by Nupur Tustin
She motioned toward the scenarios with her wet sponge. The wide spatter of soapy droplets she cast around her fell perilously close to the sheets on the kitchen table. But Maria Anna, careless as always, seemed oblivious to the damage that might be caused.
Haydn drew the papers closer to himself and covered them with both hands. “No need at all, if you were an operagoer of the time, perhaps. Although, of course, some people must have kept them or these would not have survived. But that Wilhelm Dietrich preserved them, and in a chest he must have intended for Kaspar, is quite significant, I think.”
“Why?” Maria Anna returned to the sink to wash out her sponge.
“Because they can be used to authenticate the scores, sister-in-law,” Johann explained. “The scenarios were printed so close to the time of the performance, they incorporate details of the opera that would be in the score, but not in the libretto. In the great master’s case, he changed the text of his librettos to such an extent that only the scenario could be reliably compared to the score.”
“And Wilhelm Dietrich would have been aware of that, I am sure,” Haydn added. “These scenarios contain the date of the first performance of each opera. Monteverdi’s name is printed on them as well. An added inducement to attend the performance, no doubt. After all, who could resist his music? Wilhelm Dietrich must have realized Kaspar would need to prove the scores were genuine before he could sell them.”
Maria Anna harrumphed. “He would need to find the scores first. I thought you said you had yet to find the operas. Where are they?”
“A false bottom!” Papa Keller’s voice burst in upon their conversation. He pulled a long draught from his pipe and then tapped on the casket with its stem. “This chest has a false bottom. I am convinced of it. I have examined it very closely. It is not as deep inside as it is outside.”
Haydn’s lips broadened into a smile. “I did think that might be the case,” he said. “That must be where the operas are concealed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The night was pleasantly warm, the soft cherry-scented breeze carrying the promise of summer’s arrival in Vienna. Haydn crossed the small courtyard of the Keller home to the barn that lined the back perimeter of the property. Johann followed him, carrying the old merchant’s chest.
Papa Keller had spent the better part of the evening prying and prodding at the thing. But try as he might, he had not been able to unlock the secret compartment he was sure the chest concealed. He had retired for the night, defeated, and Maria Anna, not entirely convinced the chest was not worm-infested, had insisted Haydn keep it in the barn.
“Let us examine it once more,” Haydn suggested as he laid his palm flat against the barn door and pushed. It opened with a small creak of protest. The lamp he carried aloft threw a bright glare over his surroundings—a large square space crammed with odds and ends.
In Eisenstadt a barn of this size might have been used for horses, cows, or other farm animals. Papa Keller, like any other city-dweller, used his to store three-legged chairs, cabinets with missing doors, and other broken bits of household furniture he had long meant to restore.
Haydn set his lamp at one end of the table that stood in the middle of the room and cleared a space for the chest by moving a rusty hammer, a box of nails, and a pair of wooden hand-planes out of the way. “Here! Set it down here, Johann.”
Johann lowered the chest onto the dusty table with a grunt. “I cannot believe we will be successful where Papa Keller has failed, brother, but I don’t suppose there can be any harm in trying.”
He wiped down the table as best he could with a kerchief, but the dust had lain so long upon it, it seemed to have welded itself to the wooden surface. “I trust we shall be doing no damage to these old papers by letting them rest here,” he said as he began to empty the chest of its contents.
Johann had no sooner taken the last of the pages out of the chest than the Kapellmeister drew it toward himself and began to feel the interior. The silk lining at the bottom of the chest had begun to fray, and Haydn could feel the rough threads cutting into his fingers as he gently probed the bottom. He frowned as his fingers encountered an obstruction.
“There are hard knobs at each of the four corners, Johann,” he said after a while. “I wonder what they can be? They feel like buttons of some sort.”
Haydn’s fingers slid over the edge. The lining, a stiff mat of silk, was not glued to the bottom. Had his fingers been slimmer, he could have lifted the edges to touch the bottom. He had just begun to force his finger over the edge, tugging slightly, when the entire rectangular lining lifted out.
“Buttoned on,” he said in some surprise, as he peered into the interior. He lifted it out.
“And look, there is a small notch carved into left wall. It must contain a lever of some sort.” His finger, probing again, found a small square set in relief from its surroundings. He was pushing on it when suddenly the wooden bottom of the chest began receding from the center.
“You have found it, brother!” Astonishment and admiration co-mingled on Johann’s features. “Well done.”
A leather notebook rested on top of a sheaf of neatly folded papers in the space that was revealed. “A diary of some sort,” Haydn remarked as he flipped through the pages of the notebook. “An account of the old merchant’s travels, no doubt.”
His attention turned toward the papers lying beneath the notebook. But even without lifting them out, he could distinguish the chain pattern on the sheets.
“These are not the operas,” he said. He withdrew them from the recess and unfolded them, a heavy, sinking feeling erupting within his guts as he scanned them. There was not a single note on any of the pages, not even so much as a treble clef.
“Letters,” he announced to Johann. “These are nothing more than letters. Where can the operas be?”
* * *
Kaspar’s funeral was to take place in the early hours of dawn. The city was still shrouded in broad swathes of watery rose and violet when Haydn set out from the Keller home that morning.
The poultice Maria Anna had applied to his wound felt pleasantly cool against his forehead, mitigating to some extent the pulsating pain that kept up its steady thrumming behind his temples.
It was far too early for very many people to be abroad and the roads were largely deserted. Even the street cleaners had yet to begin their work. Haydn glanced down at his silver timepiece. The final hours of the vigil had begun. That Kaspar’s soul had spent it unaccompanied by family or friends nagged at his conscience.
His own injuries, the undertaker had pointed out, did not permit that he spend the entire night in watchfulness. And Amelie, after the shock she had sustained, was certainly in no better condition to spend the night watching over the dead.
The vigil had been kept instead by Herr Moserle, the elderly nuns from the Civic Hospital who had washed Kaspar’s body and sewn it into its linen burial shroud, and Rudi, Kaspar’s aged servant.
Haydn glanced at his timepiece again. He would, at least, be at the undertaker’s establishment in time to end the vigil with the small group.
A servant ushered him into the small room where Kaspar’s body lay in its narrow wooden coffin. That it was a coffin surprised the Kapellmeister. What need was there of a coffin when Kaspar’s body would simply be lowered into the crypt kept for him at St. Michael’s? But this was no time for questions.
The nuns sat with their heads bowed and hands folded in prayer. Rudi’s tear-filled gaze swept over him in gratitude, then returned to his master’s body, prepared now for burial. Only the undertaker gave Haydn a brief nod as he silently walked in and took his place by the wooden bier on which the coffin rested.
The minutes slowly passed. Where was Amelie, he wondered. Surely, it was not too much to expect that she spend the final hours of the vigil with her husband? The faint sounds of carriage wheels and horses’ hooves penetrated the room, carried by the still morning air.
But it was not Amelie
. Only Johann with Therese, dressed in Maria Anna’s gown and looking remarkably like her sister, on his arm.
Johann caught the Kapellmeister’s eye and inclined his head. Haydn’s plan had been successfully executed. Maria Anna, dressed in her sister’s habit, was now on Singerstrasse, in the convent of St. Nikolai. Therese would accompany them to St. Michael’s Church where Kaspar had worked and where, after a short mass, he would rest until the end of time.
Amelie, Haydn hoped, would at least attend the service and interment. Her new friend, the bearded stranger he had encountered the day before, would, he was quite certain, be present as well.
“And I will eat my wig if the man is not the elusive Dr. Goretti,” he muttered to himself. “He must think wooing the widow is as good a means of getting his hands on the music as an outright offer to purchase it!”
The somber tolling of bells sounded. “It is from the Karlskirche,” one of the nuns said with a smile. “Pfarrer August will conduct the mass and then we shall accompany the body to its resting place in the Karlsfriedhof.”
“The Karlsfriedhof!” Haydn rose from his seat, not caring to temper the anger that rang loudly through his voice. “But Kaspar is to be interred in a crypt in the Michaelerkirche. It is where he worked. Why should he be buried beyond the city walls? By whose orders, Herr Moserle?”
The undertaker stood up as well. “Your friend died without receiving extreme unction—”
“Through no fault of his own,” Johann pointed out in a gentle tone. “He was killed. He could hardly have known it was to be his last day upon earth.”
An expression of unease flitted over the undertaker’s features. “Be that as it may. The crypt can only be used by those who confess their sins and repent. An untimely death, even one at the hands of another…”
One of the elderly nuns came up to Haydn and laid a gnarled hand on his arm. “The soul is filled with sin, and without confession, without repentance—”
“Not to mention the question of disease,” Herr Moserle, who had been punctuating the nun’s words with emphatic nods, now interjected.
“Disease?” Johann’s gaze shifted toward the coffin before returning to the undertaker’s features. “Kaspar died of no disease, unless murder can be called a disease.”
The undertaker sighed. “His body was found abandoned in the streets. The Emperor advises burial beyond the city walls in such cases even when the cause of death is known. An added precaution against disease, according to His Majesty.”
“We are to adopt the ways of the Lutherans, then?” The undertaker flinched at Haydn’s words. But the Kapellmeister cared not. “What next? A surreptitious burial in the dark hours of the night?”
Papa Keller was right. The Emperor’s officious ways seemed to know no bounds. It was small wonder His Majesty had not seen fit to dictate the precise number of guldens and kreutzer that could be spent upon the funeral!
But what had the poor nuns or the undertaker to do with any of this? With the thought came a measure of calm and his ill-humor subsided.
He forced his lips into a gracious smile. “If His Majesty advises it, what can we do but follow? At any rate, Kaspar will not be the only musician in the Karlsfriedhof. It is where the Italian composer, Antonio Vivaldi, is buried as well.”
He turned toward Johann, his smile more genuine now. “We choirboys were to have sung at the funeral, but Kapellmeister Reutter was ever a stickler for the rules. The omission of the six-gulden fee for an unaccompanied funeral song was, in his opinion, too great an offence to be ignored.”
* * *
The coffin touched the ground at the same time as Pfarrer August’s choirboys finished their a cappella rendition of Der Grimmige Tod.
The song, beautiful in its simplicity, unaccompanied by instrumentation of any kind, had taken Haydn back to his own days as a choirboy at St. Stephen’s. He blinked back his tears as he stepped away from the edge of the grave.
His work as pallbearer done, he could now look around him at the group that had attended Kaspar on his last journey. Kaspar’s fellow musicians from St. Michael’s Church and his colleagues from the Hofburg were gathered around the grave, heads bowed, listening gravely to the words Pfarrer August recited.
Herr Anwalt, the lawyer, stood by Rudi. They had all attended the funeral mass and then joined in the solemn procession to the gravesite. Haydn had even caught a glimpse of Fabrizzio, the young music scholar.
Johann and Luigi, pallbearers as well, stood opposite him. His eyes moved beyond them to where Amelie stood, pale-faced and tearless, under the shade of a beech tree, a handkerchief pressed to her nose. She was standing so far from the grave, one might have mistaken her for a stranger who had joined in the procession rather than the dead man’s widow!
The bearded stranger who had passed Haydn on her stairs yesterday stood by her side, an arm wound loosely around her waist. The attitude of familiarity infuriated Haydn at the same time as it recalled him to their purpose.
“Have you seen your scribe yet?” He gave Therese a gentle nudge as he whispered the words. She had stood by him, head bowed, but had barely spoken a word.
Therese shook her head. “I thought I saw him, but I cannot be sure now.”
“Look toward the tree behind Johann. Amelie stands under it.”
“It has been ten years, but despite the careworn aspect her face now wears, I would know her anywhere.”
“And the man who stands next to her?” Haydn probed. “He is Italian like your scribe. Dressed impeccably.”
The sun’s rays filtering through the leaves of the beech behind the couple obscured his vision, but unless he was mistaken the navy waistcoat the bearded Italian was wearing was made of velvet. His black coat and breeches were of the finest silk.
Therese turned her head with a swift graceful movement and dutifully studied the man. “He has something of the same look. The beard, neatly trimmed. An elegant figure just like the man who came to us.” She turned toward Haydn. “But I don’t think it is he, Joseph.”
“Are you quite certain?” The sun was in his eyes. How could it not affect her vision as well? “The man is so far off. Perhaps a closer look will aid your memory.”
“It might.” Therese inclined her head and folded her hands in front of her waist. Pfarrer August had begun another prayer as the last mounds of loose earth covered the coffin.
Haydn’s gaze flickered toward his sister-in-law, resting briefly on her slender neck and the tendrils of golden curls that framed her face. Was she really in agreement with him or had she merely uttered the words to keep him quiet?
The funeral was soon over, and they were about to make their way back to Kaspar’s aunt’s house within the city walls when Amelie and her friend began to approach them.
“It is not him, Joseph,” Therese said in a firm voice. “He is not our scribe, I am quite sure of it. And now it is time for me to return to the convent.”
Not their scribe! How was that possible? But before Haydn could voice a protest, his sister-in-law had moved over to Johann’s side. And the two of them joined the departing throng.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Was that Maria Anna, Joseph?” Amelie’s smile, affectionate yet full of regret, held the memory of bygone times. “The years have yet to set their mark upon her. If anything, she looks more beautiful. More radiant. And more and more, dare I say it”—she turned shyly toward Joseph—“like her younger sister.”
“It was,” Haydn assured her, glad now that Therese had hastened away.
He doubted the similarity between the sisters would have held under closer inspection. Amelie knew them both too well for that.
“She regrets not being able to stay. She is eager to visit Therese at the convent. Her younger sister is not at all well, and Maria Anna has a way with herbs as you may recall.”
God forgive him for the lie, but what else was he to say? He looked pointedly at the bearded stranger who stood a short distance behind Amelie. “I don�
�t believe I am acquainted with your friend, Amelie.”
He had thought to embarrass Amelie, but his friend’s widow did not so much as blush at his remark. “It is Kaspar’s friend, in truth,” she said, reaching for the stranger’s arm and drawing him forward with an easy familiarity that set Haydn’s teeth on edge. “Dr. Goretti. Kaspar may have mentioned him to you.”
Ah! So, the source of Her Majesty’s operas was also known to Kaspar. Had he not suspected as much?
“Kaspar did make mention of a physician who was greatly interested in his bequest,” he began carefully. “But it was at the imperial court that I first heard your name.” Was it his imagination or had the physician’s olive complexion turned several shades lighter?
“Er, yes, yes, of course. I am indeed known to Her Majesty. Some of the medicaments I have provided have fortunately served her well…”
Haydn allowed a smile to flit over his features. “It was in connection with the operas you provided that she mentioned you.”
“Yes, of course. The operas,” Goretti said, inclining his head, but not before Haydn had noticed his nostrils flaring in quietly suppressed anger.
Did the good doctor fear he would be discovered in his treachery, Haydn wondered. Or had he never intended to let Amelie know of the Empress’s interest in the great master’s music?
The physician turned toward Amelie. “You see, my dear, what a fortune you could make with the music your husband received! If they are indeed operas. We shall have to examine them. Her Majesty seems to have developed quite a taste for old Italian works in the genre. Madrigals, on the other hand, are unlikely to find favor.”
“Joseph here has been examining the works,” Amelie hastened to assure him. “He is quite capable.”
“I trust he can distinguish between madrigals and operas, then,” the doctor responded. He took a small snuff box out of his pocket and pried open the lid. “It would be a pity indeed if you found yourself saddled with a parcel of madrigals. Those have no value at all.”