by Nancy Moser
“What is it?” I asked.
Johann looked at the letter, then at me. “A message from the archbishop. News from Vienna. And … and …”
Vienna? An inner fist grabbed my heart and squeezed. I shook my head against my biggest fear.
Johann let his arm drop, nodded, and looked directly at me. “Your brother is dead.”
An odd laugh escaped. “No, don’t be silly. He can’t be dead. He’s only thirty-five.”
“He can be. He is dead. And buried. Yesterday, at St. Marx.”
Buried already? My mind moved from denial to acceptance. “What did he die of?”
He presented the letter again. “This doesn’t say, but the courier heard a rumor that in your brother’s final days he ranted about poison and-”
“Poison!”
“It was discounted. His limbs swelled horribly in the end and he had a fever”
I remembered another time, another sickness-also in Viennawhen a sixyear-old Wolfie suffered swollen limbs and a fever. The doctor’s diagnosis came back to me. “Rheumatic fever”
“Hnmi?” Johann said.
“It sounds similar to the rheumatic fever he had as a boy. The doctor had warned there would be recurrences, and it could weaken his heart”
Johann shrugged. It seemed a cold gesture, and yet, what did it really matter how my brother had died? Dead was dead. Gone was gone.
Johann made up for his shrug by pulling me into a hug. “I am very sorry, Nannerl. Very sorry.”
I nodded against his chest.
It took three months for the mountain pass to clear enough to get from St. Gilgen to Vienna, but I was persistent. I had to go and see where my brother was buried. Pay my respects. I would not find resolution until I had played this final chord in our duet.
How disappointed I was that the cemetery contained only communal graves. What a horrid law. I always found much comfort visiting Papa’s grave in Salzburg, and little Wolfgang’s and Babette’s in St. Gilgen.
After my dismal and unsatisfactory visit to St. Marx, my carriage stopped in front of the inn. Before the coachman could open the door, it was opened by my husband. He took my hand and helped me out. “We were worried about you.”
I looked behind him and saw all six of our children spilling out from the inn’s doorway onto the sidewalk. Their faces mirrored their concern. Two-year-old Jeanette broke away from Maria and ran to my side, wrapping her tiny arms around my damp cloak. “Mama!” she said.
I was about to shoo them inside against the rain when I noticed the rain had stopped. Hints of blue sky peeked through the clouds, promising a beautiful spring day.
“Back inside, children,” Johann said. “Let your mother get out of her damp clothes.”
They fumbled and stumbled into the inn, and Johann led me upstairs to our room. The children assembled on the beds and window seat while I removed my cloak. They were being unusually quiet.
“Oooh,” I shivered. “It was very chilly out there.”
“Did you see your brother?” nine-year-old Karl asked.
Joseph smacked him in the arm. “Uncle Wolfgang is dead. She didn’t go to see him.”
Maria sighed heavily and pulled both boys under her arms. “Shush. Both of you. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”
When Johann pointed at a chair, the younger Johann relinquished it. I sat and the children gathered close. Jeanette climbed onto my lap and I relished her warmth. “I went to the cemetery,” I began. “But there was no headstone for my brother”
“Whyever not?” Maria asked.
I explained about Emperor Joseph’s law.
“That’s ridiculous,” Johann said. “We don’t do that in St. Gilgen.”
“Perhaps that is one advantage to being remote”
I noticed Karl’s pout. “So you didn’t see him? See anything?”
I flicked the tip of his nose, then put my hand to my temple. “I see him in here.” Then to my heart. “And in here.”
Sixyear-old Leopoldl tugged on his father’s coat. “Can we get cake now? I’m hungry.”
“It’s up to your mother,” Johann said.
I sighed and released my morning in the cemetery to the past. “I think I’m hungry too.”
The children gathered their coats and rushed toward the door in a burst of conmiotion, then moved out in the hall and loudly clomped down the stairs. My husband was next but paused at the door. “How are you really?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m glad I came.”
“Good,” he said. “Coming?”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
He closed the door and the room returned to silence. I let my body relax against the chair and closed my eyes.
Suddenly, unannounced, I heard Franz’s words in lily ears, his comment made over coffee months before. “You should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
And I was.
Seven years previously I’d traveled to St. Gilgen to find a household of wild, unkempt, ignorant hellions. Since then they’d been transformed into good, fine, and vibrant children who were ready to accept the opportunities life had to offer.
Opportunities they had because of me. Opportunities they would riot have had if I had not become their mother. I let the thought complete itself the children were better off because of me.
Although my marriage to Johann had been undertaken as a careful, pragmatic decision, I suddenly realized God’s hand had not been absent in the match. Perhaps Johann and I weren’t the great love of each other’s lives, but over the years we’d settled into a good place, a comfortable, compatible place. So what if my own idealistic notion of romance and true love had not been fed? The fact that my decision to marry this twice-widowed man had allowed his childrenour children-to receive a chance to prosper and find fulfillment, added meaning to my decision that went far beyond the need for rosy sunsets and soft kisses.
No, I had not become famous like my brother. No, I had not pursued my music as much as I would have liked. And no, I had not married the love of my life. Yet by marrying as I did, I had changed five children’s lives for the better. If I accomplished nothing more than that, I could be proud.
How comforting to realize God knows what He’s doing.
I stood and gathered my damp cloak. My family was waiting.
COD A
.,/Can’t see anymore.
It doesn’t matter.
What do I want to see of this life? Whether my eyes are opened or closed, I see what I want to see. My memories are vivid-and perfect. Eyes see flaws that memories can avoid. The advantage of going blind is that with eyes open or shut, I see them.
Three men and a woman. Waiting for me. “Don’t worry, Nannerl. I’ve made all the arrangements,” Papa says.
“Come join us, Horseface. The music’s magnificent here.”
I look to Mania, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s never been much of a talker. Perhaps the rest of us make her talking unnecessary. Or too much work. She just smiles and holds out a hand. I understand her meaning, just as I do the others’.
Then there is the third man. He doesn’t need to talk either. Our eyes meet and do the talking for us. His smile makes me smile. And the way he scuffs his toe against the ground indicates intentions far more eloquent and fine than any book of lofty sentences. I realize it is he I long to see the most. For it is he I have waited for the longest.
“Baroness?”
By the tone of the voice it is evident it is not the first time the speaker has called for my attention. Reluctantly I allow myself to be yanked away from the others. I will be with them soon enough. As yet, there is one more thing I have to do….
I open my eyes for his benefit, not mine. I recognize his voice. It is Herr Masters-my counselor and attorney. At seeing me alive, I hear his sigh of relief. He rustles papers and I guess their purpose. “Is that it?” I ask.
“It is. It’s complete except for your signature.”
I nod. Soon everything will
be as it should be-or as good as it can be, considering. “Read it to me.”
He does, and I feel myself relax amid the pain. On the cross Jesus had said, “It is finished….”
Soon, it will be.
“Get me a pen,” I say. I point toward the desk.
Within a few moments, he returns to the bedside. I feel a tray on my lap. The papers are upon it. “Show me where,” I say.
He guides my hand and, once in place, he puts the ink-loaded pen in my fingers. “Here. Sign here,” he says.
It is odd to hear my signature, to hear pen scratch against paper without seeing it. How appropriate that in this last important act, I have to rely on my sense of hearing-that sense that has been so inseparable from my innermost being.
I sign my full name in all its ridiculous glory: Baroness Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Berchtold zu Sonnenburg. But then … “May I also sign another name?”
“Another-?”
“I wish the name of Mozart to be on this page”
“Ahh. Certainly.” For a second time he positions my hand and I sign Nariiicrl Mozart. I hand him the pen. He takes the paper and tray away. “That should satisfy all involved,” I say.
“Including yourself?”
I lean back against the pillows. “Me, most of all.”
The papers cease their rustling and I assume he’s put them away. “I will leave you, then,” he says. I hear him step toward the door, but then his footsteps stop. “Or … would you like me to stay?”
Although the question can be answered simply and offhandedly, I realize my reply can have serious ramifications. When one’s time is short, letting any person leave the room can mean death might be faced alone.
And yet … I decline his invitation and he leaves me. I hear the door click shut.
Come what may, there is no one at my side. Mania, Papa, and Wolfie are gone. Franz, Johann, and even my beloved Jeanette are dead. I am seventy-eight years old. There is not a single friend who’s lived as long as I. And though I have an occasional visit from illy son, Leopoldl, and Wolfie’s son-my nephew, Wolfgang-and they treat me with respect, I do not care to call upon such bonds in these final days.
I have no idea why God has allowed me to live so long-to outlive all whom I have loved. There are a lot of questions I hope to ask the Almighty…
Soon.
I am completely alone.
But then the memories flood back as if to remind me that my last thought is a lie.
I am not alone. And in truth, I have never been alone. Although my life has not worked out as I may have planned, although I have enough regrets to fill a bank, there is one thing that has worked out.
I’ve had people. I’ve had people who’ve loved me, cared for me, and did their best for me. I had people then.
And I have them now
Soon.
Now. All I need to do is take Mama’s hand, accept Papa’s arrangements, join my brother, and let the love of my life take me in his arms.
I close my eyes and, in this final act, willingly surrender to their invitation.
Fine. Grandioso. Bravissinlo.
Alleluia.
Near the end of her life, Nannerl Mozart Berchtold made a change to her will regarding her burial arrangements. Instead of being buried in St. Gilgen near her husband and three children, or next to her father in Salzburg at St. Sebastian’s, Nannerl chose to be buried across Salzburg, in the smaller, less grand cemetery of St. Peter’s monastery. She had no relatives buried there. But she did join a loved one-the loved one. The one man whose love had been denied to her in life would rest near her in death: Captain Franz d’Ippold.
Why has no one written about Nannerl before?
It was not something I ever dreamed of doing. For until the idea was dropped into my lap I knew as much (or little) about Nannerl as most people: Oh yes. Mozart had a sister, didn’t lie? And didn’t they perform together as children?
The event that opened my eyes to Nannerl’s life story happened while I was standing in the Mozart family home in Salzburg in the summer of 2004-that little three-room apartment where both Wolfgang and Nannerl were born. In truth, I was only half listening to the guide, being very close to tourist-information overload. Yet one statement reached into my weary brain and ignited it: Most people don’t know this, but Mozart’s sister was just as talented as he was, but because she was a woman, she had little chance to do anything with her talent. That one statement stayed with me all the way home to the States.
At the time I was putting together a proposal for a contemporary novel (I only wrote novels set in the present day). Because of the tour guide’s comment, I got the idea to have one of my characters write a book called Mozart’s Sister. My agent sent the proposal to publishers.
Within days we got a call from Dave Horton, an editor at Bethany House Publishers. “I don’t want the contemporary book; I want the book the character is writing: Mozart’c Sister, a historical book about the sister’s life.”
“But I don’t write historicals.”
“I want Mozart’s Sister.”
“But I don’t write in first person, in one person’s point of view throughout an entire book. I write bib cast novels in third person.”
“I want Mozart’s Sister.”
“I hate research.”
“I want Mozart’s Sister.”
Well, then. He seemed so sure, so excited. I could not ignore him-actually, I could, but I didn’t.
The rest is history. And so, as so often happens when God offers us an opportunity and we say yes, it turned out to be the best experience of my writing life. And, irony of ironies, as I sat in my office with four reference books opened before me, I even found that I enjoyed the research. Imagine that.
Lucky for all of us, the Mozarts were avid letter writers, and as per Papa’s instructions, most of the correspondence remains. Because of this I was able to use many of their actual words in this book.
But please note: I am not a historian. Although I made every attempt to keep things as factual as possible, I am a writer of fiction. And during the gaps in the knowledge (alas, when they were all home in Salzburg, there were, of course, no letters!) I filled in the gaps using logic, the facts I had, and my imagination. This was done reluctantly. You should have heard my scream when I read that no one really knows why Nannerl and Franz broke off their relationship! A key point to her life was unknown? And so I once again was forced to take the known elements of life in Salzburg (and the relationship the Mozarts had with the archbishop) and create a logical reason for the breakup. Only God and Nannerl know how right (or wrong) I was. Actually, I have hopes that the Almighty is letting Nannerl know that someone is telling her story…. I hope she is pleased.
But you must know that the liberties I was forced to take were also flavored by my own feelings-my trying to figure out how Iwould have reacted if all this had happened to me. Even though Nannerl and I were born two hundred years apart, worlds apart, I feel we are contemporaries. Human emotions haven’t changed that much. For don’t we still struggle to gain our parents’ approval and respect? Don’t we still battle with jealousy and could-have-beens? And don’t we still face the crossroads of life, where we are offered a choice to dwell in the past or move forward to the best of our abilities?
That’s what I wish for you, the reader. Take Nannerl’s story as an impetus to look at your own life and make it the most it can be. You too have a unique, God-given purpose. The trick is to find out what it is.
I would like to thank three Mozart biographers for their insight: Robert W. Gutman, Maynard Solomon, and especially Ruth Halliwell, who wrote an amazing book about the logistics of the Mozart family. I would also like to thank my agent, Janet Kobobel Grant, for urging me to take this leap; Helen Motter, my editor extraordinaire (who also happens to be an accomplished musician); and editor Dave Horton, who saw something hidden in one idea, sparked a new one, and didn’t give up.
Bravissimo!
Nancy Moser
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Books by
Nancy Moser
FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS
Mozart’s Sister
Just Jane
Washington’s Lady
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