by Laura Lebow
For a moment I was confused, as the cab was taking the back streets around the various markets of the city on its way to the Stuben gate, and there were no noble houses to be seen. Then I realized she was talking about von Gerl’s house.
“It needs a woman’s touch, don’t you agree?” She smoothed her cloak on her lap. “As soon as I settle in, I’ll replace that nasty manservant and hire a real staff. I’ll have to find someone to advise me on how to decorate. Valentin will know who is the best in the city.”
The cab jolted a bit as it drove over a pit in the road. I sat there, befuddled, as she chatted on about furniture, fabrics, and window decorations. Her face had grown animated and had taken on a subtle beauty. I forced myself to look out the window.
As the cab crossed through the Stuben gate into the suburb, I turned back to Marta. I could not think of a delicate way to phrase my question to her, but I proceeded anyway. “The baron did not seem to be expecting you,” I said.
“I know. That was my fault. I shouldn’t have surprised him.” She sighed. “I should have written, but I wasn’t sure what his address was, or even whether he had made it back here from his travels yet. When we parted, he had told me he was going home to Vienna. I sold everything I owned to raise money to come.”
“But what if he hadn’t been here at all?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I never considered that. I suppose I could have stayed in a convent here in the city, waiting until he arrived.” She unpinned her cap and placed it on her lap. Her silky red-gold hair fell loose around her shoulders. I sat on my hands to resist the urge to reach over and touch it.
“He’s just surprised to see me, I think. I’ll give him a few days, and then I’ll move into the palace.”
“You seem certain that he’ll welcome you in,” I said.
She smiled. “Oh, he will. Of course he will.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You see, I’m his wife.”
Eight
I slept late the next morning, and woke to find the sun streaming in my window. I stretched my toes to the end of my bed. For the first time in days, I had had a good night’s sleep. Today was Sunday, and I planned to go to my office to do a bit of work, and then join the Mozart family for a pleasant afternoon.
I washed and donned my second best suit. I liked to dress up a bit when I visited the Mozarts. Although Wolfgang always teased me about my formal attire at his casual dinners and musical get-togethers, I knew that Constanze was pleased when I arrived in a nice suit. I also had to admit that I was hoping to run into Marta downstairs at breakfast.
As I left my room, my foot kicked a small object on the floor of the hallway. I looked down to see another message, with my name hastily scrawled in the familiar handwriting. I brought it into my room, tore it open, and read the numbers and words I had now learned by heart. Once again my enigmatic correspondent announced his arrival on April 21—tomorrow.
I put the message in my cupboard and went downstairs to the kitchen, where my landlady was setting out breakfast.
“Good morning, signore,” she said, smiling at me. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, madame,” I said. She gestured me to sit at the table. “Madame Lamm—the message that was outside my door this morning. Did you put it there?”
“I took it in, Signor Da Ponte,” Sophie said as she entered the room with a loaf of bread in her hand. “I left it outside your door about an hour ago.”
“Who delivered it?” I asked.
“A young boy,” Sophie said.
I did not bother to ask what the boy had looked like, or if he had been wearing livery that could identify him. The sender of the messages was taking great care to ensure that I could not trace him.
Sophie sliced the bread and placed it on the table, then brought a bowl of stewed fruits and ladled some onto my plate. She joined her mother and me at the table.
“Has Miss Cavalli been down yet?” I asked. Madame Lamm had welcomed Marta when we arrived last evening, immediately noticed her fatigue, and bustled her upstairs to a room. I had spent the evening working, occasionally slipping down here to see if she had reappeared. But she must have washed, unpacked, and gone straight to her bed, for she never came, and my questions about her marriage to von Gerl were answered by nothing but my imagination.
“She was so tired last night, signore,” my landlady said, as if reading my thoughts. “I drew a bath for her and made up a bed. She fell asleep right away.” She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Such a lovely young lady, signore. Her bearing is so dignified. Is she a noblewoman? And she is very pleasant. She thanked me over and over for letting her stay.” She paused, and her brow wrinkled. “But she was so pale, and I sensed a sadness in her, signore. Something about her filled me with pity. Do you know what was bothering her?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just met her yesterday. I was visiting a friend when she arrived. She had nowhere to go. I appreciate your taking her in, madame. I will pay for her room until she decides what to do.”
“Another lodger is always welcome, signore,” Madame Lamm said. She hesitated. “Food prices are going up so fast, I’m afraid I may have to raise the rents. I hate to have to do that. So your friend is welcome for as long as she wishes to stay.” She passed the bowl of fruit to me. “Why would a young gentlelady be here in Vienna all alone?” she asked. “She told me she had come to find her husband.”
I shrugged and said nothing. The last thing I wanted to do was gossip about Marta and von Gerl.
“Come, Sophie. Finish your breakfast. It’s time for church,” my landlady said. The two women took their plates over to the large sink. I sat and chewed on a slice of soft bread, thinking of Marta’s soft hair and full lips. But after a few moments my mind turned to the messages, and then to Alois’s murder. By the time I finished my meal, my optimism and pleasure in the morning had disappeared. I sat glumly listening to the women’s chatter.
“I think I’ll wear my pink dress,” Sophie said as she wiped the plates clean. “Perhaps I’ll sew some bows on it. That would be fancy enough.”
“No, not that one,” her mother replied. “The neckline is too low. Wear the blue one.”
“Oh, Mother.” Sophie sighed with the universal weariness of the young, who were often called upon to explain to their elders how the world really worked. “The blue one is hopelessly out of fashion. This is my first fancy ball. All of the other girls will be wearing new dresses. The neckline of the pink one is perfect. What do you think, Signor Da Ponte?”
I stirred from my dark thoughts. “About what, Sophie?”
“The ball tomorrow night at the Redoutensaal. Will you be going?”
The Hofburg Palace’s Redoutensaal were large party rooms that the emperor had opened for public dances and concerts. When he had left to join the troops outside Belgrade, he had ordered that the balls continue, to keep up public morale during the war.
“I don’t believe so, Sophie,” I answered. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Who are you going with?” my landlady asked her daughter. “Is Stefan taking you?”
“Yes, if he can get away from work early enough. If he cannot, I’ll go with Teresa and Liesl,” Sophie answered.
“You will not,” her mother replied. “Stefan will take you, or you will stay home.”
“But Mother—”
“I don’t want you going there without him. Look what happened to Barbara. You will not go to any parties or balls without Stefan. Now go fetch your shawl.” Sophie bade me good morning and ran up the stairs.
Her mother looked after her and sighed. “May I bring you anything else, signore?” she asked. I shook my head. She took my plate. “I don’t know what to do about that girl. She’s too high-spirited.” She sat down next to me and lowered her voice. “I hope Stefan is planning to propose to her soon. I need to see her settled.” She shook her head. “That friend of hers, that Barbara, I never liked her. A lazy girl, always putting on airs i
n front of Sophie. Her mother could not control her. Barbara went to all the balls. She met a man there, a nobleman. Now she is expecting his child, but of course, he won’t have anything to do with her.” I recalled the forlorn pregnant girl at Sophie’s party.
“The way people behave these days,” my landlady clucked. “I just don’t understand it. Everyone does what he or she wants, without a care for anyone else. People of all ranks together at parties and dances—it’s not right. No one knows his place in the world anymore. It’s no wonder children like Sophie get fanciful ideas.”
“I’m sure Stefan will look after her,” I said.
“I wish her father were still here,” Madame Lamm said. “She needs a strong hand. I cannot very well ask Stefan what his intentions are, can I?”
“He seems very much in love with her,” I said. “Perhaps he is waiting until he has saved enough money to marry.”
“Do you think you could talk to him for me, signore? Find out for me what his plans are?”
“I don’t see very much of him,” I said. “I’m very busy at the theater.”
“Oh, I would not ask you to take time from your work, signore, of course not. But if you should happen to run into Stefan sometime, here at the house—well, you are a clever man. You could easily find a way to turn the conversation to Sophie and his plans.” She looked at me with pleading in her guileless face. “If you could just bring me some assurance, to ease a mother’s worries—”
“I’ll see what I can do, madame,” I said.
* * *
I tarried in the garden for another half hour in case Marta should awaken, and then made my way through the Sunday-morning traffic to the theater. Once in my office, I put the finishing touches on the idea I had for the Don Giovanni burlesque scene. When the bell in St. Michael’s Church sounded the noon hour, I took my satchel and went into the Michaelerplatz. Well-dressed aristocrats streamed from the old wooden doors of the church. The pastry shop across the way had flung its own door wide, tempting the churchgoers with the scent of baked butter and vanilla. I walked up the Kohlmarkt and then up the Tuchlauben. A block before the street entered the Hoher Market, Vienna’s oldest market square, I turned into the entryway of a nondescript building. On the ground floor, rows of jars filled with powders and potions sat locked behind the grate of a dark apothecary shop. I climbed worn, steep steps to the fourth floor and knocked on the door farthest from the landing.
Mozart opened the door. “Lorenzo!” he cried, ushering me into the apartment. “I’m glad you came.” A young maid appeared behind the composer and took my satchel. The mewls of a baby came from the room on the left. Constanze Mozart’s rich voice gently soothed her child.
“Come into the study,” Mozart said. I followed him into the room, which was filled with furniture. The large table Mozart used as a desk was pushed along the left wall, and was surrounded by armchairs. The composer’s fortepiano sat in a dark corner next to an empty birdcage. Two sofas sat underneath the small windows. A young boy had found a space on the crowded floor, and was playing with a small terrier.
“Hello, Carl,” I said.
The boy looked up and grinned at me. “Unc’ Renzo!” he cried.
“Hello, Lorenzo,” Constanze said as she entered the room, carrying the baby. She leaned up to kiss my cheek. “I’m so glad you could come. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
I looked down at the bundle in her arms. The babe’s skin was pale and waxen. She gazed at me with dark eyes, and stuffed her tiny fingers into her mouth.
“How are you, piccola principessa?” I asked her. She answered me with a whimper.
“She’s still sick,” Constanze said. “This catarrh has lasted all winter.”
“She’ll be four months old in a few weeks,” Mozart said, coming over and stroking the baby’s wispy hair, which was the same color as his own. “The winter was so cold. But she’ll be better soon.”
“Come, Carl,” Constanze said. “Bring Gauckerl. It’s time for a nap.”
The little boy opened his mouth to protest, but seeing the stern look on his mother’s face, instead stood and grabbed the dog’s collar.
“Dinner in a half hour,” Constanze said to us. Boy and dog followed her out of the room.
Mozart sprawled on the nearest sofa and motioned for me to sit. “I solved the mystery of Morella,” he said.
I raised a brow. “Not the dry air in the theater after all?” I asked.
The composer smiled. “No. I had him here the day after the rehearsal. After some coaxing, he admitted that he was nervous about singing the coloratura part of the aria. I should have guessed that was the problem. We wrote that part for Baglioni in Prague. Not every tenor can sing the way he can. I told Morella we would cut the aria and write something better suited to his voice.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I don’t know—something contemplative, peaceful. We can put it in anywhere, so don’t worry too much about context.”
I nodded. “I have an idea for the burlesque scene,” I said. “Tell me what you think. After the sextet, when Don Giovanni’s servant escapes from the rest of the cast, everyone will exit. In a few moments, a door will open and the peasant girl will enter wielding a large razor, dragging the servant by the hair.”
“I like it already,” Mozart said.
“She threatens to do all sorts of violence to him and his manhood,” I continued. “She ties his hands with her handkerchief, and fastens him to a chair with a cord. She twists the other end of the cord around the latch of the window and leaves, telling him that when she returns, she will shave him without any soap.”
Mozart winced.
“While she is gone, he struggles frantically to free himself. There’ll be no aria here, maybe just some frenzied sounds from the orchestra. Just as the audience hears her return, the servant jerks hard on the cord. The window crashes down off the wall and he hops off, dragging the chair and the window with him.”
Mozart laughed. “I love it! Finish it up and I’ll set it right away.”
A bell rang from the other side of the apartment. “Dinnertime,” Mozart said. “Constanze’s gotten a bell to summon me. She says she is tired of calling me three or four times when dinner is ready. If I don’t come within two minutes, she starts without me.”
We crossed the foyer into a small games room, where a dining table sat alongside Mozart’s prized billiards table. As I sat with my two friends and ate a rich stew with dumplings and drank a delicious Rhine wine, the trials of the past few days receded from my mind. Constanze was a charming hostess and a very good cook.
“Do you expect a large crowd at the premiere, Lorenzo?” she asked as the maid served a light dessert of almond milk and biscuits.
“I think so,” I replied. “Even with the war going on, the theaters are still full most nights. I only wish the emperor could be there to see it.”
“He’ll see one of the later performances,” Mozart said. “This war is going to be a short one. He had better come home soon,” he added. “I’m writing a lot for his private chamber orchestra, and it will take him several weeks of listening for six hours a day to catch up with me!” A few months ago, the emperor had appointed Mozart as court composer, a position that included a nice stipend, although according to gossip I had heard around the theater, not as much as Salieri had been paid when he held the post.
“I wrote some dances for the ball tomorrow night,” Mozart said. “Are you coming?”
I shook my head. “Probably not. I’m not feeling very frivolous these days.”
Constanze studied me, a puzzled look on her face, and then realized the cause of my distress. “Oh, Lorenzo—that priest they found dead in the Stephansplatz. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“He was a close friend,” I said.
“Do the police know yet what happened to him?” Mozart asked. “I heard he interrupted two Turkish spies plotting to kill the archbishop and they slit his throat.”
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br /> “Hush!” Constanze told him. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lorenzo. Please, if we can do anything for you, let us know.”
I nodded my thanks.
“Now, on a happier subject,” she said. “Is there anyone special in your life since I last saw you?”
The gleam in her eyes made me laugh. “I’m afraid not,” I said.
“Then you should come to the ball,” she said. “There will be many beautiful ladies there.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” I said, smiling at her.
“Good, I’ll save a few dances for you,” she said, patting my hand. She rose and went into the next room to check on her sleeping children. Mozart and I took the remainder of the bottle of wine and our glasses and drifted back into the study.
“Have I played you my war song?” he asked me. I shook my head. “I used an old poem by Gleim.” He sat down at the pianoforte.
“‘I’d love to be the emperor!’” he sang, banging on the pianoforte. “‘I’d love to be the emperor! I would shake the Orient, I would make the Muslims tremble, Constantinople would be mine!’”
I laughed.
“You have to imagine it with the wind band, the cymbals, and the drums,” he said. “‘I’d love to be the emperor!’” He resumed singing. “‘I’d love to be the emperor! Athens and Sparta shall become, like Rome, queens of the world! Ancient times shall be reborn!’”
I applauded.
“Wait, there’s more,” he said. He leaned over the keyboard. “‘I’d love to be the emperor! I’d love to be the emperor! I’d engage the best poets to—’” He looked up. Constanze stood at the door. From the depths of the apartment, the baby howled.
“Now look what you’ve done!” she said. She hurried off to comfort the child.
Mozart gave me a sheepish grin.
“I should go,” I said. “I must get to work on the new aria for Morella.” The composer accompanied me to the door. As the maid handed me my satchel, Constanze reappeared, cradling the fretful baby. “Thank you for the delicious meal,” I said, kissing her cheek. “Take good care of the principessa.”