Pianist in the Dark (3 page)

In 1772, following in the footsteps of Father Hell, a Jesuit astrology professor who prided himself on curing people with magnets, Mesmer adapted his procedure of magnetic healing but soon clashed with the priest. He then pretended to have discovered the method himself and accused Hell of plagiarism.

The following year, when he met a Swiss priest, Father Gassner, who practiced exorcism, Mesmer decided to give up magnets and apply his own hands instead. The former water diviner/healer determined that his body itself was a conduit of the curative fluid, of the energy that relieved the pain engendered by nervous ills.

The case of Maria Theresia arrived at the perfect time. The specialists maintained that her eyes suffered from no scientifically evident disorder. She thus must be unconsciously inflicting the disease on herself. Had the treatments subsequently plunged her further into a melancholia to which she had never before been subject, then? Nervous disorder, no doubt about it.

Mesmer was able to appear persuasive. Such arguments coming from a friend of Mozart’s could only be trustworthy. The city was swarming with rumors about him, claiming, for example, that Father Hell’s discovery had got stolen—but wasn’t this proof of the fascination that Mesmer aroused? Joseph Anton, as a man of influence, was not ignorant of the process that leads from admiration to envy only to materialize in malicious gossip.

Not knowing what to make of this new medicine, Paradis spoke with the Empress’s physician, the Baron von Stoerck. Von Stoerck knew Mesmer well. They both came from the same area of Germany and spoke the same dialect. He had had Mesmer as a student and had even agreed to be a witness at his wedding. The well-meaning advice Paradis received was tinged with the famous Professor’s customary irony:

“Mesmer’s treatments couldn’t harm a fly.”

The presence of the Paradis family at Mesmer’s concert in his house on Landstrasse owed nothing to chance. But because the young woman’s father could not go back on his birthday promise, the offer had to come from Mesmer himself. It was imperative that, upon being introduced to her, he be seized by sudden inspiration.

M
ARIA
T
HERESIA WAS UNAWARE OF
F
RANZ
A
NTON
Mesmer’s medical ambitions. All she knew about him was his reputation as a patron of the arts. She had heard him play with orchestras and remembered him as being a mediocre pianist.

But that evening, sitting between her parents on the bandstand near the gazebo at the left side of the garden, she could only admire the quality of his improvisations on the glass-harmonica.

Was the instrument responsible for the trembling sonority, or was it his way of playing it? A sense of peace emanated from that assembly of air, glass, and water.

Maria Theresia lifted her head, offering her senses a well-deserved pause. She lost the panicky stiffness she felt when surrounded by strangers whose gazes seemed to pierce through her. She no longer felt weighed down by the baubles that encumbered her neck and earlobes. She felt dizzy, as if a wind had risen and blown right through her. Her hands were quivering as they did sometimes at church when prayers overlapped, as if they were taking a shortcut to heaven.

The concert was over, but she was shaking too much to applaud.

She asked her parents to bring her some cold water.

Her temples were moist. She was shivering.

“I was hoping you might take comfort in the music.”

She sensed a figure leaning over. The chairs next to her were empty.

He pulled one toward him and sat facing her.

“Your body’s reaction to the sounds of the glass-harmonica is intense. This music affects you because your body torments you. You suffer because you are not in harmony with yourself. The body is an instrument. It needs to be tuned, like piano keys.”

His voice was insistent, enveloping. The more he spoke, the more she leaned back, as if he represented a force she couldn’t resist.

“Let me take care of you. I’m asking you to allow me this chance. A pianist of your caliber needs peace and quiet. Allow me to offer you a few days’ rest from your daily life. You need to breathe without being told how to do so.”

She started to shake again, but it was contained within—a muffled vibration that made her heart skip a beat.

“But my parents ...”

“Your parents want your well-being. I’ll be able to persuade them.”

She dared lean into the warmth of his breath.

“Are you a magician?”

He let out a hearty laugh.

“No, but I observe you, I see you.”

She bit her lips and put her hand on her face so he couldn’t read anything into it.

He stood up.

“So it’s decided. I’ll call on your father tomorrow and ask his permission to have you be my guest for a short time. Mademoiselle ...”

He disappeared without a sound. She heard only her mother’s footsteps as she came to cover her daughter with a shawl.

“Shall we go? This garden is too humid.”

“Where is Father?”

“I don’t see him. Ah, yes, he’s by the fountain speaking with Herr Mesmer.”

Maria Theresia stumbled to get up. She felt numb.

Her mother took her by the arm.

“Do you not feel well?”

“I feel ... lost.”

Maria Theresia’s lips broke into a slight smile that her mother did not notice.

“But it is not unpleasant.”

W
HILE
M
ESMER’S OFFER WAS BEING DISCUSSED—
that is, the time it took for Joseph Anton to convince his wife to listen to reason—and while Mesmer was preparing the apartments for his future patient, Maria Theresia had plenty of time to take full measure of what she was in for.

She had instructed Nina to keep her ears open and now understood that she had fallen into a trap: Mesmer intended to cure her. She couldn’t bring herself to be angry at him. He had read her so perspicaciously! She sensed in his interest for her a truth, an integrity that she never questioned for an instant. She was used to trusting only herself, that is, her own instinct. She had developed an almost nearly perfect ear and a remarkable memory. She could hear in the inflection of a voice whether a person was sincere or affected, and she detected in Mesmer’s voice true honesty. Whatever his deeper intentions, she had no reason to doubt the sincerity with which he addressed her.

On the other hand, she didn’t trust herself. His rapid insightfulness left her feeling highly emotional. She feared that once she was in his home, the vulnerability to which she had formerly been accustomed would take hold of her again.

Whatever others might think—blinded by a pity that paralyzed them to the point of seeming to be unfeeling—she had managed to transform her handicap into a strength, even a weapon. People became so uncomfortable around the blind that they overdid everything. They spoke too loud, shook hands too forcefully, thrust their faces too close, as if she were deaf as well as blind. They chose their words similarly: too many adjectives, too many superlatives, too many words, too many sentences—all in their uncontrollable need to fill the void into which her absent gaze plunged them. She took advantage of their vulnerability, and behind the mask of her bright smile that had become her trademark (since she was a child Nina had always told her that her full lips and white teeth were her best asset), she would laugh at the signals sent out by these creatures in distress. She could tell by someone’s footstep that his hand would be clammy. She learned to what extent the world opens up to you if you know how to listen. She had now forgotten those early years when her eyes were open to the world. She’d felt frail only during the first few weeks after the darkness, when she could still remember what it was like to see. But years of appalling treatments had made her lose all trace of that. Since then she had garnered strength from her assumed weakness.

Mesmer was different. He had detected in her a personality as proud as it was unsettling. Above all, he could tell how much she wanted to leave the family home. That he was able to pierce this secret so easily made her impatient to be his guest, but she also worried about the power he had over her. She recalled every second of their brief encounter yet failed to locate the crack in her mask, the breach into which he could have peered in order to figure her out so well. She had brought up the subject with no one. Her parents were as much her protection as her tombstone. Her home was her haven, her wooden piano her compass. But she breathed freely only when her parents went out.

Everything about those early sighted days may have been erased from her memory, but her sense of smell clung to one thing still. Whenever she thought about that night when her gaze had been banished to the realm of darkness, the smell of amber and tobacco sprung to her mind. Her room bore the scent of her father.

S
HE LET THE SEASONS RUN THEIR COURSE, WAITED FOR
the winter, and chose a Friday. One day to settle in, another to check out the place, and a third to get used to it.

This would give her three days before being alone with him, face-to-face. Him. He in whom her father wanted to believe. He in whom Mozart had put his trust. He whom even the Empress had allowed to treat her.

Her father had tried to explain to her that the kind of medicine practiced by Mesmer could in no way make her suffer. She refused to listen to him. She could now afford to bear a real grudge toward her father. It was official, out in the open, and she took shameless advantage of it. She felt love for this man. She was aware that she was the woman of his life, in a way her mother had probably never been, even before Maria Theresia was born.

He called her “my life’s joy,” and when she felt sad, which was often, she would answer, “You mean your life’s sorrow.” It goes without saying that he was her eyes, her anchoring. He never lost his temper or his patience with her.

He taught her the names of the colors and the trees. He had her smell the most exotic fragrances and the rarest flowers, encouraged her to taste the most unforgettable dishes. He obtained the goodwill of the Empress, brought together the city’s greatest musicians.

But he broke his promise.

Since the concert at Mesmer’s, she rejoiced in her newfound power to stand up to him, to have the last word, because she could brush aside his arguments, his pleas, or his anger with a turn of phrase, a terse statement. She had a few at her disposal: “You lied to me”; “You tricked me”; and the worst of all, the only one whose wounds can never heal: “You disappointed me.”

You can forgive a lie, pardon some trickery. But you cannot regain what has been lost. Confidence is not a wilted plant that can be brought back to life with a bit of water. It is a highly flammable object. Doubt sets it aflame and destroys it irreparably.

In the labyrinth of political influence and social power plays, her father was a master. But in the duel of words, Maria Theresia had for years gotten the upper hand. She could handle the nuances of language as deftly he could cross swords. On the family chessboard she had finally discovered how to deliver checkmate. She was not proud to hurt him. She did not do it to seek revenge. It was out of necessity. Before measuring herself against him, she had to get out from under his control. Now it was done.

F
OR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE SHE IS ALONE.
M
ESMER
refused to allow Nina to accompany her, and for that Maria Theresia is thankful. She has not come here to get better. She doesn’t believe that is possible. She has accepted Mesmer’s invitation because he is the first person ever to offer her autonomy. To decide on her own, to act on her own, and, even if she gets hurts, to move about on her own. As far back as she can remember, there has always been someone to guide, anticipate, and accompany her movements and gestures.

After her first day at 261 Landstrasse she feels less oppressed but no lighter. She has measured the distance from her bedroom door to the dressing table and from the chest of drawers to the bed. A discreet girl, Anna, whose hands smell like almonds, has helped unpack her clothes and the few objects she brought with her, before retiring for the night.

Now she is sitting in her bed, underneath the knitted bedspread, too anxious to sleep. In the pit of her stomach she feels that queasiness she experiences each time she gives a recital—until the moment she puts her fingers to the keys. But here in Mesmer’s home, how can she chase away this sour sensation of nausea, this shortness of breath? Her heart is beating wildly. She is overexcited, like when she was a child on Christmas Eve. This comparison makes her smile. Has Mesmer become Christkindl for her? Why does she trust him so—she who is usually so withdrawn?

That afternoon, without acting at all like a guide, he had accompanied her on a walk in the garden. He had described to her the statue of Diana in front of the big fountain and told her amusing anecdotes about the construction of the outdoor theater.

When they got back he showed her to a seat by the chimney in the small drawing room. She could feel him staring at her intensely.

She turned her head away, but he put his finger to her chin and gently brought her face back to his.

“Are you afraid I’ll give you your sight back?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t believe in miracles.”

“I’m a doctor, not a wizard. But I can’t do it if you don’t believe in me.”

She winced, surprised.

“How can the patient’s willpower help the doctor?”

Mesmer took her hands and clasped them in his own.

“Listen, of all natural bodies, the one that acts the most on man is man himself. I do not think that the universe is nothingness—an inanimate body. I am persuaded that we are all connected to one another by waves, by impalpable currents. These currents give life to the stars and make sleepwalkers walk. But their fluid can be transmitted only if the person receiving it is ready to accept it.”

Maria Theresia listened, open-mouthed. The passion with which he expressed his convictions was contagious. This was the first time a doctor had managed to make her feel the love of science. The physicians who had taken up her case before had seemed to her to be draped in certitudes. For them, her case had to be identifiable because their knowledge was infallible. But they had explained nothing whatsoever, and their remedies had failed. Then this vigorous and impassioned man comes along, putting forth unverifiable theories that were unheard-of yet compelling. His desire to link science with fiction, the earth with the heavens, planets with men, was abstract to her ears, but behind the words she could sense the energy, idealism, and conviction of a man who expressed himself with disarming ardor.