Mozart's Sister: A Novel (27 page)

A thousand anguished questions crowd your mind at this moment, I’m sure; I can almost hear them, and I can almost hear your painful search for an answer, the only just answer, the only one that calms you, the only one that allows you to transform your grief into a weapon that can strike, as you have been stricken. Should your father not have sent Frau Mozart to Paris? Did your brother, when she became sick, give her proper care? Could you yourself have opposed your father, though you have never succeeded before, and persuaded him to give up this foolish plan?

Do not indulge in this harmful exercise, my love, I entreat you! My experience of mourning has taught me that no one is responsible. Those who are responsible do not exist, Nannerl. Believe me, my love. Therefore let the painful questions form in you; don’t resist, because to combat them can reinforce them. Only, do not seek answers, and in that way, gradually, I guarantee, you will no longer hear their voice.

Maybe each of us is born with a destiny already written, and maybe the death of your good mother has a beneficent purpose in the cosmos that our small minds cannot discern. Be sure, in any case, that she is observing you from Heaven, and that if you are happy she is happy with you; be sure that your mother is beside you at every moment, a loving, invisible presence, watchful and blessed.

Lovingly, your
Armand

Salzburg, August 7, 1778

My dearest,

I thank you for your wise and thoughtful words. I have your beautiful letter with me at all times, folded up carefully between the stays of my corset, and in moments of dark despair, in the moments when everything appears empty and meaningless, I read it again, and I embrace it as I would embrace your warm hands. I thank God every day that I met you, Armand. I cannot imagine what my life would be if I hadn’t.

Do you think, my beloved, that one can age ten years in a very short time? I fear that that is what is happening to my father. His gestures have become slow, as if controlled by an internal force, and if he takes a step he seems about to fall down; more than once he would have if Tresel or I hadn’t been there to catch him. His walking stick has become a necessary support, and it makes a rhythmic, spectral echo through the house (since he stubbornly refuses to go out). He is bent over, like a plant in arid soil, dried up like straw, and his skin has turned gray. He seems lighter, and I know that if I had to, I could carry him without much effort. Complaining of pains in his stomach and in his bones, he does nothing but sit in his chair with a blanket over his legs; he shuts himself in his room and remains motionless and mute for whole days.

Our acquaintances, as soon as the news spread, hurried to visit: the von Essers (the Countess momentarily forgot to hate me and was sympathetic), the Marquis von Rinser (the affectionate father of one of my students, who brought sweets and a basket of flowers)—even Baron Johann Baptist von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg offered his condolences (his unhappiness, I must admit, was genuine)—but my father wouldn’t see anyone. His reaction is really worrying, and I wouldn’t have expected it. We are always confident that we know those dear to us thoroughly, but human nature is surprising, don’t you think, my love?

The plan of our life together, Armand, must necessarily be put off. I can’t leave my father alone now; I have to wait above all for my brother to return from abroad, and until my father recovers, at least a little. At the moment my place is beside him, and my duty is to take care of him, comfort him, make his life less painful, if possible. As soon as you return, my love, we will, of course, see each other; you will continue to visit this house, and my father will be glad of your presence, I assure you. But for the long-desired epilogue of our love, or, rather, its long-desired beginning, you and I will have to wait again.

Yet the waiting will be sweet, I hope, and not keep us from imagining a time of arrival, a simple religious ceremony, a small, welcoming house where we’ll live, you and I, a new family, with Victoria.

Yours more than ever, and forever
Nannerl

Linz, August 15, 1778

My beloved,

I’ve had some news that I hope will cheer you: my duties in the Army may change! I will speak to you in person about the details as soon as possible, but I want you to look forward to it from now on, incorporating it into your images of our future. A position is now being created in which I will no longer be subject to frequent journeys and postings and missions and legations far from home, far from you and from my Victoria; it involves, instead, duties based in Salzburg! You’re happy about it, aren’t you?

In such circumstances, dearest, our wait will even be more than sweet; it will be the spice that adds flavor to the meal; it will be (if you allow me an incursion into your territory) the suspension of the harmonic resolution, which, the longer it is wisely delayed, the more satisfying it is to the listener when it does arrive. How do I know these things? And if I told you that Victoria sometimes instructs me? You will be able to do so yourself one day, when we live together, if you want; provided you don’t find it humiliating to transmit a crumb of your knowledge to a tone-deaf officer…That same man who from this moment swears, adored Nannerl, to love you and protect you every day that comes, and to make you happy as you deserve. To be with you, my love, to be two will be to be infinite and expanded, and to be deeply rooted in the fresh, fertile earth; do not fear—no evil spirit will treacherously dig up the roots, because I will fight it and will win. Ours will be an infinite companionship, an infinite sharing, an infinite linking of thoughts and communion of breath.

Already I see the moment when all this will begin—not tomorrow, my love, but soon. And already I see it…

The Gallant Officer

I.

Six months before the marriage that was never to be celebrated, Victoria was clambering up the narrow stairs, her pianist’s hands carefully lifting her skirts with great care, to reveal delicate blue silk shoes decorated with fake pearls. She reached the landing and straightened her dress, which touched the ground on all sides, including the front, and which that night she would put back in her wardrobe after meticulously brushing it. Then, just as she seized the knocker and prepared to strike, a force pulled it back, the door opened, and like a hulk emerging from the stormy seas, Father Jakob appeared.

“Fräulein d’Ippold, what a pleasure to meet you close-up,” he began, analyzing her aspect with a grimace of irritation. “It has been reported to me, with great courtesy, that my church is not worthy of your musical art.”

He was an unctuous priest, who was continuously adjusting his collar, and when he wasn’t doing that he was rubbing his hands or ruffling the pages of a worn, well-thumbed Bible that he always carried with him. He shouldn’t have taken such poor care of the word of the Lord, but in his opinion that untidiness presented public testimony of how often, and in whatever situation, he consulted the sacred pages.

“Oh hello, Father,” Victoria replied uncertainly. “Is it you, then, who is going to officiate?”

“In person. Even if the ceremony, unlike those that I usually perform, will be rather brief: with not many guests, almost all of them soldiers, besides, and no music.”

“Perhaps you don’t know that the organ is not my instrument. I’ve never understood anything about pedals.”

“So Fräulein Mozart told me.”

“I’m preparing a small concert for the wedding reception, and it wouldn’t be right to play everywhere.”

“This, too, was explained to me in abundant detail. In any case, I don’t have time to discuss it further. Your father is inside waiting for you. Good-bye.”

He marched past her, trampling the hem of her skirt, and went down the stairs as if he were descending into Avernus.

Many times Victoria thought back on that encounter and wondered whether, if she had complied with the urgent desire for spectacle of that shepherd of souls, it would have been better for all concerned; but it was only an idle exercise (as she later reflected), since the past cannot be rectified, and it’s better to concentrate one’s energies on the present. As soon as she heard the thud of the street door closing, she went in. The apartment, empty of furniture, had a pleasant smell of paint, and the noise of every footstep echoed from the floor to the walls; so she proceeded on tiptoe, following the voices, and reached the fiancés just at the entrance of the special room.

“I’d like this to be yours,” Armand said to Nannerl with some hesitation, but as soon as he saw his daughter, he seemed comforted. “I hope you like the flower patterns on the walls. To me, the whole is altogether like a garden. Your old harpsichord would go perfectly in the center, I think. Herr Mozart has said that we can take it.”

“And why not put it in the parlor, next to the piano?” Nannerl asked, in bewilderment.

“Because you’ll need a quiet atmosphere, to…” He hesitated and looked at his daughter a second time, in search of support, but she didn’t help. “To compose,” he burst out, quickly adding, “If you want to, my love. What I mean is that, if…if you ever decided to go back to it, this would be the right place.”

Nannerl immediately changed the subject. “Tresel is returning to Sankt Gilgen. She wants to live with her son and grandchildren, and it’s also time she retired, poor woman. We’ll have to find someone else. Where’s the maid’s room?”

“Next to the kitchen,” Victoria said. “And when does Thekla arrive?”

“In time to be my maid of honor. Anyway, she’ll write, certainly, to let us know the date.”

“You mean your cousin also knows how to write?”

Nannerl did not appear amused. “She’s not a genius and she understands nothing about music, but she’s not bad,” she said. “Do you have some reason for resentment that I don’t know about?”

“Not at all! But Thekla is very different from you, I must say. She doesn’t even seem related to you.”

“Nor do Wolfgang and I seem so anymore, if it comes to that,” she murmured. “Here’s our room! Isn’t it, Armand? Or is this Victoria’s?”

“You two decide. I like them both. This is noisier, but it’s certainly bigger.”

It was also the more beautiful, and here the painter had been particularly inspired. The vaulted ceiling was sky blue, with a scattering of soft clouds like cotton; a group of plump putti seemed about to throw down handfuls of flowers and cover the three of them with petals. The walls were a milky white, and in the corners the artist had demonstrated his real talent, drawing bunches of climbing vines sprinkled with roses but no thorns; the floor was the color of a green meadow, making one wish to take off one’s shoes and go barefoot. Nannerl went to the center and turned in a circle, her arms locked tightly around her: Why had Armand brought up that subject? Better not to think about it or risk discussing it. He was here, in his eternal uniform, and she couldn’t wait to tear it off him and pinch and caress and bite the solidity of his body. And soon, in that very room, or the other, she would taste the earthly delights that take place between husbands and wives. Only at that moment would she truly begin to live. How long would she live still? Another thirty years, perhaps. She had spent half her time on earth in attempts at affirmation, detachment, evasion: the new condition that was opening up to her was not a flight but an initiation.