by Matt Rees
The Baron flicked his wrist for the servant to remove his plate. ‘Grotto?’
‘He appeared to have in mind some new Masonic lodge at the time of his death.’
Swieten read over the two paragraphs of Wolfgang’s writing.
The servant hovered, waiting for the Baron to remove his free hand from the rim of his plate. He stood back, when he saw his master’s preoccupation.
‘A new lodge?’ the Baron said. ‘How did you—?’
‘Constanze found it among Wolfgang’s papers.’
He shoved his plate away. He whispered Wolfgang’s name, as though admonishing a child.
‘Herr Stadler seems to believe that this put my brother in danger,’ I said.
‘You’d think that with so many aristocrats among the Masons, Wolfgang would see it as a pleasant debate club. You know, just a way to meet influential patrons,’ Swieten said. ‘Indeed, it was – for a time. Until our Emperor concluded that the Masons spread radical ideas, and placed restrictions on them.’
‘So people are afraid to be known as Masons now?’
‘Terrified. Most of the Masons simply resigned from their lodges. They’ve no wish to risk a confrontation with the Emperor.’
I drew in my breath. I knew my brother’s dissident temperament. ‘But not Wolfgang.’
The Baron stared at the paper I had given him. ‘Wolfgang became one of the most prominent men in the remaining Viennese lodges. He wrote music for their meetings.’
‘And he allowed his participation to be widely known?’
‘He didn’t hide it.’
‘Did he put his life at risk?’
Swieten watched the sunlight, green through his wine glass. ‘You haven’t seen The Magic Flute yet?’
‘With respect, my lord, is that the answer to my question? Did The Magic Flute endanger Wolfgang?’
‘I’d be delighted to accompany you to a performance.’
‘I heard that it’s full of the symbols used by Masons in their secret practices.’
‘So it is.’
‘Could Wolfgang have been threatened by Freemasons angry that their secrets were revealed?’
Swieten tipped his head. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure Wolfgang only wanted to show the Emperor that Masonry aims to create a brotherhood of mankind. That it’s no threat to his power as ruler.’
The naiveté of the project sounded true to my brother. ‘You believe another Mason murdered Wolfgang, don’t you?’
‘The Masons live in a state of mutual suspicion,’ he said. ‘They’re infiltrated by Pergen’s agents. They fear to be accused of treachery against the Emperor so much that they become traitors to each other.’
He handed the Grotto note to me. I returned it to my pocket, as he went into his study. Through the door, I saw him draw a file from a pile of manuscripts and open it. He came back to the doorway.
‘Listen to this. “The police is charged with observing what people are saying about the monarch and his government, what the general attitude of the people is concerning the government, whether there are any malcontents or even agitators at work among the upper or lower classes, all of which is to be regularly reported to headquarters.” This is a secret decree of the Emperor granting new powers to Pergen to employ agents at every level of society. No one may speak freely any more.’
‘But one may sing freely?’
He raised his finger. ‘Wolfgang believed so.’
‘Was he wrong?’
‘When people speak out against the state, only a few radicals on the fringe of society pay attention.’
‘But when Wolfgang played his music—’
‘Everybody listened.’
The bells sounded the Angelus, three strokes followed by a pause for prayer, repeated three times. I whispered a Hail Mary between each set of chimes.
When the chimes stopped, Swieten cleared his throat, as though prayer were an embarrassment. ‘My guests will be arriving. It’s almost time for your performance.’
13
Two dozen gentlemen of the Society of Associated Cavaliers chattered and swigged from their cups of hot wine, as the footmen lit the lamps in the Imperial Library. Across the courtyard, the lanterns of the Emperor’s ceremonial apartments glimmered amber through the double-glazed windows.
I took my seat at the piano. Baron van Swieten stared at the men until they quieted like guilty schoolboys on their gilded chairs.
‘Madame de Mozart,’ he said, with a bow.
For the occasion, I had practiced one of Wolfgang’s fugues, because I remembered he had written of Swieten’s liking for that style of composition. It was a complex piece by a mature musician. But these men already knew that Wolfgang. I wished to show them the Wolfgang I had known. I closed my eyes and recalled a room at an inn in Amsterdam when I was fifteen.
Wolfgang would have been ten years old. My mother was reading a new English novel, though she managed to learn little of that language despite our year in London. Our father was writing another of his letters to our landlord in Salzburg enumerating our many successes. I was at the piano, while Wolfgang scratched his quill over the notebook he used for composing, humming a bland little melody.
Even as I lifted my hands to the keyboard in the Imperial Library, I recalled the way my brother and I had laughed as he forced his way onto the piano stool, bumping his hip against mine, so that he might try out the set of variations he had written. They were based on a song by the Prince of Orange’s court composer.
So, instead of the fugue, I went into that trilling Dutch theme. I continued through the syncopated variation, the triplets, the shorter notes, the adagio.
I became that fifteen-year-old girl once more, happy and playful, her family around her. Within the music I created a fantasy life in which I hadn’t lost touch with my brother. In this fiction, I had spoken to my mother and father as I had wished to speak, rather than as I thought they’d prefer to hear me. These fictional parents duly consented that I should follow a musical career, like Wolfgang.
While I played his music, I imagined that he hadn’t died.
Then the variations were at an end. I was in the Imperial Library once more. The cupola resounded to the applause of some of the most powerful men in Vienna.
And Wolfgang was dead.
The florid faces around me beamed at each other in enjoyment. Anger tightened my hands into fists. When I played Wolfgang’s music it was as though he were alive. How could they hear the piece reach its end without experiencing once more the tragedy of his death?
Baron Swieten’s lips were firm, not smiling. I saw that for him, too, Wolfgang died every time he heard his music. We watched each other until the applause ended.
Someone cleared his throat as if in embarrassment. Swieten collected himself. ‘Herr Gieseke, please.’
I hadn’t noticed the actor when I entered. He came to stand before the piano. I gave him a smile of surprise and recognition, which he didn’t return. He wore the same black coat I had seen on him in the pavilion at the Freihaus Theater. He had scrubbed the milky stain from its hem. His cravat was high around his neck and he had brushed his thinning hair into a romantic sweep back from his brow. I took a chair beside Swieten.
Gieseke declaimed the opening lines of an ode by the scandalous poet Schiller. I had heard that it portrayed ordinary men as equal in station to their monarchs. Yet the aristocrats smiled approval as they listened to the actor.
‘Anger and revenge shall be forgotten. Our deadly enemy shall be forgiven.’
The strength of Gieseke’s voice surprised me. When I met him, he had been sneering and shrill. I wondered if an actor speaking lines might be transformed as I was when I sat before the keyboard.
‘Delivery from the chains of tyrants.’
Swieten’s chin quivered, moved by the poem.
‘A serene hour of farewell. Sweet rest in the shroud.’
Gieseke paused.
In the silence, he caught his breath with a hiss and
lifted his eyes, expectant and fearful, toward the cherubs and sages painted in the dome above.
He raised his arms high. ‘Brothers, a mild sentence from the mouth of the final judge.’
‘Bravo.’ Swieten shot to his feet and applauded.
As the other cavaliers followed the Baron, Gieseke dropped into a brief bow. A tightness across his brow looked like doubt. Was he unsure that his own sentence would be as forgiving as the poet suggested?
Swieten clapped Gieseke on the shoulder and thanked him. The actor shuffled toward the punch bowl.
‘More music,’ the Baron called.
Maestro Salieri took the piano, Swieten and two others the vocal parts, to perform an oratorio by Handel.
A heavy man in a blue coat with gold edging and white breeches settled on the chair beside me. His brows were low, and his face gave the impression of an eager wolf dog, jocular and predatory.
‘Your performance was excellent, madame,’ he said, straightening his short white wig.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I had the pleasure of a close brotherhood with Maestro Mozart.’ He smiled in the direction of the singers and spoke without moving his lips. He glanced to the side to take me in. Though he was at home in the palace, his eyes had a feral meanness that belonged in the slums.
‘I’m at the disadvantage of not hearing your name, sir,’ I said.
‘The Baron Konstant von Jacobi, madame.’ His accent was harsh and clipped, northern German.
A close brotherhood with Wolfgang. I recalled his name and the triangles he had signed after it in Stadler’s souvenir book. Another Freemason.
‘A pleasure to meet your Honor. I detect by your voice that you’re not Viennese. What brings you to this city?’
‘Duty. I’m the ambassador of the Prussian King.’
‘Had you shared your—your brotherhood with Wolfgang a long time?’
‘Since his visit to Berlin two years ago. We renewed our acquaintance soon after, when I took up my post here.’
‘In Berlin. So you first saw him with the Prince Lichnowsky?’
The Prince sat across the room, stiff and upright, his back not touching the support of the chair.
‘Yes, with that scoundrel.’ The ambassador flicked his hand in dismissal in the direction of Lichnowsky.
I found myself offended by this attack on a friend of Wolfgang. ‘He seems to me a fine gentleman.’
‘You think so? He’s like one of the barges floating down the Danube toward Hungary. He travels well in the direction of the current, but he can’t make the return journey against the tide. A trimmer, you understand, who follows other men. Without principle.’ The Prussian licked his lips and grinned. ‘He ought to be broken up for firewood, as those barges are when they reach their destination. Quite a scoundrel.’
‘But also a brother, is he not?’
He saw the inference and watched me as though amused by my deduction. ‘One can never be sure of escaping wickedness, even in the most brotherly of circles.’
I had no wish to debate Lichnowsky’s character. I returned to Wolfgang. ‘On your first meeting with Wolfgang, he sought a position at the court in Berlin.’
Jacobi puffed out his cheeks. ‘The King wished to employ him and, therefore, extended the invitation. But there were cabals in the King’s service opposed to Maestro Mozart. Threatened by his talent, no doubt. It was, in the end, beyond my lord’s power.’
‘He decided not to impose his will?’
‘Political matters extend beyond the drawing of borders and the deployment of troops, madame. Those who covet important jobs at court are much given to maneuvering. Musicians are no exception, although your brother was naïve in such things.’
I knew this to be true enough. On our travels, our father had always taken care of the flattery that gained our entrance to palaces and salons. Perhaps Wolfgang never learned the skill.
‘I’ve been commanded to buy certain of Maestro Mozart’s manuscripts for shipment to Berlin,’ Jacobi said. ‘You’ll understand this is a sign of the esteem in which your brother was held by the King. I’ll visit the widow soon to make my selection.’
I didn’t question that Constanze would be willing to sell. I thought I might go through Wolfgang’s scores first to claim a few of my favorites. I also recalled that he often wrote notes to himself in the margins of his compositions – reminders of issues and ideas unconnected to music. Having received no letter from him since shortly after our father’s death, I wished to search in those scribblings for some of what he might have experienced in the years that were lost to me.
The singing concluded. Maestro Salieri conversed with Baron Swieten while he improvised on a tune with a Turkish flavor.
Prince Lichnowsky bowed before me. Rising, the Prussian ambassador shook the hand of the man he deemed a scoundrel. He sauntered to the punch bowl, where I noticed Gieseke putting away a goblet of wine in a single draught. The actor glared at me, his eyes and skin shining as they had when I first met him.
Prince Lichnowsky’s Tokay swirled, scarlet and amber, in his glass as he perched on the next chair.
‘A fine performance, madame. I always admired the classical symmetry of Wolfgang’s music.’
‘I’d call that a surface appearance,’ I said. ‘Wolfgang creates a strain in each piece. Our pleasure is in his inspired resolution of that tension.’
The Prince rolled the Tokay in his mouth. I saw that I had contradicted him too frankly.
‘It’s not in looks alone that you resemble your brother. He, too, couldn’t let a foolish remark pass on the subject of music.’
‘I didn’t say it was foolish, just—’
‘Wrong.’
Fast footsteps approached and Gieseke stood over my chair. Close enough that I picked out the remnants of the stain he had tried to scrub from his coat.
‘The Baron van Swieten urges that I accompany you to your lodging, madame.’ His voice was louder than necessary, as though he intended to quash any objection by the Prince.
As Gieseke extended his hand to me, Lichnowsky shrugged and swallowed the last of his Tokay.
14
Gieseke’s coat flew open as he crossed Library Square. In the twilight, his wide eyes were jaundiced by the lanterns in the palace windows. He reached for my elbow. ‘Madame, I beg of you to hurry.’
He rushed me past the Augustinian Church, repository of the hearts of the Habsburg dead. I struggled for balance on the icy cobbles. On Dorotheer Lane, he dragged me into the entryway of an apartment house.
‘I warn you, you’re in great danger here,’ Gieseke whispered. ‘I told you how Wolfgang met his end.’
His fervor scared me, but I forced my mind to slow down, to concentrate in spite of my nerves as I did when I performed.
‘You told me how you think he died, but not who killed him,’ I said. ‘For all I know it may have been Hofdemel, and he’s dead so he can hardly be a threat to me now.’
Gieseke tightened his hold on my arm. ‘Why do you mention Hofdemel?’
I dropped my eyes.
‘Oh, the affair with his wife,’ he said, distracted and somehow relieved.
I wriggled against his grip.
He watched the corner of the street, as though to see if we had been followed. His clammy hand rested on my wrist, where he had pulled me toward our hiding place.
‘If you really think you’re safe,’ he said, ‘why is your pulse beating like a frightened bird?’
I wrenched my arm from his grasp and walked into the quiet street, heading away from the palace toward my lodging. He followed, staying close to the wall and keeping an eye on the spray of lantern light at the corner.
We turned toward the Flour Market. The street was narrow, unlit, and empty.
My foot slipped in the manure of a horse. Gieseke grabbed me to prevent my fall.
‘Thank you, I—’
He pushed me against the wall. I caught the scent of the hot punch he had drunk at Bar
on Swieten’s salon. I cried out, but he covered my mouth with his hand.
He brought his face close to mine. Though it was obscured by the dull light of the day’s end, I saw an imploring desperation there. If I was in peril, it wasn’t from this man.
‘Don’t you care?’ he whispered. ‘Don’t you care that you endanger others?’
I pulled my face away from his hand. ‘Whom do I endanger?’
‘Those who know the truth about your brother.’
‘Why should that be dangerous?’
‘Don’t play dumb. I explained it to you.’
‘All those ridiculous combinations of the number eighteen?’
I pushed at him, but he held me to the wall. The rough edge of a brick bit at my back.
‘You pretend it’s ridiculous, but if you didn’t suspect something wrong in the way Wolfgang died you wouldn’t be here,’ he whispered. ‘You didn’t come to Vienna just to trot out a few tunes for his aristocratic patrons.’
I ceased to resist him.
‘I’m right, aren’t I,’ he said. ‘What else do you know? Who else has told you of the way Wolfgang died?’
I thought of the Baron and his book of Italian poisons. ‘What am I to do, Herr Gieseke? You tell me that Wolfgang was murdered, but you don’t want me to stir things up?’
Low voices approached the corner. Two men turned into the street.
Gieseke pressed his hand to my mouth again. ‘Pretend you’re a whore,’ he said.
I grunted a protest into his palm, but he thrust himself toward me and lifted me against the wall.
The men paused as they passed us. One of them chuckled and voiced some encouragement to Gieseke, before he moved on. The other waited. He hissed to his companion and came closer.
Silhouetted against the pale walls across the street, he lifted his arm. A knife glinted, icy and gray.
I screamed into Gieseke’s hand. He spun and went at the man low, taking him down.
Gieseke rolled and was back on his feet. He kicked at the attacker’s arm. The knife tinkled across the cobbles.
The second man landed a blow against Gieseke’s head, but the actor twisted and wrestled him into a doorway.