“Yes, exactly,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “A proper rondo. The rondo I didn’t give you in Figaro. In E-flat. I mean to write a piano part for myself, just like in one of my concertos. Only you’ll be singing along with me, and I with you, the pair of us, with the orchestra. It will be a duet. The grandest kind of parting anyone has heard.”
“What’s the text?”
“Don’t fear, my love, for you my heart will always be faithful.” He gave her a rueful look and pulled her to him. “That sort of thing. It’s by Varesco. He’s no Da Ponte, but it will suit perfectly. You’ll be telling the people of Vienna you’re not abandoning us; that you’ll always hold us first in your heart; that you’ll come back, etcetera.”
She looked at him cheerfully, so he would feel better. “And you’ll play with the orchestra?”
“Yes,” he said, caressing her knee. “It will be for myself and you.”
Then they had to break apart, because Lidia came in to light the room. She rattled at the door before she entered, to give them time.
“Kind lady,” said Mozart to Lidia, “you come at just the right moment. We were about to play a game of backgammon and can hardly see the dice.”
“Indeed,” Lidia observed, “the sun has nearly set.”
“So it has.” Quickly he arranged the backgammon pieces, a familiar expression of gaiety and interest on his face, as though the black-and-red disks were the most engrossing collection of objects he had seen in his life. “Do you know it’s been years since I played? But I remember all the rules. I used to love hearing the thunk and clack of the men as you run them around the board.”
“Oh, Lidia,” Anna asked her, as if in passing, as the girl was leaving. “Will you see we’re not disturbed? We shan’t need anything else. No wine.”
“Yes, Anna.”
They finished the game and she beat him handily. “Ah,” he said. “You’re beautiful triumphant. Look at those black eyes trying to contain themselves—those hot cheeks. You’re like that when you’ve been singing something marvelous. On my lap. In your underclothes.”
“I hate to lose. You made silly mistakes.”
“I left too many blots. Next time I’ll do better. For now I rejoice in my losing, if it gives Mademoiselle Storace such eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing. “I should be more gracious.”
They were silent a while. Then he said, “It’s late,” and rose. And there it was: their parting. “Constanze will think I’ve been taken by highwaymen.”
“Oh, stay,” Anna whispered, rising, too. “Please don’t go yet. Stay a little longer.”
“A little longer,” he murmured. He rested his chin on her shoulder, as if willing his body to dissolve there.
“She knows you’re here. She’ll think we’re practicing our music.”
“We’ve no music to practice. She knows that very well.”
Anna pulled back, frowning and crying. Mozart watched her without speaking. She slipped off her shoes. She took off her stockings and put them down her bodice. Then she stood there trembling.
“Give me back my boots,” she whispered, in German. “Please. Please, Wolfgang.”
He lifted his hand and traced the line of her cheek with such tenderness she thought it would kill her. “Never,” he said. “Never in all my life. You’ll never have them.”
“Give them back,” she whispered, weeping. She let her head turn with the motion of his fingers. He kissed her neck where it met the jaw.
“Never, Anna.”
“And your debt to me,” she sobbed, rubbing her nose into his shirt, holding his slender, breathing, dearest back. “The kisses—”
“What debt?” he whispered. “What kisses?”
She tried to laugh, to pretend that none of it mattered, but all that came out were unrelenting tears. “Sing for me, Anna, and I will kiss your hands a hundred thousand times.”
“Oh,” he murmured. He bent his head and kissed her collarbone, kissed the space between her breasts. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “I’d forgotten. There’s two already. There’s three. And I love you. I love you.”
The Young Lord
“My German’s wretched,” said Stephen. He helped Anna up the stairs. It was January and they were going to a party at the Thuns’. The Mozarts were in Prague. “It’s embarrassing. You’ll have to tell me if I make a faux-pas.”
Stephen was smiling and at ease. His new opera in Vienna had been a success, redeemed him completely, and he was looking forward to going back to London. He planned to write English operettas and pastiches, in the mode of Italian opera buffa.
Inside, the countess with all her graciousness was wearing the bracelet she had received as a favor from Anna’s birthday party last year. “I have someone here who especially wants to meet you, my dear,” she said to Anna.
The gentleman pushed himself forward. “Oh,” Anna exclaimed. “Lord Barnard.”
“Miss Storace remembers my name,” the young man said in a voice of low rapture, closing his eyes.
“Now, Lord Barnard,” Anna said lightly, glancing at their hostess. “You mustn’t speak English like that in mixed company. If you insist on being so rude, you and Stephen may retire to a corner and talk between yourselves.”
The young man shook his head and said in rather broken German that he would speak any language to stay by Miss Storace’s side.
“Oh, dear,” Anna said into the countess’s ear. “Either he doesn’t know what he’s saying or he’s a fool.”
The countess smiled genially at the young gentleman. “Yes,” she said in a low voice, “but there is a place for puppies, if they have wealth.”
Barnard was an English lord of twenty-three on his first European tour. His hair was russet gold, his eyes wide and watery. He had a booming voice and would not have made a bad singer, if he’d had more art and less fortune. He was handsome in the rich, well-fed way of his class. Lord Barnard got what he wanted. His youth merely added to his confidence. And he was besotted with Anna.
The spell had been cast last May. He had come to the opening of Figaro, had heard Anna sing, with such exquisite sensuality, “Deh, vieni.” Although Barnard possessed little Italian, he had a romantic soul, and he had fallen deeply in love with Anna that night. She had been singing to him, he felt. The sense of recognition was no trick of drunkenness or fancy. She was his to worship in whatever capacity she would let him. He was young, clever, and rich. He did not doubt that these charms would prevail.
Anna that night had not been in any mood to receive him, so he had attended every subsequent performance until she had. Then he had left Vienna to continue on his European tour. He had returned yesterday evening.
“I meant to spend more days in Rome,” he said, “but something pulled me back to Vienna.” He gazed at her and began again speaking in English: so frail was his German. “You, mademoiselle, if I may be so bold, called me to this place, this city exquisite in my memory, not for its spires and vistas but for something—someone—who shall, when she leaves it, render the poor city drab and dark. For a pair of eyes, mademoiselle, as rich and promising as velvet. For lips, cheeks, as soft and pink as new roses. For a voice that has made me wish to renounce my place in heaven.”
“Dear Lord Barnard,” she said laughingly in German, “you have many words and nothing to put them in. That must be very hard.” She took Stephen’s arm and left him.
But after that meeting he called on her nearly every day. Sometimes she was not at home. On those occasions he left behind some token of his presence, a flower, a fine piece of ribbon, a lace fan, a jar of perfumed ointment. Now and then there might be a curiosity from the Orient, a hair ornament of wrought ivory, exotic earrings, silk.
“He thinks I can be bought,” Anna observed to Lidia.
“Then he’s a fool,” Lidia said. Anna tossed the earrings into a drawer.
A Proper Rondo
A package arrived from Prague with the aria Mozart had written
for her farewell concert. There was a letter, as well. She read it in the dining room over her breakfast. Morning frost sparked at the windows. It was now the end of January. Mozart had been gone a month. He would mark his thirty-first birthday in Prague. He apologized for his handwriting and his spelling. They were having a tremendous success. He could not describe his satisfaction. He was certain she would like the aria and he longed to hear her voice again. The Prague Susanna was nothing compared to Anna. She need not be envious. The Prague Susanna was as stiff as a board. He kept saying to everyone, if only they could hear Mademoiselle Storace sing it, then he’d be content, then he’d know his opera was being shown to its best.
The aria he’d sent her was in his own hand, a clean copy that yet gave an impression of haste. He had a strong, careless script. Across the top he’d written, für Mlle Storace und mich—“for Mademoiselle Storace and myself.”
“The famous rondo?” Stephen asked. He snapped the package from Anna’s hands and went into the music room and sat at the piano. She scrambled after him but it was too late; he was already playing it.
“What does he say?” he asked.
“Hm?”
He glanced at her. “In that long letter you read so quickly and blushingly.”
The music distracted her. Stephen, sight-reading, still half asleep, played feebly and inaccurately and yet it was beautiful, it was perfect.
“I didn’t blush,” she said. “I was warm from my coffee.”
Stephen laughed. “You were not. He was teasing you about something, the devil.” He leaned his chin in his hand, searching the manuscript. “This is a good piece. I don’t do it justice. One can tell he wrote the piano part with himself in mind.”
Anna moved to lie on the carpet, on her stomach, her cheek on her arm and her legs crossed at the ankles. Stephen cast her a dubious look and started to play again. “Are you quite all right?” he asked. She didn’t answer. He continued to play. She heard the click of the instrument’s mechanism and felt the light tap of his foot against the floorboards. There were dog hairs on the carpet, brown and white. The air down here was cooler. She felt her chest pressing against the floor, her heart beating into it. When she closed her eyes she could hear one of the maids in the next room singing a tune from A Rare Thing. Stephen fumbled and hummed along with Mozart’s aria. Whenever he came to a particularly interesting or difficult passage he played it over slowly, breaking it into segments, talking to himself. Anna, listening, breathed against the floor. One of the dogs ventured to join her and she scratched its belly. When Stephen finally paused, she got up and went to the sideboard in the dining room to get more coffee.
“A proper rondo,” she called back, forcing herself to be light, to smile.
“Just as he promised,” said Stephen.
Lidia came in to announce Lord Barnard and Michael Kelly.
“So early?” Anna asked. She drew her morning gown around her. “Doesn’t Lord B realize I’m never at home before noon?”
Lidia glanced at Stephen and smiled. “It’s past noon.”
Anna looked at the clock in surprise. “So it is. Well, they’re friends. Show them in, then, Lidia.”
Barnard’s hair was dressed in a kind of puff and wave that ill became him but gave the impression that great care and expense had gone into its formation. As he entered the room he held a silver snuffbox to his nose and discreetly sniffed. Michael Kelly came behind him, jolly and red-faced, in his customary finery, and kissed Anna thrice on the cheeks. “Still in morning clothes?”
“And yet here you are,” said Anna. Lord Barnard brushed her knuckles with his soft lips.
“You should be dressed,” Michael said. “It’s nearly one.”
Mrs. Storace entered the room and greeted the visitors. “Not dressed?”
“I was finishing my breakfast.”
“Look, Mama,” said Stephen. “We’ve gotten a package from Mozart—the aria for Anna’s farewell concert.”
“Have you? How pleasant,” Mrs. Storace said. She smoothed her apron. “And then we return to London.”
“Let’s hear this aria, then,” said Michael. “Let’s hear the good-bye.”
“It’s not a good-bye,” said Anna. “It’s a farewell.”
Barnard lit up. “Dear Miss Storace, do sing for us. There’s nothing I like half so well as your singing, and you know how much I admire the music of Wolfgang Mozart.”
She felt herself grow dizzy. “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve not sung yet today.”
“Just a few bars,” Barnard pleaded. His hair bobbed and he spread his arms. “Just to give us the gist of the thing, as your friends.”
“I shan’t,” Anna said, “give you the gist of anything.” She sat by her mother. “I’ve had quite enough of all of you. Coming so early and treating me like someone to do tricks for you.”
“I’ll sing it, Barnard,” Michael said.
“You won’t,” cried Anna.
Michael looked at her in delicate puzzlement. “Come, dear, there’s no harm done, is there? You can spare your voice, and Barnard here can hear the tune. We’re all friends.”
“I must say, Kelly, yours is not the voice of my dreams,” said Barnard.
“Sir, I take no offense. You know only how to speak your mind. I may submit, however, that you’ve only heard me sing in comic melody, when I was distorting my voice for effect.” Michael went to Stephen, who was leafing through the manuscript. “My friend, shall we make a run of it?”
“We can try,” said Stephen doubtfully, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to leave out a few notes here and there. He wrote it for himself, you know.”
“Michael,” Anna said softly. “Please.”
“We would all be grateful to hear you,” said Mrs. Storace to Michael. “You always had such a lovely Irish tenor voice.”
“I thank you, madam.”
Stephen could barely play the solo lines, unpracticed as he was, but Michael read well and did himself credit. They jerked and careened, joked with themselves, remarked in passing about the plangency of this and the felicity of that. But Anna was quiet. She did not entertain Lord Barnard’s flirtations, nor smile at Michael’s jests. The aria was beautiful. It was beautiful and yet it was not sad. Rather it was a kind of rejoicing. Do not fear, my love: I will never leave you, I will always be yours.
Für Mlle Storace und mich.
Zoroastro
At last Mozart returned to the city. She had counted the days. She was nervous to see him again and yet he blanketed all her idle thoughts with soft contentment. Nothing was so right and good as to hold him in her mind and heart like a jewel. There he sat, all her waking and sleeping. She would wake before dawn and lie with her eyes closed in the warm dark, listening to the clock chime, holding the memory of him in her heart until it almost hurt. When she could no longer pretend to be asleep she would push back the bedclothes and watch the dawn spill across the city, violet and gray, whispering, I love you, I love you, I love you.
She saw him first at the Countess Thun’s Carnival party. All of Vienna was there. There was a press of people in all of the rooms, everyone masked, dancing, shouting, and singing. Anna recognized Mozart’s back, its straightness, the slightness of his shoulders. He was dressed as Zoroastro, and passed out amusing philosophical riddles. Her own mask was from her days in Venice, golden, with a star the corner of the eye. Her gown was new, black and red.
She touched his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir,” she said in English. “I’ve no one to dance with.”
Beneath his feathered turban his eyes brightened. He bowed, the feathers bobbing and waving, and led her to the hall with the dancing. His thumb pressed into the top of her hand, circled there; pressed and circled again. For the whole dance there were only their hands, touching and releasing, first playfully and then with enough strength to cause a little ache, a brief stab; and saying, thus, with the only touch and pressure allowed them, and for which none there could fault them, how greatly, how ardently
, they esteemed and admired each other.
The Topiaries
How beautiful and terrible it was to be in the Mozart home again, to greet the lady of the house and the sturdy little boy who had grown so big and tall. Whatever Anna looked at, she would be leaving. This place, where she had been so happy, in such secrecy, which was hers and not hers, she would never see again. It became necessary to breathe more deeply, that she might remember everything as clearly as possible. She had left too many places carelessly.
The Mozarts’ rooms were warmer than Anna’s—tidier, brighter; aromatic of baking, wood smoke, and herbs; fuller of noises and of people. A home to be lived in and loved, a home too much for their means but theirs in every way save that. Anna and Constanze sat in the large main room where Mozart sometimes gave his chamber concerts. The chairs were jumbled and there were papers everywhere. A basket of darning rested by the fireplace and Karl’s toys were scattered across the floor. The coffee Constanze Mozart brought Anna was spiced with cinnamon. She apologized for the disorder of the rooms, a consequence of their late arrival from Prague, she said, and herself and her servants being such flibbertigibbets. She kissed Anna on the cheeks. The little boy resembled her. He kept trotting over to Anna and handing her objects to admire: a spoon, a button, a piece of red ribbon.
“Thank you,” Anna said to him, over and over. She didn’t know how to behave with children. Constanze Mozart scooped him into her arms and hung him upside-down and he whooped in delight. When she put him down he fetched a rattle from the floor to give to Anna. She shook it for him and he took it back, smiling, as if she’d done a great trick.
Mozart was out, giving a lesson, but expected back soon. He had suggested they meet at his house to rehearse the farewell aria, because his own piano was there, and it had independent pedals, built for him specially by Anton Walter, the great piano maker.
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