Pianist in the Dark (8 page)

She was determined to regain control of the keyboard so as to be able to play for the Empress. She wanted to prove that her talent was intact even if the added allure of her blindness had been lost. She wanted to continue receiving the annuity, not as compensation for a handicap but to make up for the years she had invested in trying to become a world-renowned virtuoso.

Having fully recovered the sight that Barth’s examination had put in jeopardy, she had come to the conclusion that her progress remained extremely fragile because the slightest agitation could send her back into the world of shadows. Informed that her mother wanted to visit her, Maria Theresia responded that the emotions provoked by such a meeting would be harmful to her health. In truth, she had no desire to be confronted with the discomposure of this woman for whom she felt little affection. She had no recollection whatsoever of any tenderness she’d received from a mother who was so decidedly not maternal.

So, when Anna knocked at her door to tell her that she had a visitor in the drawing room, Maria Theresia refused to go, complaining that she had been interrupted in her work and could not be seen in her dressing gown with her face red and her hair uncombed. Rather than giving in to her refusal, however, Anna insisted, arguing that Mademoiselle would be very happy indeed to meet the person awaiting her.

Anna shifted from foot to foot, trying to convince her, when all of a sudden Maria Theresia heard a footstep that made her bolt from the piano stool, rush to the door, and run open-armed into the familiar scent of starch that characterized the refuge of her childhood. Nina laughed joyously, spinning her in her arms as she had when Maria Theresia was a child. The two of them shed tears, kissed, pulled back to contemplate each other’s faces, and then fell back into each other’s arms, their embrace magical.

“Your eyes are lighter. They are pale green now!” marveled the servant.

“Nina ... Here you are ...”

Overwhelmed, Maria Theresia touched Nina’s curly hair, her round cheeks, her cool, callused hands, as if she were getting her bearings.

“How is Runter? Remember how you hid him under your apron? You put ribbons in my hair. I would fidget just to annoy you. I’d get money for every knot that came undone.”

“And the rabbit game. Do you still remember it?”

“Clever rabbit, hide from my eyes, but I the cat shall thee surprise!” answered Maria Theresia breathlessly, recalling the nursery rhyme from before the shadow days.

After the memories, the hugging, the confidences, the tears, after having partaken of the snack that Anna had prepared for them, they went out for a walk.

Maria Theresia walked lazily, relieved to feel Nina’s arm firmly round her waist. She leaned against her like a fledgling who had flown too far away and at last rediscovered the security of the nest. She had confided in no one for months and was happy to be able to tell Nina of her liaison with Mesmer, her initial elation, and her present anxiety.

“My father hasn’t sent you, I hope?” she asked, worried that her greatest ally had switched sides.

“He doesn’t know that I am here. He thinks I’ve gone to see my family for a few days.”

“You have brothers and sisters and cousins! How lucky! I have only my parents. A mother who lives in the shadow of her husband and a tyrannical father who decides my every move.”

“It is thanks to your father that Herr Mesmer is treating you.”

“Yes, but between the prospect of losing my annuity if I am cured and ruining my reputation by staying here, he must have serious regrets!”

She spoke with an ironic smile that Nina had never before seen.

“Yes, Nina, here I have learned cynicism and bitterness, two feelings that were foreign to me. For a long time my blindness protected me from a reality that is not pretty to behold. What I have discovered scares me much more than the shadows that surrounded me. I have opened my eyes to a world that I knew nothing of, and it grows more and more disappointing every day. There is no room in it for simple, naïve souls who think that happiness is all about loving others. You can’t get by on love, or art. Ambition is the force that drives this world. People care more about clawing their way to fame and manipulating others than they do about what makes a concerto work.”

She took Nina’s hands in her own.

“I can admit it to you: I am having difficulty playing the piano because I have to learn to stop staring at the keyboard. But this is not the only reason. I have lost the faith I had in music. I used to think it would help me express emotions that an audience could share with me. During a concert the listeners and I would engage in a sort of conversation. There was an exchange between what I gave them and the way they received it. Their listening returned to me my emotion a hundredfold. Well, I no longer believe that. People listen and they are probably moved, but their attention is distracted by what’s running through their minds, and now I fear that they send back to me nothing other than their own vanity. They have no time to be affected by the music, even though music alone has the power to raise their hearts and ease their minds. They cannot be bothered. This is what preoccupies me now when I play. I analyze the world coldly. I no longer idealize it. As I’ve lost my conviction in my talent, I can’t convince anyone with my talent. This is what I’ve become, Nina. A girl without illusions. Music has ceased being my dream world. Now that I see the real world, I live with nightmares.”

Exhausted by having opened her heart to Nina, Maria Theresia suggested they head back to the house. They walked in silence, arm in arm, closer to each other than ever before.

As they entered through the French windows in the back of the house, they heard a commotion in the entrance hall. They rushed to see what was going on, only to discover Anna and the butler face-to-face with Monsieur and Madame von Paradis, the two of them screaming, demanding to see Herr Mesmer at once.

They saw their daughter and hurried toward her, not even noticing Nina at her side. Instead of taking her in her arms, her mother, in a state of extreme agitation, shook Maria Theresia violently.

“Hurry, gather some things. We’ll send someone later for the rest. You’re coming with us!”

Joseph Anton was still arguing with the butler. They could hear Mesmer in the garden, furious that her parents had entered his home unannounced.

He reached the front door and asked Anna to explain the situation.

Monsieur Paradis stormed toward him.

“I order you to return my daughter to me!”

Mesmer bowed, too ceremoniously to be paying his respects. As was his wont, he responded to excess with calm and to agitation with utter self-control.

“Mademoiselle Paradis is here because you have done me the honor of allowing me to cure her. You can take her back whenever you want.”

“I want her to leave with us immediately.”

Mesmer turned to Maria Theresia. She looked at him scathingly.

He gave her an imperceptible nod, then spoke to her father.

“You do agree with me that it is up to her to decide.”

“My daughter will do what I order her to do.”

“Never!”

The shout escaped her mouth to the stupefaction of everyone present—a shout so desperate that Joseph Anton stopped in his tracks, stunned to hear such a cry of distress coming from his daughter.

His wife, however, was so offended by this lack of respect that she took three steps toward her daughter and slapped her once on each cheek, shouting:

“We sacrificed everything for you. You shall do as you are told!”

She shook her, beat her. She was out of control, letting out years of bottled-up rage.

Maria Theresia protected her face, crying, while Mesmer and Nina tried to wrench her from her mother’s grip.

When she finally stood up, she shrieked:

“I don’t see anything any more!”

She put her hands to her eyes, took a few wavering steps toward Mesmer, and then lost consciousness.

A
FEW HOURS LATER, SHE WAS LYING FEVERISH IN HER
bed, tossing her head in every direction, murmuring incomprehensibly. Her face was extremely pale, her body heaving as if waves of pain were coursing in spasms through her.

Nina tried to apply cool compresses to her forehead, while Mesmer massaged her temples with camphor oil.

Mesmer stood up, leaned over her bed, removed the cover, and placed his hands on her ankles. For a long moment he hovered over her without moving, before he drew closer without touching her further. Then, slowly, he worked his hands up the length of her body until he reached her head. Then he did so again and again, repeatedly increasing the tempo of his hands.

Suddenly, Maria Theresia stiffened. Her limbs tensed. She held her breath for several seconds. Mesmer removed his hands, and immediately her body relaxed. She started breathing normally again; her face slackened. Her sleep became peaceful.

Nina watched Mesmer admiringly. When they were sure that she’d fallen into a deep sleep, they walked to the window.

The full moon illuminated the garden. The night had washed away the trauma of the day.

“That was an epileptic fit, wasn’t it, Doctor?” Nina was overwrought, panicking at having seen her dear mistress go from painful lucidity to sheer confusion.

“I’m afraid so. She will need time to recover, but I doubt we’ll be given any.”

Nina stared at him, shocked.

“Isn’t it the doctor who decides what is best for his patient?”

He placed his hands on her shoulders to reassure her.

“I can only suggest. I have no real authority. Between her father and the Court doctors, who knows what may happen?”

Nina insisted.

“But aren’t you going to protect her?”

Mesmer stared out the window, lost in his thoughts.

He took a moment to answer, and when he did he seemed far away, as if speaking to himself.

“I’d like to have devoted my life to treating her, to showing her the world. I’d have made of her an exceptional artist. I think I would have made her happy. But life has decided otherwise. My colleagues want my ruin. Monsieur Paradis wants his daughter. Their schemes will destroy her health, my career, and our future.”

He was overtaken by a wave of fatigue. He closed his eyes, then stood up straight and warmly clasped Nina’s hands in his own.

“I will try to keep her here as long as possible, but I am not optimistic. You are more than welcome to stay here as well.”

Maria Theresia was fast asleep. He stroked her cheek, then headed for the door.

“Good night, Nina. Thank you for watching over her. Later, when she has doubts about me, you will tell her that I loved her.”

The door closed silently behind him.

T
HE NEWS MADE ITS WAY QUICKLY TO THE COURT.
Joseph Anton von Paradis never tired of recounting his misfortunes. It became his mission to broadcast how Mesmer’s treatment had ruined his daughter’s constitution. He appeared not to see how such reports might confirm the rumor of the liaison between the two.

He dared not consult the Empress. Instead, he left his daughter’s fate in the hands of Professor von Stoerck. The head doctor to the Court was only too happy to take action against the faddish practitioner whose methods were not recognized by the official medical community, whose craft Stoerck himself had practiced and whose principles he’d defended.

He immediately contacted Cardinal Migazzi, president of the Commission of Morality, who in turn sent Mesmer a letter, demanding in the name of the Empress that he desist in his “trickery.” So as not to be seen taking too extremist a view against a treatment that certain colleagues still praised, however, he specified that Maria Theresia’s parents could reclaim their daughter only once it was ascertained that her return home would constitute no danger to her health.

The hypocrisy of the letter was obvious. As president of the Austrian medical community, Migazzi was destroying Mesmer’s career without demonstrating that his treatment was in any way harmful. And he left to the parents the responsibility for a decision the consequences of which they alone would know or suffer.

“How can I damage the eyes of a patient whose optical nerve, according to everyone who has examined her, is perfectly intact? Her father has noticed a change in her nervous disposition, but his child recovered her sight after fifteen years of blindness. Is not a spell of melancholia perfectly comprehensible? Why does the Commission refuse to pay heed to the colleagues who have attested to the evolution of her ability to distinguish people and objects, shadows and light?”

Mesmer wore himself out sending letters to von Stoerck, who never answered and refused to meet with him.

The term of the official letter forced Joseph Anton von Paradis to allow some time to pass before his next visit to Mesmer’s house.

The violence on the occasion of his last visit, all the more traumatic because it seemed to spring up out of nowhere, had left Maria Theresia blind once again. It would take Mesmer more than a month to again retrieve her sight.

The melancholy of these final weeks spent in Mesmer’s care should have been painful for Maria Theresia, yet she seemed more at peace than she had for some while. She had stopped living in fear of the future because it now seemed to be inarguably fixed. She embraced each day with a newfound serenity. Her exceptional calm surprised Nina, who was used to her mistress’s extreme—and extremely unpredictable—mood swings. Maria Theresia explained her state of mind in a cryptic manner that, far from reassuring Nina, alarmed her even more.

“I know now what meaning I must give to the rest of my existence.”

When Nina shared her concern with Mesmer, he admitted to being as nonplussed as she.

Maria Theresia knew that in a few days she would be forced to leave this house where she had discovered, in the course of several months, feelings that can take a woman a lifetime to understand and accept: the gift of oneself, sharing, passion and its transformation into a less voracious tenderness comprised of kindness and a different way of sharing. She had discovered the perversities of the soul. Toward her parents she felt remote feelings of love and filial duty. She had given herself body and soul to a man whose reputation in the country had been shattered. Her newly recovered eyesight brought into focus how disappointing reality truly was.