Mozart's Last Aria

by Matt Rees

  The Emperor took one of the chairs before the piano. The men who accompanied him went to their seats, too.

  Except for one.

  Count Pergen stood at the center of the room, staring at me. I saw the shock and indecision in his pale eyes. Usually so shrewd, they were gleaming and wide.

  Swieten took the Police Minister’s elbow. He shoved him to a chair tapestried with peasants dancing at a spring festival. Pergen dropped into it, his mouth falling open.

  The Emperor blinked slowly so that we knew it was his pleasure for us to begin.

  Gathering myself, I played the melodious allegro of Wolfgang’s most difficult sonata, the F major. He had composed it during his visit to Salzburg with his new bride. I recalled the coldness I had shown Constanze then. I knew it had hurt my brother. I sensed his suffering in the music.

  The second, slow movement in B-flat major seemed to carry all the proud melancholy I remembered in Wolfgang during his honeymoon visit. This music had protected him from my father’s disapproval, though it also measured out the sadness of that rejection.

  I glanced at the Emperor when I completed the adagio. He scratched at his pale jowls. Beside him, Pergen quivered like the disturbed surface of a pool, his hands tight together in his lap and his staring eyes never rising above the gold buckles of my shoes.

  Through the first rapid scales of the allegro assai, I kept my eye on Pergen. His neck jerked, as though the tumbling notes were blows that fell on him. Like the poor prisoners he has condemned to a public beating, I thought.

  I struck a false note and sensed a fluctuation in my tempo. I understood that my vindictiveness interfered with my concentration and my joy in the music. I turned my eyes from the Police Minister. The keyboard came to life in the fast finale.

  I played the concluding chord. The Emperor rose and led his courtiers in applause. He lifted a hand to silence them.

  ‘No one could have given us such a performance of this divine music,’ he said, ‘except the immortal Mozart.’

  Pergen swayed, ashen and trembling, as the Emperor resumed his place.

  ‘What’ll you give us now, Maestro Mozart?’ Leopold said.

  I coughed and looked to Swieten in alarm, but he had already stepped forward to speak. ‘We had intended to perform a scene from the Maestro’s opera Don Giovanni,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent. Don Giovanni, or The Dissolute Punished, its full title, I believe. A moral tale of which I approve with all my heart.’ The Emperor clapped his hands.

  ‘The Maestro was to have played his own piano transcription,’ Swieten said, ‘while I was to take the role of the Stone Guest and Herr Schikaneder would sing Leporello, the manservant.’

  I noticed Schikaneder push out his chest. Once a performance was broached, he was full of assurance. I was less confident.

  ‘Our Don Giovanni was to have been another member of Herr Schikaneder’s company. To our distress, the fellow is ill. He was unable to accompany us to the palace,’ Swieten said, ‘so we may not perform the scene, after all.’

  ‘Can’t Maestro Mozart sing the role himself?’

  ‘He’s no baritone, your Majesty. He won’t do for the Don. We must abandon our performance.’ Swieten waited a moment. ‘Unless, of course, Count Pergen—’

  ‘Absolutely.’ The Emperor grabbed Pergen’s shoulder and shook it. ‘Come along, Pergen. You have a fine voice, and a baritone at that. Perfect for the Don. Step up, fellow. I know you’re more of a church singer, but we won’t judge you harshly.’

  The mention of judgment from his sovereign’s mouth jarred Pergen. He fixed Leopold with eyes that seemed to shake in their sockets.

  Swieten thrust a score into Pergen’s hands and maneuvered him across the floor. He kept a grip on the Minister’s elbow as they stood beside the piano.

  Pergen’s features were as transfigured as they had been when he spoke of wandering ghosts at early Mass in the cathedral. A sinner encounters supernatural revenge, he had said then. It must have seemed to him such vengeance was now undertaken. The ghost of his victim returned from the grave, forcing him into an ordeal before a man whose power was absolute and lethal.

  Pergen pulled at his cravat to loosen it. But the tightness was within his throat. Nothing he could do would relieve it.

  Schikaneder leaned close and whispered, ‘There’s not much in this scene for me, you know. May I do Leporello’s aria about the list of ladies the Don has seduced?’

  ‘Perhaps that’s not quite appropriate for the Emperor,’ I said.

  ‘You’re right. Something else then? How about “Night and Day I Toil Away’?’

  ‘By all means, but only after we do this scene.’

  I struck the dramatic opening chords, announcing the arrival of the Stone Guest, the spirit of a man murdered by Don Giovanni, come to take his killer to Hell.

  Schikaneder cowered, acting the part of Giovanni’s fearful servant. Pergen shuddered with each chord. In a strong baritone, Swieten sang the Stone Guest’s invitation for the reprobate Don to accompany him to the underworld.

  Giovanni’s first lines came. Swieten’s fingers tightened around Pergen’s upper arm. Pergen fumbled with his score and sang, bidding his servant set a place at the table for his terrifying visitor.

  The audience seemed not to notice Pergen’s nerves and weak singing. Their attention was consumed by Schikaneder’s unrestrained mugging, as he urged his master to turn away from the disquieting spirit. The Emperor, however, watched only his Police Minister.

  Schikaneder’s animation appeared to lend some backbone to Pergen. When the Stone Guest told Giovanni that he had come to claim his soul, it was time for the Don to respond: ‘None shall accuse me of fear. I shall succumb to no one.’ Pergen’s chin lifted and, for the first time, he extended his jaw to let the notes resonate.

  I worried that Pergen’s self-righteousness might carry him through this ordeal.

  The Stone Guest called on Giovanni to accept his invitation. Pergen replied that he was fearless and would accept. Swieten held out his hand.

  Pergen hesitated. Swieten reached for him.

  There was no acting in the cry that came from Pergen’s lips when the Baron squeezed his hand. He caught his breath and stuttered through the line about a deadly chill in his body. He pulled away, but Swieten held on.

  ‘There’s no repentance for me,’ Pergen sang. His eyes swiveled toward me. ‘Vanish from my sight.’

  I heard the fear of God in Pergen’s voice, and I wished mercy for him. I thought of my prayers for Our Lord to show clemency toward my brother. I hated to think that there might be anyone from whom redemption would be withheld. I glanced at the Baron, wishing that he might find some way to offer compassion. He didn’t waver.

  Still gripping the Count’s hand, Swieten forced his wrist down so that the poor man bent before him. With all the volume he could manage, Swieten sang: ‘Then dread the eternal wrath.’

  I had loved this scene on stage. But when I saw it unfold in the palpitations and sobs of a terrified wretch I confess that my desire to unmask Pergen weakened. I whispered to Swieten, ‘Your Grace. I—’

  Pergen squinted over the piano toward me, gasping. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no.’

  Swieten released him.

  Pergen leaned against the piano, his shoulders heaving.

  The Emperor snapped his fingers at his distraught Minister. ‘Come on, man.’

  Pergen swallowed hard, and sang: ‘Unknown terrors chill me. Demons of doom grasp at me. Is Hell let loose to torture me?’

  The Baron had read my reluctance to push this stricken man too far. He raised his hand as a conductor might, commanding and firm. I was as powerless to resist him as I had been when we kissed. I grew confident in the force of Wolfgang’s music and Swieten’s guidance.

  He brought down his hand. I drove my fingers hard onto the keyboard to make the chords as loud as I might. In the deepest register I could manage, I sang the chorus: ‘Eternal torment awaits you. Yo
u’ll burn in endless night.’

  Pergen bleated his final lines, though his distress was somewhat disguised by Schikaneder. The actor grasped for Don Giovanni, trying to haul him back as he fell into the flames. ‘The fire of doom surrounds him,’ he called.

  Schikaneder would no doubt have dropped to the floor had he been playing the Don. Pergen had no need to mime a descent into Hell – he was already there. His eyes darted between the Emperor and me. His palm dropped a pool of sweat onto the lid of the piano. His skin was as white as his periwig.

  The Emperor’s companions lifted their hands, waiting for his signal to applaud. But when Leopold rose from his chair, he hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his frock coat.

  Schikaneder leaned into a practiced bow. He looked about, perplexed by the silence. Swieten beckoned me to rise from the piano.

  I reached out my hand to Pergen, as the Baron had told me I must. The room was empty of all sound, except Pergen’s shivering breath.

  ‘Take it,’ the Emperor said. ‘Take his hand.’

  Pergen shook his head.

  ‘I command you.’ Leopold’s eyes, which had been hidden by sagging skin, grew wide and powerful. ‘It is the will of your Emperor.’

  Pergen dropped toward my hand. I thought he might kiss it, but then I saw that he was collapsing. He fell at my feet.

  ‘Forgive me, Mozart,’ he cried. ‘Forgive me, oh God, forgive me. Please.’

  His words seemed not to be generated by a voice, but rather by the tearing of a voice, as if his soul were ripped from his throat. He grabbed my ankles and wept over my shoes. Wolfgang’s shoes.

  ‘Do you confess to the murder of Maestro Mozart?’ the Emperor said.

  ‘I confess it, and I beg forgiveness before his dreadful ghost. Go to your rest, Mozart, and let me have mine.’ Pergen’s fingernails drove into my legs. I stepped back, but he followed me on his knees. ‘I beg forgiveness of my God.’

  ‘You’d better implore that of me,’ the Emperor said. ‘Take him away.’

  The chamberlain swung back the door. Two white uniformed guards entered at a jog. They took hold of Pergen under his arms, hoisted him to his knees and, without turning their backs on their sovereign, dragged the weeping man from the room. So limp was he that one of his shoes slipped off. The Emperor picked it up and tossed it to his chamberlain.

  He turned to Swieten with regret and disgust around his tight mouth. ‘It gives me no pleasure to see my loyal servant dragged from the room,’ he said, ‘nor that he should be driven to madness.’

  The Baron dropped his head. ‘Nonetheless, your Majesty—’

  ‘Nonetheless, Pergen made a grave error in ordering the death of Maestro Mozart.’

  ‘It wasn’t his only error, your Majesty,’ I said.

  My clothing gave me a shield, like a mask at a ball or a costume at Carnival time. If my words displeased the Emperor, they were uttered from a mouth not my own, because I wore the suit of a dead man. ‘Count Pergen saw revolution in my brother’s innocent membership of the Masonic Brotherhood. And in the message of equality at the heart of the beautiful opera Wolfgang wrote with Herr Schikaneder.’

  The Emperor’s eyes flashed toward the actor, who bowed with a discomfited grin.

  ‘If you persecute these good Masonic brethren, your Majesty, you’ll drive them into cooperation with your enemies,’ I said.

  Leopold raised a thin eyebrow. Even in my disguise I found it hard to endure his penetrating stare. I was almost compelled to confess Wolfgang’s mission to Berlin, as though I had made the journey myself.

  ‘Count Pergen has displeased me of late,’ the Emperor said. ‘He urged me to undo many of the reforms of my dear brother Joseph’s reign. Without enthusiasm, I did roll back certain important measures. But no more. That’s at an end.’

  Swieten smiled and would have spoken. The Emperor’s frown halted him.

  ‘Let no one make further demands of me. You’d do well to remember…’ he hesitated, ‘…Madame de Mozart, that I must be on guard against threats to my crown.’

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty. But they don’t come from my brother’s opera.’

  ‘Count Pergen’s policies shall, indeed, be reversed.’

  I thought of the Grotto. ‘Might it be possible to grant permission for a new Masonic lodge? To honor my departed brother. A lodge in which women are allowed entry to the Brotherhood?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Madame, you exceed the bounds of propriety. You’d do best to retire from the room and put on appropriate clothing. You’re not really Mozart, after all.’

  ‘Oh, but I am.’ I took my three-cornered hat from the lid of the piano and set it on my head as Swieten had shown me. ‘I certainly am.’

  With a bow, I went toward the exit. I shared a glance with Swieten. His eyes posed a question. Now that I had resolved the mystery that had brought me to Vienna, would I remain? With him? It was the life I had always wanted. Yet I had married Berchtold in the Lord’s house, and hadn’t Pergen’s collapse shown me the consequences of betraying God’s law? I caught my lower lip between my teeth. The chamberlain hurried to make way for me.

  The door closed behind me. Pergen’s other shoe lay on its side on the carpet, a memorial to the man who once strode with such confidence along this hall.

  As I walked down the stairs and into the courtyard, I was pleased that this should be the last performance at the Imperial palace by a Mozart.

  35

  God is my light. But when I entered the cemetery of St Marx, I felt He was also a shadow cast over the world. He draws us all toward eternal darkness.

  Clouds blew across the sky, streaked silver by the obscured sun. The lace bonnet I wore on my newly shorn hair thrashed against my brow in the wind. Fallen leaves skittered over the path, tapping like rain against a window pane. Crows flew in low loops.

  Everything in the graveyard was in motion. No one could have convinced me that even the dead lay indifferent and still in the earth. I sensed they were barging each other for a plot closer to Wolfgang, so they might hear his music.

  Now that the mystery of his death was settled, I wished to pray over my brother’s body. Within ten years, the tombs of St Marx would be ploughed over, the ground reused for new corpses. It would be as if Wolfgang had been interred in a mass grave, his bones intermingled with hundreds of strangers. I wanted to touch the earth directly above him while I still might.

  I left Lenerl at the foot of the hill. The walk was steeper than it appeared. My breathing seemed as heavy as the wind bending the birches. The graves were arranged twenty ranks deep on the hilltop, the newer burials at the back, farthest from the path. Someone moved at the rear of the rectangle of tombs.

  A woman rose from her knees, her head bowed under a veil. She pulled her black cape around her thin shoulders and crossed herself.

  I went along the muddy path. The wind dropped. The hilltop was silent. The woman heard my boots in the puddles. She turned.

  The breeze started once more and caught her veil. Magdalena’s scars shone with tears in the stark light.

  ‘Do you weep for my brother?’ I asked her, when I reached the grave. ‘You should know that he rests more easily than he did yesterday.’

  She looked down at a low mound of earth. A square of parchment nailed to the simple wooden cross bore his name. It rattled like the leaves in the wind. ‘He rests,’ she said. ‘That much I envy him.’

  I stepped toward her, but she lifted her hand to stop me.

  ‘I repent every moment I was with him,’ she said. ‘I took such pleasure in it, but what did it bring? Only the madness of my husband. He took Wolfgang’s life and his own, and he left me disfigured.’

  ‘But I already told you at Gieseke’s funeral, it wasn’t your husband who killed Wolfgang.’

  ‘Yes, it was. It was Franz.’

  ‘Let me explain. I know the whole truth now.’

  ‘You can’t know.’ She reached under her veil to wipe her tears, careful not
to rub at her scars. But she flinched anyway. ‘Franz tolerated the closeness of my relationship with the Maestro, because of the – the benefit to my health.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You saw me suffer a fit at Gieseke’s funeral. The falling sickness. It was a frequent affliction, until I learned to play Wolfgang’s music.’

  ‘His compositions are very calming to me, too.’

  ‘More than calming. They’re better than any physician’s medicine. Without them it’s as though I’m a madwoman.’

  She trembled. I wondered if she was about to succumb to another fit, but it was only the wind shivering her.

  ‘To protect you against this sickness,’ I said, ‘your husband paid for the expensive services of a famous composer as your music teacher?’

  ‘The Maestro respected my talent,’ Magdalena said. ‘He invited me into his company more and more, because he valued my musical ability. It didn’t matter to him that I was a woman. But Franz became jealous. He believed I was having an affair with Wolfgang.’

  ‘I’ve heard that rumor. But please let me speak. I’ve come from the palace where—’

  ‘That’s why Franz agreed to work for Count Pergen.’

  I stared through the veil at the gashes on her desperate face.

  ‘My husband was an agent for the Police Minister. He poisoned Wolfgang during a meeting of their Masonic brotherhood.’ She plucked a leaf from a lilac bush behind the grave, rubbed it with her thumb, and let it drop. ‘For this treachery he received payment from Pergen.’

  The lavish apartment where I first met her, I thought, paid for with secret bribes.

  ‘How do you know this?’ I said. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘After Wolfgang died, Franz gloated. He told me he had taken revenge for my infidelity. He felt he had triumphed.’

  ‘Then he attacked you?’

  ‘No. I told him that he was mistaken. I had been the Maestro’s pupil and nothing more. He didn’t want to hear it, but I insisted. He saw what he had done. He cried out that he had been duped. That he had murdered a genius.’