Mozart's Sister

by Nancy Moser

  Papa stormed in the door, shaking a piece of paper. In the past few months, his emotional entrances were becoming far too familiar. “Anna! Children!”

  We gathered round as we always did, and Wolfie squeezed my hand. “Is it from?”

  “Yes, it’s from …” Papa said. “You can bet your knickers it’s from …” He raised the letter and read, “Father and son have permission to seek their fortune elsewhere-according to the Gospel.”

  I didn’t know which part of the declaration to react to first: m y father and brother’s dismissal, or the fact His Grace had flung the Gospel back at them.

  “You’re dismissed?” Mama asked. Her voice was small.

  “I’m dismissed! We’re both dismissed!” He looked at the letter again, smacking it with the back of his fingers. “But the way he’s said it … so smug, so arrogant. We can seek our fortune elsewhere …” Suddenly Papa wadded up the page and threw it across the room, where it bounced off a windowpane. “Pack our bags!” he said. “Since he wants us to leave, that’s exactly what we’re going to do”

  Mania stepped toward him, her hands grappling. “But, Leopold. You can’t. You can’t leave us without income.”

  He stopped in the hall leading to the bedchambers, which allowed her to catch up to him. Touch him. Yet now, with her husband within reach, Mama withdrew her hands.

  “I can’t leave,” he said simply.

  He looked at Mama, then at me, and I hated the pain in his eyes. We were a burden on his back, holding him down, preventing him from flying free. I’d wanted my own freedom, but at this moment, for the first time, I realized Papa wasn’t free either. In fact, perhaps he was the most imprisoned of us all.

  Wolfie was the one to break the moment. “I can go alone, Papa. I can. I know I can.”

  Papa looked toward him, but I could tell his eyes were full of other sights, other thoughts beyond this slice of time. He changed direction and strode to the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Mama asked.

  “To grovel,” he said.

  He left us alone in an aching silence.

  Mama took our hands. “We must pray, children. Pray for your Papa, pray for us all.”

  In gracious confidence that the petitioner will conduct himself calmly and peaceably with the Kapellmeister and other persons appointed to the court orchestra, His Grace retains him in his employment and graciously commands him to endeavor to render good service both to the Church and to His Grace’s person.

  So wrote the archbishop. So ended Papa’s hope of ever being free. Yes, he had his job back-but with the contingency he behave himself. It was a humiliation. It was an affront. It was a blessing.

  It was not just Papa’s life that changed with the letter. The world as I knew it stopped. I didn’t much care whether the world was flat, round, or shaped like a snuff box when Papa declared that Wolfie and Mama were going to travel in search of a position, leaving me behind with him. Such a scenario had never entered my thoughts.

  The idea filled me with excitement and trepidation. Over the past few years, Papa hadn’t shown much interest in me. Wolfie had been his focus. His life. I was just his daughter. He loved me, I knew he did, but I was not special to him. I didn’t make his ambitions and creativity soar like Wolfie did. Wolfie stirred something deep inside him, touching an unreachable place. But with Wolfie gone, with Mama gone with him … would Papa see me differently? Would he let me in? Or would we live separate lives, together, yet apart?

  Mama walked past me, carrying linens into their bedchamber. Her brow was drawn. I hurried after her, taking some of her load. “Are you excited, Mama?” I asked. “You get to go.” There was much implied in that one word.

  She faced me, the linens a barrier. “I have to go.”

  I didn’t understand. “You don’t want to?”

  “Your father and brother are the travelers.”

  “As am I,” I said. “I love to travel.”

  She raised her chin. “But I do not.” Her eyes scanned the bedchamber. “I like it here.”

  “I agree this house is lovely. It’s so much better than the last-”

  She shook her head. “I liked it there too. The house is not the home in my heart, Nannerl. Salzburg is. I know here.”

  “But Wolfie will be with you.”

  She gave me the look I deserved. “I am going along to help him, not the reverse. I will have to handle all the arrangements your father managed in the past. I will have to deal with the constant packing and unpacking, I will have to cope with the different monies, plus curtail your brother and his undisciplined ways.” She shook her head. “Your father has indulged him. It is not to my advantage. Nor his”

  I knew this to be true. Although Wolfie lived with great responsibility and pressure in regard to his music, he had not been held accountable for daily tasks. To my brother, food magically appeared without cost or effort, living quarters cleaned themselves, and carriages emerged at just the right moment to whisk him away. In this, I was as culpable as my parents. I’d always doted on him, and somehow he’d made me feel it was worth it.

  While he’d been away with Papa there was little need for Mama or me to worry about such logistics. In Papa’s presence, the worldwhether it be Milan, Paris, or Rome-was suitably controlled. Curtailed. Cushioned for the rest of us. But without that cushion …

  “I have to go now, Nannerl. I have much to do.”

  Mama went into the bedchamber and I hesitated to go after her. In the many months and even years we’d been left behind, we’d come to recognize each other’s moods and knew when space was required. As it was now

  Wolfie popped his head out of his bedchamber. “Psst!” He motioned me inside and closed the door.

  “I can’t have Mama go! I won’t allow it!”

  I was taken aback. His juvenile declaration proved he was not capable of going alone. “Allow, Wolfie? You won’t allow it?”

  He sat on his bed and fell backward, his arms wide. “I know, I know What I want is not considered.” He pushed himself up to his elbows. “That’s the problem. What am I going to do, Nan? I don’t want to be saddled with Mama for months and months.”

  I felt my eyebrows rise. “Saddled?”

  He slid off the bed, moved to his wardrobe, and began plucking out shirts and breeches, discarding them on the floor. “Don’t act all huffy. If I can’t be honest with you …”

  I retrieved a pair of silver blue breeches and folded them. “Why do you say that about her?”

  He wrapped a neck scarf around his hand, over and over, staring past me. “She’s so … dull. She isn’t bold like Papa or vibrant like you. She’s just there, like a table or a pretty settee” He cocked his head. “In fact, forget the pretty part.”

  I grabbed the scarf away from him. “That was rude!”

  “So be it. I have absolutely nothing to say to Mama. Nothing.”

  “But she’s your mother.”

  He shrugged. “I know the woman who collects the refuse from the cistern better than I know her.”

  Although I was appalled by his coldness, inwardly, I knew it might be true. Mama was not demonstrative nor outgoing (or pretty). Even when we had company, she was content to serve the food and let the others fill the evening with lively chatter and jokes. And though I knew her well, Wolfie had been away for most of his growing -up years….

  I could not imagine their trip being filled with lively chatter. Pairing the two of them would be like pairing a swan with a squirrel. The impression intensified as I imagined them in a cramped carriage, the swan sitting erect and regal, while the squirrel chattered and scattered, never able to be still.

  It would never work.

  Wolfie took the scarf back and tossed it on the bed. “I wish you could come with me, Nan. We’d have such a grand time.” He took my hands in his and danced me around the room. “The two Wunderkinder, off to conquer the world!”

  I pulled my hands away, stopping the dance-but not because I didn�
��t enjoy it. The shock of Wolfie’s suggestion forced me to concentrate on the thoughts swirling in my head. Me? Go with Wolfie?

  He smirked at me. “You like the idea, don’t you?”

  I put a hand to my chest, trying to calm its beating. “I do.” I laughed. “I really do! I never thought of such a thing. Why didn’t I think of such a thing?”

  “Because you’re the good child, the obedient child who always does as she’s told, and once Papa said Mama was-”

  “Yes, yes. That’s it.” And it was. I was so used to being left behind that I’d never truly believed there was an alternative.

  Wolfie took my hand and pulled me out of the room. “Let’s go tell Papa”

  I pulled him to a stop. “We don’t tell Papa anything. We ask.”

  He flicked the end of my nose. “We ask with confidence, with force if necessary. This is the best way, Nan. We both know it.”

  We knew it. But could we convince Papa?

  Papa was in the music room, going through scores. He looked up as we entered and spoke to Wolfie. “You’ll need to get copies made along the way, as needed. It would be much too bulky to bring all of them… ” He stopped talking and looked at each of us in turn. “What’s going on?”

  Wolfie bounced on his toes. “I want Nannerl to go with me on the trip.”

  Inwardly, I cringed. I would not have stated it so plainly.

  Papa looked directly at me. “Surely, this is not your idea, daughter?”

  “No, but I think it’s a good one.” I looked to Wolfie for support. “We could be the Wunderkinder again-performing, making money to pay our way, and-” I saw Mama come in the room.

  Papa pointed in her direction. “Maria, the children have informed me they want to travel together.”

  “Leaving me here?” There was a hint of hope in her voice.

  “Exactly. It’s an absurd idea. Two children-”

  “I’m twenty-six, Papa,” I said.

  Wolfie hopped beside me. “And I’m twenty-one. We’re plenty old to-”

  To get into trouble.”

  “We wouldn’t, Papa,” I said. “I’d make sure”

  Papa took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “Ali, youth. You are not your brother’s parent, Nannerl. You do not have the authority needed to keep him in line.”

  Wolfie put his hands on his hips. “I don’t need a nanny. I’m a grown man.

  Papa snickered. “Neither one of you has ever handled moneymuch less carefully budgeted money. And where do you hire honest coachmen? And what is a reasonable price for a room? And what if one of you gets sick?” He turned to his wife. “Mama and I are the ones who know the remedies, who know what to ask a doctor and why.”

  I looked to Mama, wishing she’d say something. But she just stood there, her eyes down, her hands busy with the edge of her lace neckerchief.

  I took a breath and let the truth spill forth. “Mama doesn’t want to go either.”

  While Mama looked aghast that I’d betrayed this confidence, Wolfie pounced. “See? Mama wants to stay here with you. The two of you could have a lovely time of it without your grown children in the way, and-”

  Papa cleared his throat. “No. In lieu of myself, your mother must be the one to go. Her maturity and business knowledge will be to our advantage.”

  I knew Papa was referring to the various business instructions he’d sent to Mama while he and Wolfie had been gone, instructions about getting music copied, obtaining good prices on loans, of distributing Papa’s book on violin technique….

  What he didn’t know was that I had been the one to make sure most of his instructions were carried out. Mama said they gave her a headache. We’d both agreed not to let Papa know that it was I carrying out his orders, but now, when the truth would have been to my advantage … to break that confidence along with the other … I wasn’t sure I could do it. Mama looked so forlorn, and there was no way I could tell whether her distress was caused by having Papa know she’d rather stay home, or the fact that he still seemed adamant in making her go.

  Papa put his arm around his wife, offering her a smile. “Your mother and I are used to being apart. And you children are everything to us. We will make every sacrifice necessary to ensure you receive only the best life has to offer. Right, Anna?”

  Her eyebrows touched, then parted. He squeezed her shoulders, forcing an answer. “Yes, dear one,” she finally said. “You know best.”

  “Of course I do. So there will be no more talk of two youngsters venturing out into the world. Discipline and maturity. That’s what is needed on such excursions. Not frivolity and youthful notions.”

  “But, Papa. Nan and I-”

  “Will do as I say.” He pointed at each of us.

  And that was that.

  As if by mutual decision, the four of us kept our distance that evening and went to bed without the usual banter. It took me a long time to get to sleep as the thoughts and images of what might have been refused to retire peaceably.

  If only Wolfie hadn’t reawakened them in the first place….

  The evening before Mama and Wolfie were to leave, Papa called a meeting around the kitchen table, his instructions laid before us. He smoothed a map of Germany and pointed to Munich. “See here? First you go to Munich. If you get offered a position there, your trip is short and you return to us triumphant.”

  “If not?” Wolfie asked.

  “Then you head toward Mannheim.” His finger traced a route. “You go through Augsburg, Dischingen-where Prince Carl Anselm is staying-stop at the Cistercian Abbey of Kaisheim, then on to Wallerstein or Hohen-Altheim. You’ll have to find out at which location Prince Kraft Ernst is staying….”

  On and on Papa talked, giving distinct directions on where to go, how to get there, when, and whom to see. That last was the most important ingredient. This trip was all about making contacts, providing those contacts with music that suited their needs (making Wolfie appear indispensable), and then obtaining a paid position-a highly paid position that would help support us all. A position of honor too. For Papa had stressed how important it was that the archbishop be made to feel intense regret at Wolfie’s absence.

  Finally Papa sat back. “Well? Do you understand?”

  Mama stared at the maps. “I think so.”

  Wolfie slapped the table. “It will be glorious! We will take Germany by storm.”

  “No storms. You will take the journey one step at a time,” Papa said. “One carefully planned step.”

  Wolfie sprang from his chair. “I want to go now. I don’t want to wait until tomorrow”

  Papa shook his head. “There is still much to do.” He suffered a fit of coughing. He had a chest cold and shouldn’t have been out of bed.

  Mama carefully folded the maps and instructions, looking at them as if they were in Greek. She spoke to Wolfie. “Did you get your music packed? And your violin?”

  “I’m not bringing my violin. I hate the violin. I don’t want to be one of many; I want to be one of a kind.”

  Papa’s coughing grew worse, so he left the room. Yet something about the way his shoulders slumped made me follow him. I caught up with him in the dark, standing at a front window, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. He barely glanced at me when I moved beside him.

  “It will be all right, Papa. They will be all right.”

  He shook his head slowly, his eyes gazing over the square below “This journey is going to be disastrous. I know it. I feel it.”

  The serious tone of his voice scared me. “No, Papa. It will be-” His cough began again, wracking his entire torso. “You must get to bed. They’re leaving at six in the morning. You need to rest and be well to see them off.”

  He shucked my hands away. “I have packing to do.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “No, this I can do. This I must do.”

  His footsteps fell away, leaving me in silence except for the clop of a horse’s hooves against the cobblestones outside.


  I’d expected a teary good-bye, but as Mama and Wolfie’s departure played out, there wasn’t time. The carriage was late, Wolfie had trot gone through the music as he’d been instructed, Mania couldn’t find her extra embroidery needles, and Wolfie tore the seam in his sleeve, and I had to mend it while the horses grew restless outside.

  Papa yelled instructions at the coachmen, telling them which trunks needed to go where, coughing and wheezing through his words. He’d stayed up until two in the morning packing, and I was fairly sure he hadn’t slept well in the few hours since then.

  I hadn’t. Although I wasn’t going away, my nand swam with lists-so much so that, in the middle of the night, I brought a piece of paper and quill to my bedside. By morning, the paper was full. But even my list didn’t stave off the chaos. I’m sure we woke everyone on the entire square with our calls to one another for this and that.

  But finally the carriage was packed, and with a quick hug and a kiss, we sent them on their wayas if they were only going across town and not across steep mountain passes.

  As the carriage turned the corner by the river, Papa suddenly left my side and ran after it with one arm raised. “Wait!” There was a plaintiveness in his voice that tore at my heart.

  He stopped a few houses away, consumed by a fit of coughing. His upraised hand, which had been open, closed, then fell to his side. By the time I reached him, the coughing had subsided, but his shoulders were slumped. His eyes were locked on the road where they had gone.

  This was not like Papa to show his emotions so blatantly. Of all people, Papa had the ability to be calm in the midst of whatever feelings claimed his heart.

  Gingerly, I touched his shoulder. “Papa?”

  “I should never have let them go.”

  “You had no choice.”

  He shook his head. “This will not end well. Will not. Will not.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, he did an about-face and strode toward the house, ignoring the neighbors watching in the square. I hurried after him, nodding a greeting to friends, offering a smile that hopefully implied everything was all right.