Ecstasy

by Mary Sharratt

  “My dear Alma, what has happened to leave you looking so miserable?”

  “Do you think I’m vain, Herr Muhr?” Alma asked him. “Should I stop composing?”

  “Stop when you’ve been blessed with such a gift?” He shook his head in incomprehension. “Lovely Alma, what vile person has put such ideas in your head?”

  He called me lovely. Which, in Gustav’s view, proved he was only flattering her on account of his own self-serving agenda to win her, to have her. This was absolutely wretched. She could no longer accept a compliment without assuming the worst of the one who offered it. She couldn’t bear to look at the adulation on Muhr’s face.

  “Herr Muhr,” Mama said. “You must come to dinner this week! How we’ve all missed your visits.”

  Then the curtain opened, and Muhr retreated to his seat. Alma leaned back and watched Erik Schmedes in the role of Siegfried, showing off his bare muscled legs and casting sultry glances at the women in the audience, including her. She should have been in her element, cocooned in her wonder of her beloved Wagner, but all she could think of was how inferior this conductor was to Gustav. The orchestra didn’t sound as rich. Even Schmedes didn’t seem to be performing at his full power. Gustav’s genius had touched her, opened something in her, and now she was unable to get him out of her mind even to experience a moment’s peace.

  Her thoughts revolved around Gustav’s accusation of her being vain. If she indeed was, it wasn’t the vanity of the vapid young ladies she met at parties, who could only chatter about their gowns and coiffures, and would faint at the very thought of reading Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. Hadn’t she tried her utmost to make something of herself? Even if she knew she couldn’t hope for a glittering career as a world-class pianist or the first woman conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, she had until today sincerely believed that if she persevered she would eventually compose works of great beauty. That even if she wasn’t the next Wagner or Strauss, she might still create a body of work that would outlive her. I existed for a reason. I gave something to the world. I mattered.

  And yet, even if her talent was real, talent in itself was not enough. One must be brave enough to seize one’s gift and go to battle for it. One had to be a hero like Siegfried, slaying the dragon and then braving the ring of flame to awaken his Brünnhilde. Was she courageous enough to withstand the trial by fire that was Gustav’s letter and fight for her music even if that meant losing him forever? Brave enough to set off on her own without Alex, without Gustav, just she and her music, men and their proposals be damned?

  But she had to marry someone eventually—she couldn’t possibly stomach living as a spinster all her days, never knowing love, that deep awakening of the body. And Mama, she feared, would indeed invite Muhr to dinner. Her mother’s hints to Muhr and Alma would grow bolder and bolder. In the kindest way possible, Mama and Carl were pushing her out by degrees. They wanted her respectably married off, the mistress of her own household.

  Be honest with yourself for once, Alma—you’re not a hero. Heroes were men, swaggering and strong, like Erik Schmedes with his sword and piercing tenor. Women, if they wanted to be loved, surrendered themselves in a living sacrifice of devotion, as Brünnhilde did at the climax of Götterdämmerung, immolating herself on Siegfried’s funeral pyre.

  Alma told herself that she would end up serving a man anyway. Would it not be a nobler calling to serve genius instead of mediocrity? How would it be to look back and think, I could have married Gustav Mahler if only I had been brave enough. Faithful and loving enough.

  In the past three years, she had fallen in love with three men of genius. First Klimt, then Alex, then Gustav. Mama had forcibly separated Alma from Klimt, then she had come between Alma and Alex. Did her mother intend to interfere again? Alma didn’t think she could bear it a third time. After this sundering, there would be nothing left of her. She would have to settle for some bland figure like Muhr whom she might like but could never love. The window was closing. At twenty-two years of age, how much longer could she play the carefree socialite before she faded away, a figure of pity, some queer woman like Klimt’s beloved Emilie Flöge, a fallen woman and yet a spinster, set apart from the rest of womanhood? The third sex.

  My only hope of distinguishing myself, of doing something truly remarkable, is by marrying a great man and sharing his destiny. Something inside Alma died at the thought of marrying a Muhr instead of a Mahler.

  The next morning Alma sat at her piano and tried with her entire soul to compose. To prove to herself that she had a gift that she couldn’t relinquish. Something innate, a part of her that could not be severed. Even Gustav would have to acknowledge that creative spark inside her. But never had she felt emptier or more stupid, her every note more cloying than the last until she wanted to smash her fists on the piano keys and shriek like a maiden in a Greek tragedy. Rend her garments and keen.

  For the sake of getting out of the house, Alma offered to run errands for Cilli to the baker and greengrocer down in Döbling. Tearing off down the street with the maid’s stout wicker shopping basket on her arm, Alma nearly collided with a stranger who stepped in her path.

  “Are you Fräulein Alma Maria Schindler?” he asked her.

  This must be Gustav’s servant come to collect her reply that she had not been able to write. A wave of white-hot heat cramped in her belly.

  “Are you Herr Direktor Mahler’s messenger?” She didn’t even try to hide her temper. “I have nothing to give you.”

  The man reached into his greatcoat pocket. “But I have this to give you, Fräulein.”

  A letter, crisp and thin, with her name in Gustav’s handwriting. Her heart beat fast enough to render her woozy. Was it as Mama had predicted? Had he come to his senses? Had he softened, taking this dilemma away from her? To her mortification, she found herself sobbing in front of his messenger, who whipped off his cap as though in deep fear that he had offended her.

  “Fräulein, please don’t be upset. The Herr Direktor’s back in Vienna and has given me his word he shall visit you this evening as soon as he’s finished at the opera.”

  Turning her back on the messenger, Alma ripped open the letter and read it then and there with the stark December sun shining down on the page.

  Never before have I so desired and feared a letter as the one from you that my servant is now on his way to collect. What will you tell me, Alma? It’s not what you say that matters most but what you are. Let us put all passion aside and rest in that inner calm and loving certainty to forge the bond that will bind us irrevocably till our last breath. At the very thought of seeing you again, my heart overflows.

  Your Gustav

  Alma could neither think nor act clearly. Everything began and ended with Gustav. There was no need to wait until evening—Gustav arrived that very afternoon, his eyes gentle and wide.

  “Alma, you’re in tears.” He cradled her head to his chest. “My darling, what have I done? Can you still care for me now that you know how wretchedly honest I am with those I love?”

  The choice is mine, she reminded herself. I can refuse him. She nearly laughed aloud to recall that this was the selfsame advice she had given Gretl when she was so anguished about giving up her country and religion for Wilhelm. What if Alma squared her shoulders and informed Gustav that she could never abandon her music? But she could scarcely find the words to express the torrent of emotion running through her.

  “Of course, you’re right,” she began, “that our relationship mustn’t degenerate into a flirt but must be the marriage of two souls in harmony.” She took a deep breath before plunging on and speaking her truth. “Does one of us truly have to be subordinate? Must I sacrifice my own work to be your wife? Surely our love must be powerful enough to reconcile two opposing viewpoints.”

  He gazed at her as though her questions drove a blade into his heart. “Almschi, my love, how can you think in terms of subjugation and opposition? If we marry, we exist for each other and hold nothing bac
k. My music is yours now. I lay it at your feet.”

  At that, he sat at her piano and began to play part of a scherzo from his embryonic new symphony.

  “I wrote this last summer,” he said. “A devil of a movement. I fear no one will understand it. This is the chaos of new worlds being continually reborn.”

  Alma sat beside him on the piano bench and followed the score while listening to him play. At least the music was a welcome distraction from the turbulence inside her. The scherzo was a peculiar mix of two dances—the Viennese waltz and a rustic country Ländler. A juxtaposition of sophistication and folkloric naïveté.

  “It’s not chaotic,” Alma said, a decisive confidence filling her after so much confusion and turmoil. “It’s joyous. A celebration of life. It reminds me of being a child in the mountains in summer.”

  No longer did she feel like the supplicant, the inferior, helpless one. Gustav, her idol, turned to her as if her critique had taken him by storm. He seemed to hang on her every word. With a composure she had not felt in so long, she began to play his piece back to him.

  “But the tempo must be slower. You absolutely shouldn’t rush. Otherwise it loses its power and seems trivial.”

  She played on at a stately pace, in a truly Viennese rhythm, imagining herself gliding across the ballroom floor. She lost herself in the scherzo’s emotional complexity, its vibrancy.

  “Alma,” he said, sounding more humbled and respectful than she had ever heard him. “That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

  When he looked at her like that, with such ecstasy, she felt caught up in the most sublime spiritual communion with this genius of a man.

  “Don’t you see, my love?” He kissed her hands. “You are my music. I’ll write you into my every symphony.”

  Her knees weakened to hear the love in his voice, his absolute devotion. If she could indeed be his inspiration, an indelible part of his work, and help him shine even brighter, then maybe that would be enough. Maybe that would redeem her sacrifice. With him, she might achieve a greatness incomparable to anything she might realize on her own.

  “My muse,” he said. “My light.”

  When he enclosed her in his fierce embrace, she thought that no other man could love her so deeply. That letting this man go would be the greatest mistake she would ever make. Had she ever felt anything so holy? When she held him, she no longer felt his body as something separate or divided from her own essence. They melted into each other.

  It’s no longer a question of Gustav’s music versus my music. But only of music itself, divine and pure, which cannot be contained or owned by any human being. Alma promised to give him her all. To live for him and his music, which was also her music.

  19

  Everything happened so fast, reminding Alma of the view from the window of a speeding locomotive. Everything was imbued with feverish, high-pitched intensity.

  Two days later, Alma waited in the parlor with Mama and Carl. She wore her prettiest reception gown of ivory tulle, lace, and silk, and she had tea roses pinned in her hair. Cilli had prepared a table full of festive treats—trays of Zimtsterne, star-shaped cinnamon cookies; Stollen with marzipan and raisins; and chocolate-coated gingerbread. There was tea in the silver samovar and mulled wine heating gently over the copper chafing dish.

  Alma tried to soothe her nerves by playing the piano, but her stomach was tight, her ears pricked for the doorbell. Then Gustav arrived, accompanied by a pale and circumspect Justine, who looked around the blue and white parlor as though she found the starkly modernistic furnishings unbearably pretentious.

  At thirty-three, Gustav’s devoted sister was his mirror image in female form. Alas, the Mahler features were far more becoming on a man than a woman. As lean and spare as her brother, Justine had severely pinned her dark hair back from her angular face. Alma went to greet her, trying her utmost to be warm and hospitable, but whenever Justine looked at her, Alma’s nape prickled. She couldn’t banish the feeling that her future sister-in-law was sizing her up. Alma wondered if she could ever pass muster. Gustav could marry the tsar’s daughter, she thought, and Justine would still think it an unworthy match for her illustrious brother.

  But there was no more time to fret over Justine. Gustav took Alma’s hand, and the two of them turned to face Mama and Carl.

  “Frau Moll, Herr Moll, I have asked for your daughter’s hand in marriage and she has accepted me. Now I humbly ask for your blessing.”

  Mama smiled, tears in her eyes, and hugged Gustav and kissed his cheeks. Carl pounded his back and promised to share a cigar with him later—despite Gustav’s vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol, he was an avid smoker. Alma shared a hug and kiss with Justine. You must love her—she’s your sister now. Part of who you are, just as Gustav is.

  Cilli poured a cup of tea for Gustav and served mulled wine to everyone else, then Carl led them in toast after toast to the betrothed couple’s future happiness. Officially engaged! Alma wanted to throw back her head and dance ecstatically like a maenad in a Dionysian rite. Yet she couldn’t entirely give herself over to her jubilation for fear of the gods who cannot bear to contemplate pure joy.

  “We’ve already set the date for the wedding,” Gustav said, his arm around Alma. “March 9 at Karlskirche.”

  Years ago, in order to be eligible for his appointment as director of the Vienna Court Opera, Gustav had undergone a perfunctory conversion from Judaism to Catholicism.

  “Justine is also getting married, the following day.” Gustav proudly took his sister’s hand. “To Arnold Rosé, principal violinist of the Vienna Philharmonic.”

  “How splendid!” Alma cried, kissing Justine’s cheek with added enthusiasm. She couldn’t express how relieved she was that Justine would also be married and not living with her and Gustav.

  “Since I don’t need to keep house for my brother anymore, I, too, shall marry at last,” Justine said, with a slightly aggrieved air, as though the distinguished Arnold Rosé came a poor second to Gustav.

  “We must keep both engagements secret for the time being,” Gustav said. “I fear what will happen if the newspapers and gossips get wind of this.”

  Despite Gustav’s intention to keep their wedding plans sub rosa, someone leaked the news to a reporter. On December 27 their engagement was splashed across the Vienna papers in big bold letters:

  DIREKTOR MAHLER ENGAGED!

  The press made much of Alma’s musical accomplishments, her beauty, her youth, her sparkling wit. The Fremdenblatt called her brilliant, which gave her pause for thought, considering what she had renounced to make this engagement possible. Did Viennese society take her talent seriously after all—what if she was throwing away something precious? But in a stroke, her lifelong dream of becoming a somebody had been achieved. Overnight, she had become famous, not through any accomplishment of her own but simply by virtue of being Gustav Mahler’s bride-to-be. She received a veritable avalanche of telegrams, letters, cards, and flowers sent by countless well-wishers. Aunt Mie gave her an ostrich feather fan to befit Alma’s new status as the grande dame of the Viennese music world.

  Alma fluttered her fan when she took her place in the director’s box at the Court Opera for the very first time, sitting with Mama and Justine. But instead of settling back into her musical reverie as she watched Gustav conduct Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, she quailed to see that every pair of opera glasses was trained on her, as though her engagement had transformed her into royalty. During the intermission, Anna von Mildenburg came down to congratulate Alma.

  “So you are to be our Herr Direktor’s wife,” she said, with an undertone of envy.

  Back in the director’s box, Alma tried to ignore the gawkers and concentrate on Gustav’s conducting. He seemed so far away from her, lost in that forest of music. The baton danced in his hand as though it were a living thing. At the close of the opera, the crowd applauded more rapturously than Alma had ever heard, some even leaping to their feet
to cry bravo, as though as much in celebration of their esteemed Herr Direktor’s engagement as the performance. Alma looked on in awe as Gustav was called back to the curtain again and again.

  On the afternoon of December 31, 1901, Alma alighted from the cab on the corner of Rennweg and Auenbruggergasse, and gazed up at the handsome Jugendstil apartment building. Above the main entrance was a carving of a woman’s enigmatic face, her mouth open, as though in wonder of the new world she saw unfolding before her. With an exquisite frisson of anticipation, Alma entered the foyer and told the concierge that the Mahlers were expecting her. How like a New Woman she felt as she ascended those graceful curving stairs alone until, light-headed and breathless, she reached the fourth floor.

  Though Mama had most sternly forbidden her to visit Alex at his home, now that Alma was engaged to be married, any such prohibitions fell away when it concerned calling upon Gustav and Justine. And it just so happened that Justine would be out this afternoon. Smiling to herself deliciously, Alma rang the bell. Gustav tore open the door and pulled her into his arms. They kissed for a long time before they had to come up for air. Then, taking her arm, he gave her a grand tour of the high-ceilinged apartment where they would soon live together as husband and wife.

  Five rooms overlooked Belvedere Castle and its formal gardens. There was the parlor, the dining room, Justine’s little room, and Gustav’s study and bedroom. To the right of the entrance was the maid’s room, and at the back of the apartment, overlooking the inner courtyard, lay the kitchen, Justine’s sewing room, a storage room, and the bathroom. Alma noted that her future marital residence was meticulously clean, thanks to Justine’s ministrations. However, any sense of warmth or ambiance was lacking, something she might fix by hanging a few well-chosen paintings on the walls.