Mozart's Sister

by Nancy Moser

  “Poor Captain d’Ippold. But since you speak of sabers and scars … have you been in battle? Are you going to battle?”

  “I have not, and hope I never need to.” He ran his hand down the row of buttons on the front of his uniform. “I usually do not dress like this, but later today I have a meeting with my unit.”

  “So what do you do day to day?”

  He grinned. “Think about meeting a beautiful lady like yourself.”

  It was too blatant a ploy for me to even blush. I rolled my eyes. “Has such an answer worked in the past?”

  He blushed-then ignored my most recent question and answered the original query. “I am the director of the Virgilianum. I live in a wing of Holy Trinity when I am not teaching the boys.”

  “Holy Trinity is in our square,” I said. “We are practically neighbors.”

  “I know” He sipped his coffee.

  I thought of the unspoken implications.

  “You go to mass every morning, you walk your dog multiple times a day, and I hear lovely music coming from the windows of your home-day and night.”

  I was pleased. “You have the advantage, Captain.”

  He winked above his coffee cup. “As intended, Fraulein Mozart. As intended.”

  Getting ready for bed that night, I took pause at the mirror and found myself smiling. And present with the smile was a look of youthfulness. I was not old yet. Nor done. The world had revealed new promise.

  And his name was Captain Franz d’Ippold.

  I hated being the bearer of bad tidings.

  Papa looked up from his work, his eyes expectant.

  “No,” I Said. “No mail.”

  Papa slammed his hand on the table, making the inkwell surrender some of its contents. “Why can’t that boy write? How can I give him advice if I don’t hear from him?”

  “It’s hard to give advice anyway, Papa. The mail to Mannheim is so slow-six days. By the time a letter gets here and you respond to it-”

  He pushed away from the table and began to pace. “Last we heard he’d only been paid with a gold watch instead of cash. And his offer to write a German opera to break through Europe’s insipid fascination with all things Italian caused interest but no real commission. I could have pushed it through. I know it.”

  “But there’s the Kapellmeister position opening up there,” I said. “The man is old and Wolfie was hoping-”

  “Apparently the Kapellmeister is not doing the polite thing by dying so Wolfgang can take his place. And then there’s your brother’s habit of leaving your mother in her room while he goes gallivanting about town.” Papa pointed a finger at me. “It’s not healthy for her. If she gets sick …” He shook his head and I filled in the rest of the threat on my own.

  So much rode on the shoulders of my little brother. I wasn’t sure they were strong enough. And though I was always Wolfie’s advocate, he was testing even my patience. His handling of money, for instance. Papa had arranged for letters of credit to be available in Munich and Augsburg. When Mama and Wolfie moved on to Mannheim, Wolfie should have thought ahead to the money he would need there and arranged with our contact in Augsburg to have the letter transferred. But in Augsburg they’d had enough money, so Wolfie hadn’t thought of it until it was too late and they were in dire need. Papa had been forced to step in, but with the slow mail …

  Wolfie’s flippant attitude was also a concern. He made a joke of every situation, as if his pockets were lined with gold and all he had to do to get his way was play a few notes on a keyboard. I’d seen a change in my brother I didn’t like. Where he used to affect some level of humility, now, on his own and away from Papa, he was getting as cocky as a rooster strutting his colors. They seem to think that because of my small size and youth I possess no importance or maturity. They will soon learn. Though I wasn’t sure if people reacted badly to his attitude or simply because they did not know him, Wolfie seemed to believe Genius was stamped on his brow.

  Of all people, we believed in his talent, but the rest of the world had their own concerns. England was at war with America, which had declared its independence; a future czar had just been born to the Russian Czarina Catherine II; Spain and Portugal were having issues about their colonies in South America; and the daughter of our beloved Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette-who’d been called Marie Antonie when she was just a young archduchess who’d helped my brother up when he tripped after playing at Schonbrunn-was the reigning queen of France, having married the man who became Louis XVI. The world was a busy place. So in spite of what my brother would have liked to believe, he was not the center of the universe.

  Papa continued his ranting. “I owe three hundred florins to Bul finger, two hundred to Weiser, forty to Kerschbaumer, some more to Hagenauer, and another hundred and fifty to the lenders on the road. Plus, we have bills of our own to be paid” He stopped in front of me, his hand to his chest. “Good God! Solely on his account I am in debt, and he thinks he can coax me into good humor with a hundred stupid jokes? I owe over a year’s salary! Doesn’t your brother realize that? Doesn’t he care?”

  I moved to calm him, but he stepped away from my reach. “He’s trying, Papa. It’s just that he’s never had to deal with practical issues before, and-”

  “Which proves I was right in not wanting him to travel alone.”

  Or ii ifli inc. “But Mama’s with him….”

  “And she should know how to handle these details. After all, while Wolfgang and I were gone, she handled the business side of life here just fine.”

  With my help she may have handled it, but she had not enjoyed it. Too many times I’d found Mama anxious about such issues.

  There was a knock on the door. I moved to answer it, leaving Papa to mumble further complaints without me. But when I found that our visitor was the postman, I ran back to Papa, waving the letter. “News! We have news!”

  Papa grabbed it away and started to read. But then he scanned the pages faster and faster, his head shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He tossed the letter at me and the pages floated to the floor. “Your brother sends greetings to all his friends in Salzburg—listing one for each letter of the alphabet. Useless! He’s useless.”

  I retrieved the pages and saw the evidence for myself. How I wished I would have read the letter first and kept it from Papa’s eyes. No letter was better than a frivolous one. Yet near the end I noted something that was of interest. “Wolfie says he and Mama have moved into rooms at the elector’s residence, where he is giving lessons. Mama is happy because she is included for all meals and has companionship throughout the day.”

  Papa stood still, his breath going in, then out. “At least there is soave income.

  “At least there is free lodging,” I added.

  With a flip of his hand, he asked for the letter back. I pointed to where I had left off. After reading, he offered an exaggerated sigh. “Wolfie has been told he is getting a two-hundred-florin commission for a flute quartet. He also states that he and three other musicians are planning to go to Paris before Lent”

  “See, Papa? Surely shared expenses will be reduced expenses. All is going well.”

  “Better. It’s going better, not well.” He folded the letter and put it on the desk. “I don’t suppose your brother has received an advance on the conmiission. I don’t suppose he’s thought to ask for that.”

  Probably not. “But Paris … I never dreamed he would have to go so far.”

  “It’s too far for your mother. When Wolfgang leaves for Paris, we will arrange to have Mama come home”

  I touched his arm. “Do you miss her, Papa?”

  His eyes met mine for but a second. “It’s the prudent thing to do.” He sat back at his desk. “Now go. Practice. Your improvement is evident, but it must continue. Two hours a day, Nannerl. At least

  two hours a day.”

  I took my leave and did as I was told. At least one of us could please Papa.

  A
nother month passed. Papa and I endured Christmas alone as Mania and I had done multiple times. We’d had so many holidays apart from one another. Yet in a way, the Christmas of 1777 was easier to tolerate because Papa and I both knew that Manua would be coming home in the spring. We both missed her for our own reasons. I, because she was my mother but also because I was more than ready to let her share some of the housekeeping duties. Papa wanted Mania back for other reasons-and I wasn’t sure if any of them were directly related to love. Yes, he loved her, but Papa needed her for more than that. In the months since she’d left, I’d seen a deterioration in his entire being.

  It didn’t help that some of his friends had died. The main organ ist at the cathedral, Aldgasser-a mere forty-eight years old-had suffered a seizure while playing the organ during Vespers. I’d been there that day listening to the concert when I’d heard the organ part falter. At first, Papa and I thought the man was drunk, as was his occasional habit, but when the music decayed even more and began to sound as though a dog were running over the organ, we ran to the box and found him trying to play the psalm melodies with his right hand, while his left was clenched in a fist. Papa lifted his left hand out of the way, and a tenor, Spitzeder, played the bass line while Aldgasser continued to play with his right hand.

  Aldgasser’s eyes rolled back, he vomited, and it was quite horrible, because in his cramped quarters above the nave we could barely move to help him. The service somehow managed to go on, and we got him home. But he died the next day.

  With Aldgasser’s death, and the death of a few other friends, Papa was never the same. It was as if his own mortality had come calling, and he realized the futility of fighting it. Added to that was the stress about what Wolfie was doing (or not doing) and his concern for Mama’s well-being. Mama had written about not feeling well, asking for more of the black powder we usually used for fever, and Papa had reminded her of the importance of being bled. These worries caused my father to become an old man who simply wanted his wife close for comfort. He continued to fall into times of deep melancholy, and it took all my energy to pull him out of it.

  And then, just eight days after Aldgasser’s death, the elector of Bavaria, Maximilian III Joseph, died in Mannheim. The man in whose house Wolfie and Mama had been staying, the man for whom Wolfie and I had played at the Nymphenburg Palace a lifetime ago, the man whose children Wolfie had been teaching, the man whom Wolfie had been trying to woo into offering him a position, was gone. Without an heir. Within hours his successor was announced-his cousin, the elector palatine, Karl Theodor-thus uniting two branches of the family that had been separate for centuries. Yet this choice was not looked upon with complete joy. The new elector was not friendly with the old elector’s people, and he added insult by closing up the court in Mannheim and moving it to Munich. So instead of having two courts that had musical positions available, now there was one. What were we going to do?

  There were, of course, repercussions beyond our family. The threat of war loomed large over all of Germany because the emperor (being German in descent) had always been rather annoyed at the independent Munich in Bavaria and now saw an opening to move in. He promised the new elector, Karl Theodor, that if he agreed to bow to his control, the emperor would make all of Karl Theodor’s children legitimate heirs of the larger empire. To our surprise, Karl agreed. But then King Frederick of Prussia decided Bavaria would look nice on his plate too, and he came in pretending he was the champion of the Bavarian people and would fight for their independence. It was very confusing, and we all wished everything could go back to the way it had been.

  Especially since my new beau, Captain d’Ippold-for he had become my beau, even though we’d kept it discreet so Papa wouldn’t know-was appointed the court war counselor by the archbishop. Although Salzburg was independent and not directly involved, being on the edge of the conflict, with soldiers at the borders of its neighbors, meant there was tension. Soldiers were seen in the streets more often, and the anxiety of all-out war added to the distress of having our loved ones gone. Mama was worried that she’d never be able to find a safe passage back to Salzburg. Surely she would die of fright if she came upon soldiers on the road.

  Yet in spite of everything, we were determined Mama would come home soonas soon as Wolfie left for Paris with his music partners.

  But it was not to be-and it had nothing to do with the wrangling of kings and emperors. Suddenly, without warning, we started getting letters from Wolfie decrying the morals of the very partners he had previously commended to us, indicating he would not enter into any job opportunities with them. Surely, Papa would not want him to be involved with such people.

  It did not make sense. How could he be so completely enmeshed and enraptured with these three men, writing glowing accounts of their character, talent, and hopes for a future in Paris, and next call them unfit to be his friends and totally without religion?

  Then Wolfie’s letters changed from woe at losing three friends to glee at gaining others: the Weber family. To my astonishmentand Papa’s horror-Wolfie stated he was in love with Aloysia Weber, an opera singer with four siblings. My brother’s plan to find himself a position to support our family suddenly expanded into a grand scheme with himself as Aloysia’s manager, seeking out venues throughout Europe for her voice based on the Mozart name so he could help support the Webers! He wanted to take her to Holland or Switzerland-and stop by in Salzburg so we could meet her.

  He was totally smitten. And totally off task. We worried he was spending money on her-and on her family-that he should have been spending on our own concerns. And on Mama.

  Unfortunately, there was little insight to the situation via Mama’s notes, which were added at the end of Wolfie’s letters. Her words seemed guarded, as if Wolfie was her censor, her literary captor. This had been illustrated to its fullest extent the previous day in the latest notation we received in her hand: In greatest secrecy and haste while he is at table so that I am not caught … in a word, he prefers being with others to being with me. I take exception to one and another thing not to my taste, and that annoys him. This family has bewitched him. For such a person he is ready to give his life and all he holds dear. You yourself must ponder what is to be done.

  Papa exploded when he read that and went into Wolfie’s room and tore through it, upsetting the bed, pulling out the old clothes, tossing them every which way. If Wolfie would have been in his presence, there might have been bruises. Before this time Papa had not been a violent person. But Wolfie was pushing him beyond his limits.

  And I understood all of it. If it would have helped matters, I would have joined Papa in his tirade.

  The next morning I found Papa packing. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To Mannheim. To retrieve your mother. To save her from our ungrateful son. To salvage something from this horrid situation.”

  I put a calming hand on his arm. “But, Papa, you can’t leave. The archbishop’s concert is tomorrow …”

  He stopped all movement, staring at the satchel on the bed. There was no sound at all, as if he too had stopped breathing-for I certainly had.

  Then he turned his head and looked at me. “I can’t leave. I can’t save her.”

  His face was so drawn, so lined with the stress of the past few months. “She can still come home, Papa. Even if Wolfie doesn’t go to Paris, even if he marries this-”

  “Marries? He can’t marry. He has God’s work to do!” Papa tossed the shirt on the bed. “He’s too hotheaded and rash. Somehow I have to save him from himself.” He touched the shirt with the tip of his fingers. “The greatest reserve and highest acumen are needed with women. Nature herself is the enemy, and a man who does not call upon his entire and keenest judgment will have to extricate himself from a labyrinth, a misfortune that often ends in death.”

  “Death?”

  Papa looked directly at me. “Disease, dear girl. He’s playing with fire. He’s already given this girl his heart and his common sense. I
f he hasn’t already, he’ll give her … more. And then all will be lost.”

  Suddenly everything became clear. I knew my brother. I knew how easily-and totally-he could let his entire self become consumed, especially by someone who offered him the love and adoration he craved as much as air. Getting involved with this Aloysia, traveling about Europe for her sake instead of his own … our own. And now with Papa so incensed with my brother’s love life, there would be little hope he would be open to my own.

  “Don’t cry, girl. We will find a way”

  I hadn’t realized I was crying and wiped the tears away. Who was I crying for? Wolfie? Papa? Mama? Or myself?

  The packing forgotten, Papa strode toward the door. “Tears benefit no one. Action must be taken; your brother must be stopped. The Mozart name is at stake. If you’ll excuse me, I have a letter to write. Wolfgang must complete the task and find his destiny. He wanted to go to Paris? He will go to Paris-and your mother will go with him as his chaperone. We will get him away from this siren of a woman, one way or the other.”

  I sank onto the bed exhausted. What horrible irony that the person with whom we’d planted our hopes seemed oblivious to all but himself.

  My life became consumed with the sagas of Mania and Wolfie’s moving on to Paris and getting settled, of dealing with Papa’s tirades against the inadequacies of Wolfie’s life choices, and his ranting against how little the two travelers wrote, as well as their method (they often didn’t answer questions he’d asked in his letters). In addition, Papa reviled the way the post often brought letters out of order.

  Yet in spite of all this, I did have joy in my life.

  Franz. I enjoyed his company immensely, and could actually thank the distraction of Wolfie’s misbehavior for keeping Papa occupied.

  Not that I misbehaved. It was not my nature. But with Papa’s attention consumed elsewhere, I attained a certain freedom to see Franz-to take walks in the Mirabel Gardens, include him in our shooting forays, and even invite him to our musical evenings.