him a desperate glance, but how could he help her? He could hardly go over and loosen her stays. The sonata arrived at an extremely complex point in which the right hand executed a theme in the middle of the keyboard and the left jumped rapidly from one end to the other; Nannerl was gasping for breath, the heat was insupportable, and now, too, the
volants
of her sleeves had become a hindrance, a lock of hair was falling over one eye, and her entire body was sticky with sweat. She would have preferred a thousand times to be naked—yes, naked in front of the prince and princess and all the aristocracy of Bavaria. She couldn’t care less, if only she were allowed to play freely! The right hand repeated the theme over and over, and the left went up and down, and, in a burst of anger, right in the middle of the passage, Nannerl raised her hands from the keyboard and there was silence.

A nervous sense that something was wrong spread through the room. Maximilian looked at Nannerl with a bewildered frown, while Maria Antonia whispered in his ear something that he (obviously) didn’t hear; Leopold was glued to his chair, torn between fear that the concert would end in fiasco and his fundamental lack of interest in his daughter; Anna Maria was too busy scratching a spot off her skirt to realize what was happening; Wolfgang jumped down from his chair, not knowing whether to approach his sister or grab the violin and start playing, to distract people’s attention.

But Nannerl surprised her audience by suddenly starting again, with torment on her face and her eyes narrowed in frustration. Skipping the repeats and variations, she reached the final notes of the piece, which ended in less than a minute, and then she ran into the wings without even taking a bow. Wolfgang followed her.

The applause burst automatically: after all, the show was over, or at least so it seemed—otherwise, why had that girl disappeared backstage? And quickly the clapping faded and the room filled with idle chatter. Some gentlemen stood up, in part to stretch their legs, in part to get a pastry from the buffet table that was set up at the back of the room; meanwhile, the stage remained empty.

Leopold began to boil: What was Wolfgang waiting for? The theater has precise rules; you can’t cut off the emotional flow, or you risk facing an audience that will be hard to win back. And, as if to confirm his fears, the chatter increased and, with it, a lack of interest in the music. In a fit of anxiety, he jumped to his feet with the confused idea of improvising a speech; maybe, once on the stage, he would be able to find out what the devil his children were up to and take measures. There, that’s what he would do! Excellent idea! He leaped onto the platform and began:

“Your Grace, magnificent Prince, esteemed public! I would be honored to call your delightful and distinguished attention to a subject that is surely of interest to you all: the technical preparation, achieved through methodical and careful study, of the two youngsters present here before you, or, that is to say, in the vicinity…”

The lecture was interrupted by a sound from backstage. It was the voice of the violin, which wound its way between the folds of the curtain, descended to the parquet, and then rose up to the vaults of the ceiling, filling the space with its fine, lustrous velvet.

“Exactly! Preparation without which the present performance would not be possible. Enjoy the rest!” And in a fraction of a second Leopold had returned to his seat.

The violin charmed the listeners like a snake in a basket. With suspended breath, they stared at the stage in expectation of the magician: and from the wings little Wolfgang emerged, giving sensual impulses to his bow and happily enjoying his enchanter’s power as he walked about the stage playing, and behind him came Nannerl, her waist noticeably expanded, so that she was finally free to breathe. She held a flute, and at the right moment joined in, and the timbres of the two instruments, so light but so potent, mingled and echoed amid the vividly painted walls, moving in time; they excited their listeners, strangled them, blew life into their cheeks.