Mozart's Sister: A Novel

by Rita Charbonnier

  “You call me proud? And making a show of your own learning—isn’t that a sin of pride?”

  Herr Mozart was dumbstruck, but only for an instant. “Be quiet, you foolish girl!” he shouted, his red face a breath from hers. He seemed ready to strangle her with his own hands.

  There was a long silence. Embarrassed, Bach stared at the image of his father, as if looking for help. Nannerl held out the scores, but he didn’t take them. She felt her mother grab her by the arm.

  “Come, dear,” she said, dragging her bodily. “Let’s go in the other room, so Herr Bach can give Wolfgang a lesson; and then, if there’s time, he will also listen to you. Come on, my sweetheart.”

  As they left the room, the fixed smile vanished from her face. “Your father is right—you really are foolish. Did you have to cause a scene in front of the gentleman?”

  “I wanted him to listen to my music.”

  “You’re a young lady. You’ll never become a kapellmeister. Will you get that through your head? Papa has told you a thousand times.”

  “Are you taking his side now? Then I am telling you that to me it doesn’t matter at all what Papa says! Or you!”

  “Don’t you dare! Holy shit!”

  At that moment the butler arrayed like a noble entered with the never-failing tea tray. He looked at Anna Maria in shock, nearly dropped it as he put it down, and left.

  “What a bad impression you’ve caused me to make!”

  “Oh, of course. Now it’s my fault.”

  “That’s enough, Nannerl. You must stop using that tone.” She took her by the shoulder and looked her in the eye. “Your father has arranged everything for our well-being: Wolfgang is the pillar of the family, and it is he who is to become a composer. We’ll take him to study in Italy when he’s older, and he’ll become famous all over the world and we’ll all be happy. Even you!”

  “What do you know about what will make me happy?”

  “And then we’ll find you a husband. You’ll have children. What’s the use of all this passion for music?”

  The half hour that followed was, for Nannerl, genuine torture. Through the closed doors, notes began to sound: Wolfgang was playing the pianoforte for Christian Bach. And meanwhile, flinging herself onto a chair, she waited in silence, doing absolutely nothing. Sitting on the sofa like a sultan, her mother drank tea and ate scones and tried to involve Nannerl in the feast, but her stomach had become a dry sack. She clasped her hands in her lap and began to twiddle her thumbs; suddenly exhausted, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Then she made an effort and got up. She went to the window and looked out, searching for any sort of distraction, but the room was at the back of the house and there were no passersby. Suddenly the music stopped; the door opened and Herr Bach appeared holding Wolfgang in his arms like an infant.

  “Well, well, well, Frau Mozart! Do you know, it seemed to me that I went back many years? In your son I saw myself as a child.” He put him down gently and suggested: “Now go to your sister. I must speak to Papa and Mama about your future.”

  Swifter than a gust of wind, Nannerl left the parlor, and Wolfgang trotted after her. “You know, he liked your cantata a lot. I told him that you wrote it, but he didn’t believe me. He thinks I wrote it!”

  “Leave me alone!” And she tried to go down the stairs but he held her by the skirt, giggling.

  “Where are you going, you big goat? Want to play hide-and-seek?”

  She slapped his hand, and he stopped short; she hurried down the stairs while the little boy stood there bewildered. “Nannerl! Why are you acting like this?” He tried to catch her, but she was already on the ground floor, heading down the hallway toward the door. She wanted to leave as quickly as possible, vanish, perhaps wander through the city alone, perhaps march to London Bridge and jump into the Thames.

  “Nannerl! Here forever happy are we!”

  She didn’t turn.

  “Here forever happy are we! Answer me!”

  Nannerl shook the door angrily, but it wouldn’t open. The stupid little wheels it rolled on were blocked. What a ridiculous system. Finally she succeeded, and was about to run into the street, but he reached her and pulled her hair: “Here forever happy are we! Now answer me, you bad—”

  “I hate you!”

  Was it my anger that made him sick? I fear it is so, Armand, and whenever I think back on the small, weakened body of my adored brother, of his face as it broke into a sweat again and again, his eyes without consciousness, I wish I could punish myself for the brutality that dwells in my soul, for those fits of fury that I don’t know how to control, that I always become aware of too late. I promised you, my dearest, that you will never bear the brunt of this, but having reflected at length (because writing to you has led me to reflect), I have a fear of not being able to guarantee it.

  I don’t know from what deep place my anger comes, and I don’t know what the causes are. I know only that it’s sometimes difficult for me to understand the motivations of others, when they’re different from mine, and that my first, instinctive reaction is, from the height of a nonexistent perfection, to judge their claims to be mistaken. However hard I’ve tried to correct this behavior, I am a prisoner of it. But I don’t want to dwell on this matter. I wish rather to tell you, now, even if every single fraction of that memory is painful to me, of my little brother at the end of his life, and of how he came back from the abyss.

  XVII.

  The surgeon opened the wooden box to reveal, carefully arranged on the satin padding, a series of jars and sharp knives. He extracted a lancet for bloodletting, and with it made a horizontal cut in one of the child’s veins, in the crook of his arm. Immediately the blood dripped into the bowl.

  “How long has he been unconscious?” the doctor asked meanwhile, touching Wolfgang’s forehead.

  “Since yesterday morning,” Leopold answered, weakly.

  “And you called us only now? It’s madness!”

  “I told you! You never listen to me!” Anna Maria cried to her husband. He bowed his head and didn’t answer.

  Nannerl was curled up in a chair behind the bed, bent over a music book that she was trying to repair. But her hands trembled incessantly and the drip of Wolfgang’s blood pierced her heart.

  The doctor took a small bottle from his bag. “This is ground rhubarb, Madame. Mix a spoonful in a glass of wine and give it to him every two hours.”

  “I don’t have any wine.”

  “Go and get some.”

  “Is it very serious?” Leopold whispered.

  The doctor took him by the arm and walked him away from his wife. “If I were you,” he murmured, barely audible, “I would give him the last rites. I’m afraid he won’t last the night. I’m sorry.”

  Herr Mozart crumpled onto a chair, suddenly an old man. The music book fell from Nannerl’s hands and she curled up into herself, shuddering in every fiber.

  “What can be done we have done,” the doctor said. “Now it will take the hand of God.” He helped the surgeon gather up his equipment, and they prepared to leave.

  “Wait, I’m coming with you. I’m going to find the landlord,” said Anna Maria, and she, too, hurried out.

  A moment passed that seemed to last an entire lifetime. Father, son, and daughter, in the same small space, were alone with themselves. Huddled in the chair, Nannerl went back in time in the darkness of her mind, to before her brother came into the world, a time when (as her mother told it) she had been a strange, introverted, mute child; only music seemed to exist for her, and even to that she came with a spontaneous, intense unconsciousness. Wolfgang, forcing her to see herself in him, had taught her to discover all that existed in the world, beyond her own small person; he, by being born, had saved her from a harmful isolation, and now it was up to her to save him. Suddenly she went over to him. His eyelids were shut; he was motionless, as if he had already expired. Oh no—too late?

  “He’s not speaking anymore. Papa, why doesn’t he say anything?�
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  “I don’t know,” Leopold murmured, and just then he closed his eyes, covering his forehead, and two tears fell from his eyelids onto his chin and rolled all the way down to his throat.

  The girl was astonished and filled with pity. “Rest, Papa,” she said gently. “I’ll take care of Wolfgang.”

  He collapsed on the bed and covered his head with the pillow, and slowly the sobs diminished.

  In the silence, Nannerl timidly stretched out a hand and brought it to her brother’s lips. His breath was weak, but it was there. Maybe his soul was already elsewhere; his face was lost in a disfiguring sleep, unhealthy and feverish, but some part of his consciousness must still be present, and she clung to that hope. She came close enough to feel his sticky warm cheek and whispered, with infinite tenderness, “And nothing bad will ever be…”

  The child moved one leg, and the violin from which he was never separated slid from under the covers and fell, but Nannerl grabbed it just in time, before it touched the floor.

  For a moment she didn’t move. She looked at the instrument in her arms, then at her father: he was breathing rhythmically, asleep. She stared at little lifeless Wolfgang and began to pluck the strings, very softly, barely touching them, so that only he could hear.

  With short, light notes she begged him to return from wherever he was. She implored him to leave the place where he had chosen to dwell because he was so extremely tired of a father who oppressed him, a mother who fussed over him, and a sister who accused him. She begged him not to abandon himself to the pleasantness of that place, but to make an effort to return, immediately, and she swore to him that she would never again be hostile, never again would they be divided, for together, the Little Mozarts were a force; while separated (there was no doubt), each would be inexorably diminished.

  “Do you hear me?” Nannerl whispered, her eyes at last full of tears.

  “You were a quarter-tone low.” The voice was feeble but it was his.

  “Are you better? Are you well?”

  “You mustn’t be afraid. I won’t ever leave you.”

  She lay down beside him on the bed and embraced him with her whole self, holding him as tightly as she could. The child, in a hoarse voice, spoke again: “Your music is beautiful. Papa doesn’t—”

  “Shhh. Sleep, my king. Sleep in peace. Now we’ll meet in the Kingdom of Back.”

  Intermezzo

  Vienna, May 21, 1777

  Dearest Nannerl!

  Your marvelous letters have made my stay in the Capital so much sweeter; I’ve had to leave only for short missions, lasting a couple of days, and I have always carried with me at least one, folded up inside my overcoat, near my heart, as once your music, too, was near your skin. Entering into your most intimate thoughts, and knowing your own particular experiences, makes me a man who has been granted a great privilege, and I will in every way try (I swear to you) to deserve it. Only now can I say that I begin to know you, my splendid one, and to understand you as others do not, out of narrow-mindedness or prejudice; and the deeper this knowledge becomes through your letters, the greater is my desire to see you again—a desire that, happily, will be satisfied in a short time!

  The news is official: I am to return soon. I am unable to give you an exact date at the moment, but by the middle of next month I should be home. Then we will be able to meet. And I confess to you that mixed with the joy and the desire for that moment, which I have created in detail many times in my imagination, is a sort of fear. Essentially, the time we have shared until now has been limited to a few hours, and those spent exclusively in each other’s company no more than two, perhaps even fewer. It’s true that exchanging letters has brought our hearts closer, but it’s also true that a part of me is frightened at the idea that in person everything might appear in some way different and surprising.

  With this I do not mean to cast shadows on us—the opposite, in fact. I think it’s the intensity of desire that makes this fear more intense, for the possibility that I glimpse in you and with you, my dearest, is so great that to lose it would be like losing life itself.

  In apprehensive expectation, I offer you my most tender greetings

  Until then,

  Armand

  Salzburg, May 30, 1777

  My dearest friend,

  I will be brief, very brief, swifter than an arrow, because today is mail day: Victoria is about to arrive and I want her to send you this as soon as the lesson is over. I can’t wait to see you, Armand; I can’t wait for that first marvelous moment to arrive. I can’t wait to see myself in your eyes, to hear your voice, which makes everything vibrate. I imagine that the most obvious and simple thing is for you to come to our house. We won’t be alone, it’s true, but on the other hand I am tired of my subterfuges and do not want to provide my family with a motive for future reproaches; I have already suffered too many, believe me. And then what have we to hide?

  Until very soon, Armand. I can hardly wait…

  Nannerl

  Vienna, June 10, 1777

  My sweet Nannerl,

  I have a date: June 22. Early on that morning, I begin my return journey, and on the twenty-fifth we will be able, at last, to see each other. The twenty-fifth of June! The day of our meeting! Two weeks from today, then; two long weeks during which I will greet every sunset with a heart filled with gratitude to life, since the end of the day bears witness to the passing of the time that separates me from you. The twenty-fifth of June, Nannerl! I want everything to be beautiful and right. I want to be able to express myself freely, in your sweet presence. I want nothing to disturb a moment that should belong to us two, and us two only.

  For this reason, my dear, dearest girl, I would prefer not to see you in your father’s house. Do you remember the day you brought me to the secret cellar of the Archbishop’s palace, and Victoria played for the two of us, and there was no one else, and everything was in loving harmony? I confess that I have imagined a similar occasion. Like you, I naturally consider that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, to hide; but, on the other hand, I would like to enjoy your precious nearness in tranquillity, and with as little interruption as possible. The time will come when I will present myself to your family, and I will do so with immense pleasure, you may be sure; but at the moment I would rather spend some minutes, even a single minute if you prefer, listening to your words, listening to you and no other.

  With fearful hope,

  Armand

  Salzburg, June 19, 1777

  My dear, sweetly frightened Armand,

  When I proposed that you should come to our house, I certainly didn’t mean that you should present yourself officially to my father, announcing who knows what intentions. I assure you that I do not wish to jump immediately to conclusions, and that my most intense desire, for the moment, is to know you better—nothing more. I imagined that one day you might accompany Victoria to a lesson, that’s all. Since you don’t habitually frequent the salons of the fashionable world (I myself do so as little as possible), I thought that the lesson might be, so to speak, a substitute social occasion. I don’t see many alternatives, apart from the cellar of the Palace, or the wood near the city where I go every so often to escape, or another meeting stolen in the heart of the night. But are not you, too, tired of that sense of something wrong?

  With immense affection,

  Nannerl

  “Oh, you’ve come with your father! Major, what a pleasure to see you again!”

  “Good day, Frau Mozart. I hope that my presence is not inconvenient. May I come in?”

  “Inconvenient? But what are you saying? Come, come with me. Nannerl has just finished the other lesson. Perhaps you will even meet the student on the stairs. She is the daughter of that very sympathetic marquise, what is her name…Rinser, I think.”

  Snapping the fingers of her left hand as she searched her memory for the name, with her right, Anna Maria opened the door of the music room, saw Nannerl, and nearly fainted. Was that her daughter?


  Her beauty had been multiplied ten times. She was wearing a pretty dress, clean and carefully brushed, not all wrinkled like the things she usually wore; it cinched her waist as it was supposed to and made her chest swell. Her hair was neatly gathered in a large bun on her head, which emphasized the oval of her face, while the two thick curls that fell on the nape of her neck seemed almost flirtatious. Her blue eyes seemed larger, and her cheeks were a lovely burning pink: Was it possible that she had put on rouge? And where had she gotten it? Stolen it from her, without a doubt! And why had she taken such trouble, if when she went to the places that count she got herself up worse than a nun? Struck by a suspicion, Frau Mozart turned toward Major d’Ippold, and his expression transformed it to a certainty: the man was as stupefied as she at the sight of Nannerl and, good heavens, was even blushing!

  “Oh, then…,” she stammered, reflecting rapidly on what to do, “please, Major, come in. Maybe we should have some coffee now…I’ll go…No, I’m not moving from here! Victoria, please, could you go ask Tresel to make some coffee?”

  “I?” the student said, a little puzzled and a little fearful of encountering the Mozarts’ fierce maid.

  “Yes, you. Go on, dear. You, Major, sit here beside me, and you, Nannerl, opposite. There, good, like that.”

  “Mama, really; there is supposed to be a lesson here.”

  “Yes, but it’s the last of the morning, isn’t it? Surely we can allow ourselves time for a little chat. Isn’t that so, Major?”

  “Of course. With pleasure,” he said, cursing the moment he had agreed to go to the Mozart house.

  “You know what I am most sorry about? That my husband isn’t home. He, too, would have been so pleased to meet you, I’m sure. But every morning he goes to court and…Oh, how stupid! Perhaps you two know each other already.”