Mozart's Sister: A Novel (15 page)

After a moment of disorientation, Anna Maria managed to stammer: “Well, the best thing would be to pay before the lessons—if possible, in a group of ten. The fact is that I have to send the money to my husband in Italy, and so, you understand…”

“There is no problem with that, Frau Mozart. As you can certainly imagine, I do not handle money, but I will send a man today to deliver fifty florins in cash.”

The image of that sum made Anna Maria dizzy. She took a giant piece of
Gugelhupf
and swallowed it almost without chewing.

The chatter of the women had bored little Barbara to death, and she didn’t like the cake, either, because it was different from the one that her cook prepared—too thick and too sugary. She had settled herself on a high chair and was swinging her bow legs, with a movement that progressed from idle to nervous, until she couldn’t restrain herself and burst out, “Mama, can’t we go?”

“My dear, don’t be impolite. You must learn to mind your manners. You are about to meet your new piano teacher. Aren’t you glad?”

“No.”

“Frau Mozart, forgive her, please. After all, she is only a child and doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“But of course, Countess; don’t worry about it.”

With laudable patience, Katharina again spoke to her daughter: “One day you will thank me, dear. You don’t understand now, and it’s utterly natural, given your age, but music is an essential element of the education of a nice young lady.”

At that moment Nannerl appeared in the doorway, weary-looking but dressed more or less suitably. As soon as she saw her, Anna Maria broke out: “I am sure that my daughter thinks just as you do. Don’t you, sweetheart? Come, tell the Countess.”

“Yes, of course, in a young mind music helps to develop the imagination.”

“And for making a good marriage!” continued Katharina, victorious. “The best people adore girls who can play. Oh, I was sure that we would find common ground, my dear Fräulein Mozart.”

Nannerl felt as if she had plunged to the bottom of the sea and that the three females before her had been transmuted into fish, or shrimp, or maybe octopus. A cold current was pushing her toward the countess-octopus, whose every tentacle was adorned with enormous bracelets down to the tip, and it forced her to bow in respect. From the pupil-octopus a hostile glance reached her, so she turned to observe those fixed and slightly veiled globules and imagined the invertebrate swimming away from the window, leaving an ink stain in her wake. But already she felt a tapping from the tentacles of the mother-octopus, which were pushing her toward the piano, and she was unable to resist; meanwhile, the voice of the countess-octopus resounded in a thousand cavernous echoes: “Come, Barbara dear, play for Fräulein Mozart. Let her hear how well you play.”

There was no way out. The rite had to be enacted. The little countess sat down at the piano as if she were placing her head on the block; she tried to lift the lid of the keyboard, but it seemed to be jammed, so her nose wrinkled in bewilderment.

“Turn the key” was Nannerl’s toneless suggestion.

The little girl found the key in the lock, turned it a couple of times, and raised the lid; she placed the protective cloth in a heap on one side, and then she played.

It was a simple passage, conceived for small fingers that had not yet reached a confident stage of autonomy, and so the right and the left were called on to move in unison; if one hand had to execute something more involved, the other stopped or held some long notes. Even a trained monkey would have been able to produce something recognizable, but Barbara was truly disastrous. Anna Maria, accustomed to rather different sounds, couldn’t help realizing it, yet obviously she did not show it and affected a kindly sympathy. Whether or not Katharina was aware of her daughter’s clumsiness was not clear; certainly her child’s inclinations didn’t matter to her. She cared only that she learn to play properly, behave properly, converse properly.

And Nannerl—oh, she was wounded by those horrible sounds as if by a punch in the stomach, and she realized immediately that there was no way to instill art in a mind that had so little desire. She turned her back on the Countess von Esser, to avoid displaying her state of mind, and, pretending to listen attentively, moved to the window that looked out on the street.

Among the passersby a young woman stood out, a few years older than Barbara. She was wearing a pretty dress, of a bright turquoise dotted with little flowers, and a hat with a white rose tied on by a blue ribbon. Without knowing why, Nannerl found herself staring at this anonymous girl, wishing to be in her place, far from this hair-raising recital, from her detested profession, free to wander the streets with a rose on her head.

Suddenly the girl stopped. She must have heard the little countess’s performance and been at least as bothered as Nannerl. Following the sound of the instrument, she raised her head toward the window, a grimace of disgust disfiguring her gracious smiling face; the gazes of the two met and remained fixed on each other for a long moment.

X.

Hiding like spies behind the columns of the portico, Wolfgang and his father followed closely behind the carriage of Prince Michael II von Thurn und Taxis, the governor of Mantua. It had been Leopold’s idea; he was determined to obtain an audience with his noble compatriot, who, to the humiliation of the proud Leopold, did not seem to take any account of him and his son. The day before, the two had gone to the princely residence to pay their respects; they had been refused on the grounds that the prince was too busy to receive them, and told to come back another time. Punctually they had appeared, but a valet declared that the prince had gone to Mass. Oh? thought Leopold. Then I will wait for you at the church door and follow you home, and we’ll see if this time I do not succeed in seeing your fine aristocratic face!

While Leopold glanced pointedly at him and nodded to him vigorously to move, Wolfgang lingered, entranced by the architecture of that city on the plain of the Po, on a day without fog. He laid his hands on a column of the portico and the shiver of cold that he felt told him it must be marble. Then he looked up at the capital: it seemed familiar, like certain drawings in a Roman history book that his father had had him read. An Ionic capital, if he remembered correctly, simple but grand, with broad spirals on either side that stood out from the body of the column. It looked very old: Could it be genuinely ancient? Even the pilaster, if you looked at it carefully, had cracks and scratches over the whole surface and might really be from two thousand years ago. Wolfgang gazed farther down the portico and realized that the columns and capitals were all different, so they must have been debris, at least in part. But his meditations on the reuse of the remains of the Roman Empire were interrupted by his father, who grabbed him roughly by one arm and dragged him away: “Hurry up, for goodness’ sake!”

They quickly covered the last stretch of roadway separating them from the prince’s residence, for by now the carriage had a clear advantage over them, and they had no further need to hide. With one hand Leopold held onto his hat, which was not too solidly settled on his wig, which, in turn, was not well anchored to his head, and with the other he pulled the child, who was in constant danger of slipping on the pavement beneath the portico. Did Mantuans spread wax on the bricks of their outdoor parlors? As they hurried along, the two Austrians provoked smiles among the passersby out shopping, but they were oblivious and managed to reach the palace at the very moment that the carriage, having discharged its occupants, was turning to go back to the stables.

With a burst of speed, Wolfgang reached the guard booth, ready to be announced; but when he looked for his father, he realized that Leopold had lagged behind and was leaning against the wall, red-faced and gasping for breath.

“Papa, are you ill?” he cried in alarm, and returned to him. Leopold stood up, still panting.

“No, son, everything is all right. Let’s go on.”

He took a few steps, but Wolfgang stood before him with an almost tender smile. “If you present yourself in that state, the prince will have you beaten.”

“Why? What’s unpresentable about a little shortness of breath?”

“It’s not that.” And looking at his father he couldn’t contain a smile: Leopold’s wig had shifted backward an inch, leaving part of his grizzled head uncovered. Wolfgang adjusted it. “It needs a little powder, but at the moment that doesn’t seem possible.”

“Indeed. Let’s go now,” Leopold said gruffly, and presented himself to the guards with an air of superiority.

“Good day. Will you kindly announce to Prince Michael von Thurn und Taxis and his gracious consort that Leopold Mozart and his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of Salzburg, have come here to pay their respects, as compatriots of the princely couple, less illustrious, of course, yet, like them, belonging to the Austrian Empire, which even in this province, certainly far away but not for that reason less glorious, shines and makes every aspect of its own high civilization shine.”

As the guard looked them over from head to toe, a little smile emerged from under his mustache; he said something to another guard, who took a few steps into the courtyard to say something to yet another guard, who then disappeared into the palace.

Father and son could do nothing but await a response, stuck in a sort of limbo. On one side was the magnificent palace that had once belonged to the Gonzagas; on the other was the square traversed by peasants pulling carts piled high with goods. Not belonging at that moment to either place, Leopold, nervously, and Wolfgang, contentedly, observed the two worlds without really comprehending them. But suddenly the boy’s attention was captured by a minstrel who, loaded with instruments, emerged from an alley and rapidly approached a doorway in a far corner of the square. He took a mandolin off his shoulder, banged the knocker against the door, and at the same time shouted toward the upper floors, gesticulating, with an impatient smile stamped on his face; he seemed a Bacchus of music, eager to throw himself into an orgy of notes that he probably couldn’t read but that, simply, amused him.

“I really don’t understand your passion for popular music.”

His father’s voice pulled Wolfgang out of his contemplation. He looked at him in some alarm, while Leopold continued, “I mean, Wolfgang, that stuff is certainly interesting; but once you’ve heard one song you’ve heard them all. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, Papa,” he answered weakly, “but what interests me isn’t the technical part, but rather the energy that these people put into it.”

“Really?” Herr Mozart interrupted, argumentative. “And yet, every time we meet a street musician you seem almost to be studying his nonsense; you seem to be engraving it in your mind with great care. Will you explain why?”

The arrival of a butler saved Wolfgang from the need to lie to his father. “Herr Mozart, unfortunately I must tell you that Prince Michael von Thurn und Taxis has some very urgent duties to attend to.”

Leopold looked at him, deeply annoyed. He knew perfectly well that the life of a prince is seldom marked by urgent duties. “So he cannot receive us at all today?”

“Unfortunately, no, I am sorry,” the butler said, colder than the columns of the portico. “I imagine you had better return some other time.”

“Please convey to His Excellency our most respectful greetings,” Leopold said between his teeth.

“It will be done, you can be sure. Good day.” With not another word he turned his back and went into the palace, abandoning them there.

In great irritation, Herr Mozart took his son’s hand and hurried off, crossing the square with long strides. The two thus passed the musician’s door. From the window came a sympathetic chaos of instruments against which the singing of a female voice stood out: without appearing to, Wolfgang sharpened his ears and recorded it in his prodigious memory.

XI.

Katharina von Esser had invited Frau and Fräulein Mozart to a reception that evening in the heart of the fashionable world, and while Anna Maria was having her hair done by Tresel, Nannerl was still lounging in her housedress.

“You must stick your head out of your shell sooner or later, my dear. You have to meet new people, have conversations. You can’t always be alone; it’s not good for you. I’m only saying this for your own benefit.”

“It’s pointless to insist—I’m not going,” Nannerl muttered.

“But your headache will pass, you’ll see if I’m not right. Just get some air. You’ll distract yourself and feel better right away. Have you had something to eat?”

She received a grumble of assent in response.

“Come now, put on your red dress. It shows off your figure so well. And a little rouge; you’re whiter than a sheet. You’ll see, you’ll thank me.”

“I’m not coming,” the girl repeated, more decisively.

Frau Mozart sighed and inspected the work of her maid in the mirror: the arrangement was a success, but some pins seemed to be sticking into her head.

“Tresel dear, could you loosen them a little, up here? There’s one that’s going right into my head. All I need is for it to make a hole.”

While the maid adjusted the hairpins, Anna Maria turned to her daughter in a placating tone. “We really can’t go on like this, Nannerl. We have to develop some relationships, find new pupils. There still aren’t very many, you know, and the fact is I can’t do it all. Do you understand or not? You have to help me—you have to be there, too.”