Mozart's Sister: A Novel
Page 32
“It isn’t your brother’s? Then who wrote it, may I ask? The handwriting seems his.”
On the old woman’s face appeared perhaps the most foolish expression of her life. Since she said nothing, the Italian tried to guess the author by the style: “So, let me see, it could be Haydn. It’s a composition clearly intended for children. Yes, from the development I would say Haydn.”
“No. Not Haydn.”
For thirty seconds, no sound was heard apart from the ticking of the clock.
“May I play it?” Bencini said, and he was at the piano before she could resist him, and as he gave life to the notes, she felt her own inner strings vibrate.
It was a short, simple piece that she had written in loving homage to Wolfgang and their excursions through the places of the mind and the capitals of Europe, both so far away now. She hadn’t composed anything else, for she hadn’t felt the need, really, but that sweet musical piece was an expression of affection in brief, whispered notes.
“It’s pretty,” Bencini commented, playing. “It has echoes of a game, and yet there is a thread of melancholy. At this point it gives a sense of comfort, certainly. However, this title is strange: Kingdom of Back…” He delivered the last chord and looked at her. “So tell me, Baroness, is it Haydn or Mozart?”
“Well, on the…surname I would say there’s no doubt, it’s…Mozart.”
“A thousand florins!”
“What?”
“Deal done?”
And without waiting for a response he threw down a pile of banknotes on the piano and went off triumphantly, with the score under his arm.
“Baroness, should I stop him?” said Sebastian, and she remained staring at him openmouthed. Then slowly she walked to the window and looked beyond the glass: down in the street Bencini was pursuing the score, which the wind had torn from his hands. The page floated irregularly, like a butterfly, and as it was about to be seized by the sausagelike fingers of the Italian, it seemed to fly away laughing. The echo of that laugh reached Nannerl’s heart and she, too, burst into a noisy laugh, laughing so hard she cried. She leaned on the windowsill, unable to control the contractions of her stomach and the sense of fun that completely possessed her. She opened the window and spread her arms like wings and threw back her head, letting the gusts of wind ruffle her hair; in a moment it had freshened the air of the house and swept to the floor her letter to the publisher.
When she turned, the man in the cape was standing beside the servant. “Oh, engineer, do we have the answer?” she murmured, composing herself in a hurry. “I got some pastries for you. Sebastian, please, prepare some coffee.”
“Better not, Baroness,” the engineer said, very seriously. “You must come right away.”
III.
“It’s incredible! Every time one digs in the ground a find is made. But, really, did the Romans have to live right under the statue of my brother?”
“They went as far as England, Baroness.”
The square was still crowded with workers and the hole in the center, now deeper, revealed a mosaic with a legend in Latin. The workers were carefully cleaning it.
Nannerl approached. “Excuse me, I know you’re doing your job, but could you move aside a little, please. Otherwise I can’t see anything.”
The workers promptly did as she asked and she tried to decipher the writing, but there wasn’t much light at the bottom. The first word she managed to bring into focus was Nihil, and she repeated it aloud.
“Do you know Latin, Baroness?” the engineer said with a hint of envy.
“Not very well. I studied it a little, many years ago. My brother taught me, to tell you the truth. Now, if my memory is right, nihil means ‘nothing.’”
Then laboriously she deciphered the two words beside it, one and then the other, and it seemed to her they were felicitas…intret.
Her face broke into an incredulous smile. She looked up at the statue of Wolfgang and stopped at his mocking sneer: it’s really a joke worthy of him.
“Here forever happy are we, and nothing bad will ever be. Thank you, my king. Thanks to you!” she cried aloud, with the joy of a child.
The engineer thought it might be the first sign of senile dementia and rushed over to her protectively: “Baroness, do you feel all right? Do you want to sit down?”
Just then Bencini arrived, chasing his precious piece of paper. “My score! My score! My original score by Mozart! I paid a fortune!”
The piece of paper ended up on the monument, right on Mozart’s face, like a slap. Then a gust of wind seized it and bore it off into the sky.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Hic Habitat Felicitas, Nihil Intret Mali.
The Roman mosaic found on the site of the monument to Mozart, which bears this inscription, is preserved in the Caroline Augustus Museum in Salzburg.
Mozart’s Sister is a work of fiction, but the events that inspired it actually happened and the main characters really existed. Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart was a child prodigy and, together with her brother, performed at the courts of Europe as a child musician. The family letters are testimony that in her youth she also composed vocal music, although none of her works have come down to us.
The relationship between Wolfgang and Nannerl, very affectionate in childhood, passed through moments of cold hostility and was then extinguished altogether; in the last years of Wolfgang’s life, the two had no contact. After the death of the maestro, however, his sister contributed greatly to the promotion of his memory, collaborating with his biographers, authenticating his compositions, and overseeing their publication.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2007 by Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in Italy as La sorella di Mozart by Casa Editrice Corbaccio s.r.l., Milan, in 2006. Copyright © 2006 by Casa Editrice Corbaccio s.r.l., Milano.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Charbonnier, Rita.
[Sorella di Mozart. English]
Mozart’s sister: a novel / Rita Charbonnier; translated by Ann Goldstein.
1. Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, Maria Anna Mozart, Reichsfreiin von, 1751–1829—Fiction. I. Goldstein, Ann, 1949–II. Title.
PQ4903.H37S6713 2007
823’.6—dc22 2007020750
eISBN: 978-0-307-40562-3
v1.0