Alice's Piano

by Melissa Müller

  When he entered the dining room it was twelve minutes past six. The five children were sitting as quiet as mice around the table, and Sofie looked her husband up and down. Friedrich took no notice of the menace in her voice. He placed the two jars on the table and put down the ham next to them while he announced: “Children, imagine: your father has just seen his first ever taxi!”

  “That is no reason to keep us waiting,” said Sofie sharply.

  Friedrich ignored the accusation and carried on speaking cheerfully, “In celebration of this day everyone may eat as much ham as they like.”

  “Friedrich! Yet again, these are not the right gherkins.”

  “There are no wrong gherkins,” her husband growled.

  “I like the wrong gherkins, I should like to eat three wrong gherkins,” prattled Mizzi.

  Alice, too, took her father’s side: “I think the wrong gherkins look very pretty.”

  In the meantime Georg and Paul had carved the ham and were praising it to the skies. “This cooked ham is fit for a king,” said Georg, who was now twenty-one. “And the wrong gherkins are also a knockout,” Paul chipped in.

  But Sofie would not let matters rest there. “Is it really too much to ask you to bring home the right gherkins?”

  She had finally begun to rile Friedrich and he raised his voice: “After a long working day can I not eat my dinner in peace?” But it was not Sofie’s way to let someone else have the last word. “Besides, you pinch every penny, as if we were poor people, but when I plead with you to pay for a special orthopedic treatment for Alice so that she might begin to grow properly, you refuse to give me the money.” Friedrich refused to let it ruin his composure: “Indeed, I said that I didn’t think it a bad thing that Alice remain small. And I will abide by that.” And to cap it all he argued that there had to be small women too, so that little men would have a chance to find wives.

  Now Paul joined in the argument: “Why does Alice have to marry a little man? What happens when a bigger man comes along?” And Mizzi topped this with some childish wisdom: “Little women with big men can have just as many children as big women with little men!” Their mother was not in a joking mood: “Paul and Mizzi—off to bed!”

  Friedrich left the dining room without another word.

  “Why don’t you just take him in your arms and give him a kiss? That would make everything right,” said Alice, at least managing to get her mother to smile again.

  However, as she grew older Sofie became more taciturn and increasingly kept her distance from her husband. There was certainly no question of divorce. With time Friedrich found a means to make the icy atmosphere bearable, but the family have drawn a veil over this, for decency’s sake. When his youngest children—Paul, Alice and Marianne—were old enough to enjoy excursions to the country, their father ordered a coach early every Sunday morning and together they drove to a funfair. The children loved these trips more than anything. Paul and Alice were allowed to sit next to the coachman and occasionally to take the reins. Mizzi sat in the carriage with her father. While the children roamed around the fair, Friedrich would order a beer and a brace of bratwurst. Although the waitress was much younger than Friedrich she was attracted to the good-looking and friendly fifty-five-year-old. He was quite an imposing figure and he looked exceptionally dandy in his Sunday coat.

  The children did not bother much about the warm-hearted way their father greeted the waitress or the fact that she came over to chat with him whenever she had a free moment, or that once he gave her a particularly generous tip or that on greeting or parting their hands were in contact for decidedly too long. They did, however, notice that every Sunday evening after dinner their father went out again, but they never asked where he was going. Sofie, on the other hand, knew soon enough where her husband was heading, but instead of getting angry, she was relieved.

  TWO

  Roots

  “There is still the Seder night to come”

  FROM THEIR earliest childhood, Alice and Mizzi were greatly attached to their grandmother. She looked distinguished, aristocratic even, in her black mourning clothes and floor-length dress and her blouse buttoned right up to the top. She wore a borderless bonnet, which was fastened under her chin, and laced-up boots. Despite her looks she was not a bit strict with the twins; not a bit of it. And she was charmingly idolized by them both: “Why don’t you marry the emperor?” Mizzi asked her once. “You are really so lovely.”

  Almost every day, at around half past three in the afternoon, the two girls walked up one flight of stairs to their grandmother’s flat. You reached the living room through the kitchen with its window onto the stairs. This was also the route to the small en-suite bedroom. It was a typical Bassena dwelling, with a lavatory and a sink in the corridor. It was simple, but it bore the noble stamp of their grandmother. As Alice remembers her, the old lady sat in a leather armchair surrounded by books, with her sewing or an open book in her lap and a smile on her face to greet the children. There were books on the desk, a delicate Biedermeier secretary of carefully polished cherry wood, and books piled up on a side table. There were more books in the bookshelf, which seemed to conceal an endless number of secrets. She had brought it, together with the rest of her furniture, from Iglau after the death of her husband, in what appeared to have been the early nineties, when she moved in with her son-in-law.

  As the girls became older, they were able to appreciate the books she had. In the top three shelves in the bookcase their grandmother kept the German classics: Goethe, Schiller, and above all Lessing, whom she particularly enjoyed. On the bottom shelf there was a row of reference books next to several volumes on European history and a few cookbooks. The children were especially drawn to the second shelf with its books in Yiddish printed in a compellingly strange alphabet.

  Before the First World War more than eleven million people in central and eastern Europe spoke Yiddish. Yiddish had also been the everyday language of Ignatz and Fanny Schulz in Iglau, even if she had officially cited her mother tongue as German.

  After the girls learned of their Jewish roots, Mizzi and Alice (Mizzi more than Alice) used to enjoy it when their grandmother picked up a knitting needle or a pencil and drew the Hebrew letters from right to left, first in the air and then later on a piece of paper. The girls finally began to recognize simple Jewish words and even to write them, but it was even better when their grandmother read to them or told them stories.

  Fanny Schulz had a more enlightened attitude to her fellow man than her daughter Sofie. It was also unusual for someone of her age and time to be so interested in politics. Fanny “believed” in the imperial Habsburg house; that was the source of security. She read two newspapers each day and was happy to discuss politics with her son-in-law, and it turned out that these talks often took place in Yiddish. Friedrich Herz got on with his mother-in-law who was only slightly older than him and because their characters were compatible.

  Sofie Herz had little interest in politics. Her passion and her hunger for education were for classical music and books. She read a great deal, above all novels and short stories. Education was not a status symbol for her, but a means to achieve inner freedom; and finally a replacement for religion. However, she thought it right and proper that the twins should be educated by their grandmother as she believed that a general education was essential.

  * * *

  FRIDAY WAS a special day for Alice and Mizzi, and they looked forward to it all week. There was no sign of anything special taking place in their parents’ flat, but upstairs, however, their grandmother and her maid were preparing for the Sabbath.

  As the maid was also called Fanny, the twins jokingly referred to them as “Little Fanny” and “Big Fanny.” Social status required them to bestow the epithet “Little Fanny” on the maid, although she was quite big and fat. Every Friday she was busy all morning cleaning the flat. She did the dusting first, taking out every book and picking up every porcelain figure, then she scrubbed the floor before
cleaning the cooker and the dishes; then she polished the silver and changed the towels. “Big Fanny” took charge of the meal. She kneaded the dough for the Sabbath bread and plaited it. When this was done she took a bath—an elaborate business in which “Little Fanny” had to lend a hand. Finally, she put a white table cloth on the table and placed new candles in the Sabbath candelabra.

  In the afternoon there was a smell of bread on the stairs which was an indication to the children that it was nearly time to knock on their grandmother’s door. On Friday she always opened it herself. Her black clothes looked lovelier than ever, for they were made of velvet.

  Neither Alice nor Mizzi understood the real meaning of the Sabbath. Fanny Schulz led both girls solemnly past a table laid in celebration to her armchair and sat down. At her feet there were two large cushions and Alice and Mizzi sat on these as their grandmother told them one of "the old stories."

  “Please grandmother, an Iglau story, a new Iglau story,” cried Mizzi.

  “Yes, an Iglau story,” Alice joined in the chorus, “the Iglau stories are the best.”

  Their grandmother seemed to possess an inexhaustible repertoire of Iglau stories. Most of them began in the grandparents’ shop, which not only sold food and other things, but was also the place where the most recent tales and rumors in the town and its seventy-five outlying villages were exchanged. Around German-speaking Iglau, customs were more intensely observed than in the Czech areas, and all year round traditional celebrations took place, where the people wore their regional costumes, sang traditional songs and danced traditional dances. They liked to go to the theater or attend concerts and the program was astonishingly varied. As a garrison town, Iglau had its own military band, which played not only marches but also some of the best classical compositions.

  The story of the little boy who marched beside the military band in his nightshirt was one Alice remembered all her life. She listened reverently as her grandmother recalled the year—1863. Two streets away from the Schulzes’ grocery the Mahlers had been living for three years. Bernhard, the father, was really a baker, but he preferred tinkering around with his schnapps distillery, which he called his “factory,” even if only he and one worker were employed in it. He later received a license to sell wine, beer and schnapps and opened a pub in a room of his house.

  Bernhard was not like other people and he was considered unapproachable by outsiders. His sudden bursts of fury were generally directed at his wife and, in the town, people pitied her. Marie Mahler had a limp and was suffering from heart disease and because of her gentleness and patience she never opposed her husband. Their children had nothing to smile about either. In the distiller’s house no one sang or played an instrument, but it did not prevent the little boy’s mother noticing that music appeared to electrify her son: the light-hearted songs of apprentices; or the melancholy tunes of homesick soldiers; or wine-soaked tavern songs. On his third birthday his mother managed to give him a child’s accordion, and from that day on he played with it non-stop.

  One day when the lad was having his midday nap, the military band was marching through the town. As it neared the Mahler household the music became louder and the little boy leaped from his bed, grabbed his accordion and ran out into the street in his bare feet and nightshirt and toddled along behind the band. With a bright red face—or so the legend goes—he tried to keep in step but every few paces he found he couldn’t keep up. Amused by the sight of the little boy, more and more people of Iglau joined the procession.

  The band marched through the town to the parade ground. It was only there that the boy realized that both the place and the people were all strange to him. One person teased him: “Little Gustav, if you can play the march back to us from memory on your accordion we will take you back to your home.” The lad did not need to be told twice. He took courage and began to march and play at the same time with the people marching behind him. He played the music almost faultlessly. “It was almost impossible to believe,” concluded their grandmother, “the little boy could repeat almost any melody he heard.”

  “March music on an accordion!” Mizzi was impressed. “Come on, Alice, let’s play Gustavchen [Little Gustav].” She ran to the kitchen and came back with a table spoon and a saucepan. “Soldiers go to war and must play march music, soldiers go to war and must play march music.” Mizzi sang and marched around the room.

  Although she was spontaneous by nature, Alice remained sitting pensively on her cushion. “Grandmother,” she whispered, “what became of Little Gustav?”

  “Little Gustav became Gustav Mahler, one of the most important conductors and composers of our time. At ten he gave his first concert in the town theater in Iglau. But your mother could have told that story much better. She was only seven years younger than Gustav and knew him well. She still has a high opinion of him. She saw him conduct a few years ago in Prague, when he performed his first symphony at the German Theater. She even went to Vienna once in order to hear him conduct the first performance of his second symphony.” Their grandmother said: “So now come to the table.”

  Fanny Schulz lit the two Sabbath candles, then took one of the plaited loaves and broke off a bit for herself and two more pieces for her granddaughters. Then she mumbled what were for the children a few unintelligible but pleasantly familiar sounding words.

  “And when I can play back any melody from memory on the piano,” asked Alice with her mouth full, “will I also be a musician?”

  “When you can do that,” her grandmother said gently, “then you will most certainly be a musician.”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, as calm had long since returned to the household, Alice lay awake in bed talking to herself. For a while now, she had been going to the piano to find notes that when played together sounded pleasantly harmonious. She had found some joyful, bright sounding chords and some sad and dark ones; but she had never tried to play a march.

  “I wonder if a military band were to come past the house, I could play the march?” she muttered. “What nonsense. It is already far too late, where should … but it doesn’t have to be a march, I could play a song.”

  She sat up and tried to play her favorite song on the side of the bed: “Were I a little bird, and also had two wings, I’d fly to you…” It was as if she could hear the melody. “Because it cannot be, because it cannot be, I will stay right here.” As soon as she had finished her song she leaped in raptures from her bed.

  “Now I am going to try!”

  The floorboards creaked softly as Alice crept past her parents’ bedroom in the direction of the drawing room. She quietly closed the door behind her and sat down at the piano. Moonlight lit up the keyboard. Her father always turned the gaslamps off when he made his nightly tour of the flat. The children were not allowed to touch them.

  Alice carefully pressed the keys: “Were I a little bird…”

  It sounded lovely.

  On her second attempt she improvised a second part with her left hand, then she played the two parts together. She went back to bed in ecstasy: “I am going to be a musician,” she promised herself. “Yes, that is what I am going to be, so long as I am called Alice Herz!” Then she fell happily asleep.

  Early the next morning (her stamina was then one of her fortes), after she had returned from the baker’s, Alice sat down at the piano and repeated the night-time exercise. The first and second parts harmonized even better, and her mother came rushing out of the kitchen.

  “Splendid, Alice, really splendid,” she said and patted her daughter on the head. “And can you imagine this, last night I heard this song so clearly in my dream that I was woken by it.” Alice smiled. “Now come quickly,” her mother commanded in an unusually tender voice: “Little Mizzi is ready and waiting. School is about to start.”

  For a few months Alice and Marianne, now seven years old, had been attending the first class of the German-speaking girls’ elementary school. They went to the Altstädter Volks- und Bürgerschule (Old To
wn National and Citizens’ School). Every day Alice and Mizzi had an approximately thirty-five-minute walk to school. This meant walking from Bělsky Street down to the Moldau, over the Franz-Joseph Bridge, and along Elisabeth Street.

  To cross the bridge they had to pay the toll, a Kreuzer for each child. For this reason every morning both children had to go into the office and ask their father for two coins, for he alone had access to the housekeeping. Friedrich Herz had already been working for more than an hour and sometimes his affairs led him to the furthest corners of the factory and he didn’t want to be disturbed in what he was doing. Either Alice or Mizzi had to remind him that without the money they could not go to school. Each one had their own way of doing this: Mizzi was flirtatious, Alice stubborn. It often made them late and they had to run to the bridge. The bridge-keeper was waiting for them: “Here they come—the red bonnets,” he joked, even sometimes when they weren’t wearing their red caps.

  That afternoon Alice could not be taken away from the piano. She kept trying out new songs and variations. When she thought of a second part-line, she would sing it first, and then she played it out on the piano.

  Before dinner she gave her first little concert. The audience was composed of Mizzi, Paul, Irma and their mother, a friendly neighbor and even her father—who had, at his wife’s request, left the office early. Alice did her best with three children’s songs.

  The guests praised her to the skies, and for the first time Alice experienced what it was like to be the center of attention. When the applause died down, Mizzi wanted to perform her own show: “I can sing the songs too.”

  Her mother suggested: “Why don’t you do it together.”

  Alice and Mizzi stood together at the window in the evening light and gave their rendition of “Were I a little bird…”

  After a few bars Alice began to improvise the second part. The twins sang a duet, one a soprano, the other an alto. Their mother could hardly believe how musical her little ones were.