The Musician's Daughter

by Susanne Dunlap

  Zoltán and Alida left. I didn’t have the heart to say anything. Mirela and I stayed and ate supper with the young maids of honor. I was too tired to do much more than listen to the stories Mirela told them, and unable to concentrate on the card games they tried to get us to play. I was relieved when the curfew bell rang and we all retired to bed.

  CHAPTER 28

  Alida caught up with me just before we reached the room where the maids of honor slept. Liesl and Rebekah had been discussing excitedly which of them would share her bed with me and which with Mirela that night, and I was afraid it would turn into an argument. I think we were the most fascinating thing ever to occur in their quiet lives.

  “Come with me, Theresa,” Alida said, and I thought my new friends’ faces would drop through the floor, they were so disappointed.

  “No matter,” Mirela said, linking her arms through each of theirs. “I shall teach you a Gypsy lullaby, and Theresa already knows it, so she won’t miss anything.” This cheered them up quickly. I heard their giggles and chattering fade as they continued to their bedroom. I hoped for a moment that Mirela would not feel tempted to wheedle them out of a bit of jewelry, or show them a magic trick involving the convenient disappearance of coins. She had already won a tidy sum at cards, and I suspected she had used some sleight of hand to get it. Her movements were so quick, and her understanding easily leapt beyond everyone else’s. Mirela’s talents could be used to much better purpose, I was certain, although I couldn’t at that moment imagine how. After coming to know her and seeing all that the Gypsies faced, I could easily comprehend what led her to scratch out an existence by use of her wits and guile—doubtless her only possessions and all she had to depend on for her future well-being. I just wished it didn’t have to be that way.

  Alida led me up to the servants’ quarters of the palace. “There’s someone who wishes to see you,” she whispered.

  I said nothing, but I hoped she meant Zoltán.

  We went through a door to an attic room, and sitting up in a cot by a window was not Zoltán, but Toby. I ran to him, only for the tiniest instant disappointed.

  “Theresa, they’ve been so nice to me here,” he said. “I’ve had all the hot soup I want, and sweets after every meal.”

  “I see you’re feeling better,” I said, ruffling my fingers through his hair, which had been washed and combed and felt as fine as a baby’s. He still had some bruising around his eyes, evidence of his harsh treatment at my uncle’s hands.

  “Toby,” Alida said, “do you think you’re strong enough to help us if we need you to?”

  His eyes flitted back and forth between us. “I’m strong. Why wouldn’t I be strong?”

  “Would you be able to tell the emperor about your uncle’s cellar?”

  Toby’s eyes clouded over. I thought for a moment he would cry. But he drew in a deep breath and lifted his chin. “Yes. I’m not afraid of my uncle. Not now.”

  As Alida prepared to leave us, telling me that I could sleep on the other cot, which had been made up with clean linens after Brishen had left that morning, I took her aside.

  “What next?” I asked, not daring to ask too directly.

  “We won’t know until tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? That would be too late. Perhaps after all, Danior would have to be sacrificed so that justice could be done.

  “I’m rising before dawn,” she said, not explaining. No point in distressing Toby.

  “Wake me,” I said.

  Toby and I stayed up for a little while talking about violins and music. He asked about our mother, but I could only tell him that I believed she knew nothing at all of what had happened, and that I hoped she would remain ignorant of the entire episode forever.

  Toby fell asleep quite quickly, but I could not shut my eyes. I wanted to stay awake, to sit a vigil for Danior, who did not deserve to be punished so gruesomely. But try as I might, as soon as I closed my eyes phantom visions danced in front of them. I saw Danior playing the fiddle; then he turned into my father. My uncle smashed a violin apart and birds flew out of it. I was on a boat in the middle of the Danube, and people were running along the banks calling out to me, but the current was too strong and I could not control the boat. The waves rocked me back and forth. I clung to the gunwales for safety.

  “Wake up! Theresa! It’s me, Alida!”

  Alida was rocking me gently by my shoulder, trying to wake me without making any noise. As soon as I realized where I was, I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my face. I had not undressed, so it was a quick matter to be ready to go. I took the cloak she gave me and followed her through the twisting corridors and out onto the predawn streets of Vienna.

  Crowds were already gathering in Stephansplatz. The carpenters had been hard at work overnight constructing the gibbet, a rack, and a wheel. Alida clung to me and I to her. I thought if we had not been able to borrow strength from each other, both of us might have collapsed.

  The faces that surrounded us were grim and tired. What macabre entertainment to begin a day, I thought.

  As the cold air woke people out of their half-sleeping states, conversation began. “Think anyone will get the wheel?” one young boy not much older than Toby asked eagerly. Once he started, speculation about the horrible punishments that awaited the criminals on display that morning enlivened everyone. Would a thief be whipped to the point of flaying? Would a usurious moneylender be able to withstand the pain of thumb screws? I wanted to stop up my ears. The more I heard, the more impossible it was to keep from imagining Danior’s dark eyes wracked with unspeakable pain.

  I looked up at Alida and saw her gazing out over the heads of the crowd. She appeared neither to listen nor to care about what anyone said. She was still hoping. I knew it. Just as I was.

  We heard the ominous beat of the drums before we saw the cart in which the prisoners stood, chained to one another. Several looked broken already. A woman had had her hair torn out of her head, and her scalp was partly scabbed over and partly still bleeding. Others had clearly been beaten or whipped. All were aware enough to be terrified, though, of what awaited them in the square.

  The bells in St. Stephen’s tolled seven. Dawn came late in midwinter, so it was still necessary for torches to illuminate the scene. Their light cast constantly shifting shadows on the icy ground. The stone buildings that surrounded the square loomed dark and massive against a flat, predawn sky. I gripped Alida’s hand as the cart rolled near enough for us to see Danior. His face was set, eyes just dark, blank indentations not looking at anything.

  The executioner and his assistants began readying the prisoners. I felt Alida tremble.

  All at once confusion arose in the crowd. The attention shifted from the black-hooded executioners’ activities to something behind us.

  Horses.

  A detachment of about two dozen mounted guards cut a path through the people. The executioner didn’t stop strapping some poor woman to a rack until they were almost upon him. I wondered if perhaps he was a deaf-mute—convenient for him not to hear the screams of his victims.

  The commander of the guards pulled a sealed document out of his saddlebag, opened and unfolded it without hurry, then read aloud to the crowd.

  I couldn’t understand it. It was in Latin! The executioner rubbed the top of his head. He didn’t understand it, either. He pointed to his ears, confirming that he was deaf, shrugged and turned away to continue his work. The guard drew his sword out of its scabbard and poked it in the executioner’s back. The crowd laughed. The executioner turned around, mouthing and gesturing that he hadn’t any idea what the fellow had said.

  I looked to Alida. “Did you understand?”

  “Yes.” She breathed. “Clemency. By order of the Holy Roman Emperor.”

  So it was Joseph II, not Maria Theresa, who had listened to their case. “But what if he cannot make the executioner understand?”

  One of the guards had dismounted and showed the paper to the deaf fellow, but he only gestured
that he could not read. Finally they pointed out the imperial seal, then went to the cart. “Release the prisoner Danior to me.” One of the executioner’s assistants took Danior by the shoulders. His expression had not changed, perhaps because he did not want to believe in his good fortune.

  The crowd by now was laughing uproariously. This magnificent act of imperial power over the life of one individual became ridiculous before our eyes. But I didn’t care. Just so long as Danior was safe.

  Eventually they succeeded in extracting Danior from the others. His luck subdued the rest of them, who looked even more hopeless and defeated than they had before. I felt so sorry for them. I hoped they had done terrible things to deserve the fate that awaited them. But I suspected they were only caught in the act of trying to survive a cold winter by stealing firewood or selling their bodies.

  Alida and I had already started toward Danior, whose chains were being removed one by one by an officer of the guard. When he saw us, his face washed over with joy. Alida ran forward. The guard raised a sword in her way and she stopped abruptly.

  “He is granted a temporary stay only, and must now appear before the emperor,” said the guard.

  They hoisted Danior onto a horse and surrounded him. We followed along behind, all the way into the courtyard of the Hofburg where the guards and Danior dismounted, then through the corridors to a part of the palace I had not yet seen. It was grander and more austere than the archduchess’s quarters.

  No one stopped us. Alida was known to all. I felt as if I were watching from a great height as events unfolded down below. The sensation of unreality was complete when we walked into the emperor’s audience chamber and saw Zoltán, the general, Toby, the archduchess, the other maids of honor, my godfather—and my uncle.

  CHAPTER 29

  We had to wait some time before Joseph II entered the room and took his place at a large desk. He was dressed like a simple gentleman, in a black cutaway coat trimmed with deep scarlet and gold, perhaps with more decorations on his sash. He certainly did not look very imperial. Rather than a wig, his face was framed by nicely arranged hair, curled at the sides and drawn into a tail at the back. He left it his natural blond color; it was not powdered. And his profile—that long nose—was familiar to me from the coins that changed hands every day.

  The advisers who followed him into the chamber were similarly plainly dressed, consisting of a group of three men and a monk. They stood respectfully behind him when he sat. Before he did or said anything, the emperor read a stack of papers in silence for about a quarter of an hour. When he had finished, he looked up at us, pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, then turned his head and nodded to the monk. This fellow whispered in the emperor’s ear, causing him to nod every once in a while and look around at all of us, standing there silently, our eyes all boring into the emperor’s face.

  The monk finished whispering and stood back. The emperor swept his gaze over all of us and rested his eyes on my uncle. “Councilor Wolkenstein,” he said, “I understand you have a grievance against the people gathered here. Perhaps you would explain.”

  My uncle with a grievance! I wanted to rush forward and start talking, give the emperor the real story. I knew Mirela would have done so if she had been there. I was suddenly disappointed that she was not there to lend her spirited voice.

  Joseph II leaned his elbows on the table and cocked his head to one side. My uncle approached in what I can only describe as an advancing bow, never quite straightening up, but never actually achieving the position that would indicate the greatest degree of respect. He stopped only when a guard stepped forward and put his arm out in front of him to block his way.

  “I was set upon and severely wounded, Your Imperial Majesty,” my uncle said, “by that disgusting Gypsy!” He gestured toward Danior.

  “Yes, I see your arm is bandaged. And where did this attack occur?”

  My uncle straightened up and puffed out his large, paunchy body. “Under my own roof.”

  “Do you care to explain how this Gypsy managed to enter your home while—I see by these documents before me—you were giving a party?”

  “He insinuated himself into the orchestra.”

  “He insinuated himself?”

  I saw Zoltán press his lips together to stifle a laugh. It sounded as if the emperor was toying with my uncle—and enjoying himself. Could it be that this was a ploy to make him incriminate himself before we even presented our evidence?

  “Maestro Haydn.” Joseph II turned toward my godfather. “Perhaps you could shed some light on how a criminal managed to insinuate himself into your orchestra, so kindly lent by the esteemed Prince Nicholas Esterhazy for the occasion.”

  The Kapellmeister walked forward and bowed with natural grace when he reached the distance at which my uncle stood. I thought he looked more imperial than the emperor, in his blue-and-gold uniform. “Your Majesty, this fellow”—he indicated Danior—“is one of the finest violinists in Vienna. He plays with the prince’s orchestra regularly. I can vouch for his character.” It was only a slight exaggeration, I thought.

  My uncle opened his mouth to speak. The emperor raised his hand to silence him. “You defend a common Gypsy?”

  At that moment, Zoltán came forward, not waiting to be summoned. In his hands was Danior’s violin. “With your permission,” he said, “perhaps the accused will prove his ability?”

  “I protest!” shouted my uncle. “What has music to do with any of this!”

  My uncle’s outburst brought a stiffening of the emperor’s pose. “Well, if he is to die, I would like to hear him first.”

  The emperor was known to appreciate music, even play the cello himself. In recent years he had been promoting German over Italian opera in the Burgtheater, my father had told me. I had no idea how he felt about Gypsy music.

  The guards let go of Danior. He strode forward proudly, bowed with precision, then took the violin and bow Zoltán presented to him. He brushed the strings with his fingertips and adjusted the tuning, then lifted the instrument to his shoulder and brought the bow down in a quadruple stop that resounded through the room, filling it with a thrilling sound.

  I gasped. What had happened to the papers? When I had tried the violin, it would not make a noise worth hearing. And the papers were wedged up so high I didn’t think anything would get them out. Yet here was Danior, executing some brilliant, fiery passages. He stopped abruptly in the middle of a phrase, his bow held high. “Your Majesty,” he said. “This is not my violin.”

  To my surprise, he turned to look at me. His eyes were full of pride and sadness. I thought I saw the hint of a smile on his face, somehow glowing through the dirt and scrapes. He nodded to Zoltán, who signaled to a guard. The guard pressed a hidden spring to open a door in the paneling, just like the ones that were apparently to be found in all the grand rooms of the palace. Another guard came in, leading Herr Schnabl. Mirela followed him, carrying a wooden violin case. It was a plain one, made of birch and highly polished, with a brass handle on the top. With a leap of my heart, I knew right away that the case was my father’s.

  Herr Schnabl looked at me with deep shame in his eyes. Mirela smiled.

  “This instrument belongs to the late father of that young lady over there,” Danior said to the emperor.

  Then boldly, with a quick gesture that was half bow, half curtsy, Mirela stepped forward to address the emperor. “I found it in Herr Schnabl’s quarters.”

  Herr Schnabl with my father’s violin? He was a cellist!

  “It seems,” Zoltán continued, “that professional jealousy was another of the weaknesses Councilor Wolkenstein found it easy to use to his advantage. Herr Schnabl sabotaged Haydn’s contract with Artaria as instructed by Councilor Wolkenstein and spied on Antonius Schurman, whom the councilor suspected was engaging in activities that would undermine his plans. It was Schnabl who led Herr Schurman to the councilor’s house the night of his murder. Herr Schnabl had been told to give Herr Schur
man false information about boys locked in the cellar—perhaps not realizing that the information was, in fact, true. The trap was easily laid, and Herr Schurman did not stand a chance against the men hidden in the cellar. They murdered him and took his body to the Gypsy camp through the sewers in a small boat.”

  Zoltán turned to me. “We believe the boat you took, Rezia, was the same one used to take your father’s body away from the house in the Graben. Without this, of course.”

  He gestured toward Danior, who held the violin out to me. I was hardly capable of thinking. I looked at the emperor. He nodded to me to approach. I just barely remembered to curtsy first before I took the violin. It was truly my father’s Amati. I could see that, now that I held it. I could see the nuances in the grain of the wood. I had not laid eyes on that instrument since before my father’s death. I felt as if in stroking my fingers over its perfect form I touched him, as if I could feel his warm arms again. I struggled against tears. I wasn’t willing to believe that Schnabl could have done all that they said he did, for any reason at all. I forced myself to look at him. There were tears in his eyes.

  “You must believe me, Theresa, that I did not know your father would come to any harm. I was supposed to bring the violin to the councilor, but when I heard of Antonius’s death, I pretended that I had not found it.” Schnabl spoke barely above a whisper, but the atmosphere in the chamber was so tense and quiet, everyone could hear him.

  I didn’t know what to think, and so I said nothing. Mirela brought the case over to me and stayed close by. She grasped my hand. I squeezed hers in return.

  “This, Your Imperial Majesty, is the violin that belongs to the Gypsy,” said Haydn, who produced from behind a chair the velvet-wrapped package Mirela and I had taken such risks to bring to Alida.

  We all watched in expectant silence as Danior unwrapped the package. He peered into the F holes. “Yes, this is it,” he said. But instead of starting to play again, he lifted the instrument up high and brought it crashing down to the floor. It splintered into hundreds of pieces. I cried out involuntarily.