Mozart's Last Aria

by Matt Rees

‘The penalty for membership of the Illuminati,’ he said, ‘is death.’

  I swallowed a long draught of the cognac and returned the flask to the Prince.

  ‘Did Wolfgang join the Illuminati in Berlin?’ I asked.

  ‘Berlin.’ The skin beneath Lichnowsky’s eye twitched. He watched the nuns depart. When the door closed behind them, he drank from his flask and put it in his coat.

  ‘I remember the performance he gave before the Prussian King,’ he said. ‘He played magnificently.’

  ‘Yet the Prussian King disappointed him. He didn’t give him a position.’

  Lichnowsky stared at the altar. ‘There never was a position.’

  ‘The King deceived him?’

  He braced his arms against the next pew and sighed as though he were exhausted. ‘I have tried, madame, to persuade you of the threats that surround you. You question the death of Maestro Mozart, a prominent man who had access to the salons of the most powerful nobles in the Empire, to the Imperial Court itself. A Mason who refused to adhere to the new regulations governing our brotherhood.’

  I shook my head. ‘He wanted only to make music.’

  ‘He lies buried in a simple grave – next to a baker and a seamstress, for all I know – but his life was complicated and it touched upon issues that powerful people might wish to keep hidden.’

  He stared at me with such intensity that I dropped my eyes to my hands.

  ‘For your own protection, madame, I’ll tell you this much, in the hope it will convince you to pursue this no further. Wolfgang wasn’t discontented with his journey to Berlin. He accomplished the mission on which he was sent.’

  ‘Mission?’

  ‘Our lodge here in Vienna sent him to communicate with King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.’

  I saw the danger, though I barely understood it, just as I sensed the interior of the whole church from the few columns and buttresses visible in the evening light. ‘The pyramids painted in your lodge. The King of Prussia’s Egyptian Garden.’

  The Prince held up his hand to still me. ‘Yes, damn it, woman. The King of Prussia is a Mason. He’s a member of a lodge twinned with the one Wolfgang and I joined.’

  A cloud must have passed, because a new shaft of moonlight dropped through the turreted window at the center of the cupola. It glinted on the ornate golden pulpit. I flinched, thinking someone moved there.

  Lichnowsky gripped my wrist hard. ‘Your brother died a death of natural causes. Throughout his life he was weakened by disease, you know that. But if you persist with your questions, your doubts shall come to the attention of the Emperor’s secret police. They’ll wonder if there was, after all, something suspicious about Wolfgang’s death. They’ll investigate. They’ll find no proof of murder. Yet in the course of their inquiries they might uncover the true purpose of Wolfgang’s journey to Berlin. How do you think that would look for the rest of us in the lodge?’

  ‘Like espionage,’ I said. ‘Like treason.’

  ‘Dealings with the King of Prussia, our Emperor’s greatest enemy. By a secret organization which already stands under severe legal restriction. Yes indeed, treason.’

  We left the church. The chaos of carriages on the Graben had diminished. Lichnowsky walked me past the Plague Column. Sweat glinted on his lip.

  ‘To your inn, madame?’ he said.

  The thugs who assaulted me in the street might have gone on to my lodgings. Lenerl would be safe among the crowd in the barroom. Still, I ought to stay away. ‘I’d prefer to go to my sister-in-law.’

  The habitual stiffness of Lichnowsky’s face had returned, but I detected a tremor beneath it.

  At the gate of Constanze’s courtyard, the Prince lifted his hat. ‘You may find me most mornings at Jahn’s Coffee House, around the corner on Himmelpfort Lane. Just beyond the old Winter Palace of Prince Eugene.’

  ‘I shall be sure to see you there.’

  ‘I shall be delighted.’ He went back along Rauhenstein Lane.

  One of Wolfgang’s simplest minuets came down into the street from the apartment upstairs. A child was at the keyboard, or at least someone who played like a child. The tempo was irregular and the notes were picked out with little certainty.

  At the stairs, it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Lichnowsky the purpose of Wolfgang’s mission to Prussia. What had his Viennese lodge hoped to gain by sending him?

  I hurried back through the entrance, but the Prince had turned the corner and was gone. The street was empty and silent, except for the false notes sounding upstairs on my brother’s piano.

  18

  Constanze greeted me with a distracted smile. She ordered her maid to prepare a hot cup of glühwein for me and led me into the studio.

  Little Karl stumbled through the minuet at the keyboard. As I approached, he slipped from the piano stool and disappeared behind the couch.

  A heavy man was bent over Wolfgang’s standing desk, his boot resting on the rail. With a groan and a hand in the small of his back, he straightened and turned to me. The Prussian ambassador’s grin once more had something of the joyful huntsman to it.

  ‘Madame de Mozart.’ He bowed.

  Constanze twitched her head toward me, surprised.

  ‘I met the Baron Jacobi this afternoon at Baron Swieten’s salon,’ I explained.

  The ambassador came across the room, spreading his chest. A musical score dangled from his hand and I saw that he had been examining still more pages piled on the desk.

  ‘I decided to begin my selection of Maestro Mozart’s scores right away,’ he said. ‘My sovereign is eager that he should obtain the rights to the greatest of these pieces. I thought it best not to delay. Someone else may bid for them.’

  The maid entered with a cup of hot wine on a silver tray. Jacobi exclaimed with pleasure, reached out and took it. As he drank, Constanze made a circle with her finger, signaling the maid to bring another.

  ‘Excellent,’ Jacobi said. ‘Hungarian?’

  ‘Purchased from Herr Hammer at the Red Hedgehog,’ Constanze concurred.

  ‘The best, the very best.’ Jacobi drained the cup.

  Constanze averted her eyes. I assumed it embarrassed her to be seen serving an expensive wine even as she was selling off the rights to my brother’s work.

  ‘During the winter months, Wolfgang would partake of a little of this wine, sir,’ she said, filling her voice with a liveliness that wasn’t matched by her eyes. She was, after all, an actress who could sing of pleasure when she felt pain. ‘It kept his blood flowing as he worked late into the night. He often composed until two in the morning.’

  ‘Whenever inspiration came to him, no doubt,’ the Prussian said.

  ‘And also when it didn’t. Even a genius like my Wolfgang had to work hard at his craft.’

  I stepped to the desk and fanned out the first few manuscript pages. His craft, yes, and his beautiful, difficult soul were in every light stroke of the quill across the musical staves before me.

  The maid brought another glühwein, which Jacobi again grabbed with a cry of delight.

  Beside the scores lay a writing case embroidered with scenes from a garden. I lifted the silk cover. The case contained letters in Wolfgang’s hand. The first was a copy of a note addressed to Lichnowsky, begging for money. The folder’s spine was jammed into the pile of scores, as if the Prussian had been searching through my brother’s correspondence while he bent over Wolfgang’s music.

  I sensed Jacobi at my shoulder. I closed the writing case.

  He lifted the score that he held in his hand and slapped it onto the top of the pile on the desk. His thick fingers sprouted red hairs. He spread them across the manuscript covetously, like a drunk I had witnessed fondling a waitress in a roadside tavern on my journey to Vienna.

  ‘Your performance this afternoon at Swieten’s salon was excellent, madame,’ he said.

  ‘I’m most dedicated to preserving my brother’s work.’ I noticed that Constanze had left the room. I heard
her speaking to the maid and calling for her elder son.

  Jacobi wiped his nose on the back of his hand and glanced at the scores on the desk. ‘In that, you have a friend in my lord the King of Prussia.’

  ‘Is it for the sake of friendship that your King wishes to purchase Wolfgang’s scores?’

  Jacobi slipped a finger beneath his wig and scratched at his scalp. ‘He seeks also to guard the honor of the Maestro’s family, too. Naturally.’

  ‘So this purchase is more of a charitable donation.’

  The ambassador smirked with subdued pride, like one of my mischievous stepsons caught in an act which ought to have made him ashamed.

  I stared at him hard. ‘Or might we call it payment for a mission accomplished?’

  He righted his wig and sucked at his teeth.

  ‘I know that Wolfgang didn’t go to Berlin for a position at court. He was on a mission to your King.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  I lifted my chin.

  Jacobi held his hands out wide. ‘A mission? To what possible end?’

  That much I didn’t yet know. ‘It was for his lodge. You’re a Mason, too. Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s a mistake common among those excluded from power and position to think that because a man is a member of a secret society he must be privy to all the hidden knowledge in the world,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Constanze returned with another cup of hot wine. She brought it directly to me. ‘Here, sister. So that you may be as warm as our friend the ambassador.’ She smiled at her joke, a glimpse of the playfulness Wolfgang had loved in her.

  ‘Zum Wohl,’ I said. ‘Your health.’

  ‘Zum Wohl.’ Jacobi took Constanze’s elbow and brought her to the desk. He dropped his fist onto the pile of manuscript pages. ‘These, Madame Mozart. I will take these.’

  Before Constanze could answer him, I lifted a hand to cover my eyes and stumbled against the desk, spilling some of my wine. I made a show of whimpering and let tears come to my eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said. ‘You’ll think me hopelessly sensitive. I was overcome by the thought of losing my dear brother’s creations. It’s as though he still lives in these pages, you see.’

  ‘I understand completely, madame,’ he said.

  His voice was grudging, but Constanze fussed around me and I knew that I would secure what I wanted.

  ‘If only you’d leave them here a few days, sir, so that I might copy them,’ I said. ‘Purely for my own purposes.’

  The ambassador glanced at the manuscripts. He swallowed like a card player with a bad hand staring at the pot he’s about to lose. ‘Well—’

  ‘Of course, sister,’ Constanze said. ‘I’ll help you to copy them. I’m sure his Grace the Ambassador won’t object.’

  The Prussian drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. ‘I suppose—’

  Constanze took hold of one of the buttons on his tunic. ‘Your Grace, do relent. My dear sister’s request won’t delay your plans so very much.’

  Baron Jacobi gave a low, slow bow, exhaling through his nostrils. He made his voice cheerful. ‘I must go now, to meet a friend for supper,’ he said, slapping his heavy belly. ‘Music, alas, is not the only food I require.’

  In the door, he passed close to Constanze and dropped a purse into her hand. When he saw that I had observed their transaction, the huntsman’s glint in his eyes disappeared. They darted like prey. He went along the hall with Constanze.

  I flipped through the manuscripts, searching for something that might signal what the Prussian had found in them. I could discern no pattern. String quartets, a violin concerto, a piano sonata, some songs, the unfinished Requiem Mass.

  I didn’t doubt that they were worth whatever the Prussian had agreed to pay, and more. But when I thought of Wolfgang’s secret purpose in Berlin, I felt sure Jacobi had been seeking something other than musical excellence.

  From the window, I watched the ambassador emerge into the street.

  He clapped his hands. A whip snapped in the dark, and a carriage rattled over the cobbles toward him. A footman in a blue coat jumped down. He helped Jacobi haul his bulk into the cab, and leaped onto the seat beside the driver, hugging himself against the cold.

  A cavalry patrol clattered down the street, signaling that the hour approached eleven. The captain of the horsemen saluted Jacobi’s carriage as he passed.

  Constanze returned. ‘He has bought the Requiem, sister, the funeral mass,’ she said. ‘I feel as though he has purchased Wolfgang’s death.’

  And you have sold it, I thought. Right away I felt sorry for my harshness. I hugged her thin shoulders.

  19

  When we broke our embrace, the Prussian’s coins rattled in the purse. Constanze caught her bottom lip between her childish white teeth.

  ‘One hundred ducats,’ she said. ‘For each composition. A total of eight hundred ducats.’

  I murmured a noncommittal acknowledgment and glanced at the scores on the desk.

  In the kitchen, the maid yelped and Gaukerl, Constanze’s little dog, scampered over the bare floorboards with a roll between his jaws. He dropped the bread at Constanze’s feet.

  ‘He snatched it from my hand, madame,’ the maid said.

  Constanze laughed, slipped Jacobi’s purse into her sleeve, and picked up the dog. ‘It’s all right, Sabine. He can have a munch of bread for supper. Can’t you, little trickster.’ She ripped the roll and dangled it before the eager dog.

  She twirled on her toes with her pet pressed against her neck. ‘Sister, I’m in high spirits. Let’s have some billiards.’

  ‘I haven’t played in a long time.’

  ‘Wolfgang and I had a game every day. He used to smoke his long pipe and hum a silly ditty to himself. I’d have to tell him to be silent while I took my shots. The next time I’d hear the tune, it’d be a wonderful symphony.’ She squeezed the dog and set it down.

  The burst of happiness which had come over her was infectious. I followed her into the next room. We pushed the chairs against the wall, so that there’d be room for our billiard cues.

  Constanze took the first shot. She caromed her ball off the red and into mine.

  ‘Your point,’ I said.

  She gave a cheer and pretended to blow a trumpet.

  All evening I had been preoccupied with strange revelations about Wolfgang. I still felt the terror of the knife attack, too. It was an extra beat that slipped into the rhythm of my pulse, making it irregular and frenetic. With relief, I laughed at Constanze.

  She sent her ball toward mine, striking below the center with the tip of her cue so that the spin brought her back to clip the red. She whooped and shook her hips in excitement. ‘Bagatelle,’ she called.

  Her exuberance was liberating. The room seemed warm, despite the frost in the window mullions.

  When I took my shot, I scuffed the end of my cue into the baize. My ball trickled toward the cushion.

  ‘You’d do better if you simply drove the ball across the table by farting at it.’ Constanze laughed, but was suddenly silent. She stared at me, fearful that I’d disapprove. Embarrassed points of color rose on her cheeks.

  I turned my back to the table, pushed out my backside, and blew a raspberry. ‘Bagatelle,’ I cried. We hugged, giggling.

  Constanze lined up her next shot, but before she struck the ball she dropped her cue onto the table. ‘What am I to do, sister?’ She folded her hands over her face and sobbed.

  It was as though there had never been a happy embrace between us. Now that she was miserable, I found I couldn’t touch her. I had cried as hard as this when she married my brother, knowing that I would have to be my father’s nursemaid in his old age. I hardened myself to her grief, because it recalled my own.

  ‘Debts. Only debts,’ she cried. ‘That’s all he left me.’

  ‘You have eight hundred ducats to keep you from the poorhouse.’ I heard the lack of sy
mpathy strangling my voice. ‘It’s clear Wolfgang must have made a wonderful impression on his visit to the Prussian court.’

  She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes.

  ‘I mean, for him to command such a sum from the King there,’ I said. Back to the subject of Berlin. Just when I had started to relax.

  Resentment crossed Constanze’s face. The color rose on her cheeks again, but this time it was not from embarrassment. She bent over the billiard table, made another carom, and moved into position for the next shot even before the balls were still.

  ‘Eight hundred ducats is poor return for the amount Wolfgang spent on his trip to Prussia,’ she said.

  The balls clicked and she lined up another shot.

  ‘All the Prussians gave him when he was alive was a gold snuffbox. With the King’s crest on it.’ This time, it was she who made the sound of passing gas with her pursed lips. There was no humor to it.

  She scratched chalk onto the end of her cue to give it grip on the ball. Concentrating on the table, she sucked her upper lip and was silent.

  The easy mood was gone, so I ventured a question. ‘Did Wolfgang find no other way of profiting from the trip?’

  Constanze missed her shot and cursed under her breath.

  I bent to the table and played. My ball clipped the red and rolled aimlessly off the banks. It came to a halt with the slightest kiss against Constanze’s ball.

  ‘A lucky shot,’ I said.

  Constanze let her head drop. ‘I suspected another woman.’

  I rested the butt of my cue on the floor and reached for her arm.

  She shrugged away my consoling touch and looked into the courtyard. She spoke as though she were whispering to the darkest corners of the stable below, addressing shapes which might barely be seen. ‘He dallied in Prague and then in Leipzig on the way to Berlin. I believe he was detained by a... a lady.’

  ‘I can’t agree.’

  She waved away my objection. ‘Disappointment always cast him into a black mood. He said he had been promised a post in Berlin. He found no employment there. Yet he wasn’t dejected. He returned to Vienna as cheerful as ever I saw him.’