Marrying Mozart

by Stephanie Cowell

  Now Aloysia called back in a much brighter voice. “Our cousin Alfonso’s with him! What could they want? Any news will be welcome.”

  The three other girls thrust chairs back from the kitchen fire, flung off their aprons, ran to open the door. In a moment Alfonso’s shining bald head came into view on the steep stairs, followed by the heavy Thorwart in his English coat and boots, the spurs jangling. He wiped his brow. “One day,” he groaned, “the family Weber will not live on the highest floor they can find. I need a plate of noodles and cheese to replenish me after my climb. Girls, come and kiss your uncle,” and he kissed the three younger girls as he could, though they turned their lips away, and the younger two exchanged glances as if to say, Are we mistaken or not?

  He did not approach Josefa, who stood apart.

  For warmth, they all returned to the kitchen. Taking the best chair, Thorwart sat back with his heavy hands on his breeches. “Our visit’s with a purpose that will interest you very much for it concerns music.” He looked at them all with satisfaction, his presence seeming to fill the kitchen, while Alfonso regarded them with melting eyes, his large ears tucked beneath his hat.

  “Music, Uncle?”

  “Music, my dears! Ah, you don’t know! My move to Vienna has been most profitable to me, for I’ve found work there as general factotum to the director of one of the two opera companies. Such an incomparable city, my girls, the very center of the Austrian Empire! Why, we see the Emperor himself riding many days in the park, though not in inclement weather. We wouldn’t want the Imperial Majesty to suffer from a chill. On my hope of salvation, now that I have lived in Vienna, I wouldn’t dream of living anyplace else.”

  Thorwart’s expression became businesslike, and he leaned forward. He made a quick gesture, as if straightening a pile of papers on the table before him, then cleared his throat. “My news will be of the greatest interest to you,” he said solemnly, “for it’s news I bring indeed. There’s a position open in the opera for a soprano, a young prima donna. Alfonso and I heard of it just eight days ago, and of course we marched to the director’s office and spoke of the beauty, the elegance, the range and expression of the singing voices of the two Weber daughters, the majestical Mademoiselle Josefa, who is one and twenty, and our enchanting Mademoiselle Aloysia, who is, I believe, just past eighteen.”

  Alfonso smiled as broadly as he always had when coming up the steps for the Thursday musicales. “And he’s eager to hear you both. I’m returning to Vienna in a few days and will happily take you with me. The position pays well, very well indeed, far more than your dear father ever made. It would keep your whole family. If God wills it, one of you will have the place, and your troubles will be over.”

  The two older girls threw everything out of trunks to find trimmings and feathers. They rampaged through the piles of music, leaving it all over the red velvet sofa. They missed the lessons they were to give on the clavier, so intent were they on their packing. Their mother hovered above them, crying, “Your curling rags, your false curls, your rosaries ...” Josefa still wore an engraved silver locket that had appeared the previous summer; she had not taken it off all those months. It glittered slightly as she closed her cloak over it and prepared to bring the bags down the steps into the cold morning. She said little, though Aloysia had never stopped talking the whole three days since the news had come. Aloysia had broken her necklace and thought it was a bad omen and cried heartbreakingly.

  Constanze, Sophie, and their mother waved as the older girls boarded the hulking carriage near the house, then watched it wobble away through the cobbled streets in the soft gray light, all the trunks and leather luggage tied with ropes to the top, including the little wood box their great grandfather had once taken to war. Augustin Weber it had said, the paint long faded. The carriage wobbled past notices of public hangings and signs for health tonics, which were pasted to lampposts and to the sides of houses.

  That night the two younger sisters brought out their father’s maps and traced with their fingers the route from Munich to the capital. They estimated how far the coach could have gotten that day, and what sort of inn would house their older sisters that night. “Their dresses will be wrinkled,” Constanze said. “They stuffed too much inside the trunk.”

  “They’re staying with Thorwart and his wife; they’ll help them.”

  “His wife mightn’t speak to them; she doesn’t speak to anyone. She’s given up on mankind. I heard Mama say it once.”

  By now they had taken down another book of engravings of Vienna, and turned the pages slowly, holding up the candle. From the other room they heard their mother rolling over in bed. They were always aware of her loneliness.

  Constanze looked more closely at the picture on which a fat blob of white wax had dropped. She blew on it and scraped it off with her fingernail. “I think it must be the most beautiful city in the world,” she said at last and smiled. “Oh Sophie, may it be! I think truly we’d be happy there, even Mama.”

  Aloysia returned three days before Christmas, appearing suddenly on the street, pulling her heavy bag after her. She abandoned it halfway up the stairs and ran the rest of the way up to their rooms. She had about her that smell of old leather and horses that clings to the garments of those who take long coach rides. And stuck to the bottom of her thick traveling shoes and along her dress’s hemline was straw from the innyards. Constanze and their mother, who had been making meat dumplings, met her at the door. “What? For the love of heaven, tell us, what news, what news?” Maria Caecilia cried. For days they had been running down at any sign of the post.

  Sophie, hearing their voices, hurried to the door with a cry, then stopped in amazement at the sight of her sister. Aloysia looked as she had the day long ago when she was twelve years old and had just heard her closest friend had died of scarlet fever. “Blessed Mary, what has happened?” Sophie cried. “What’s the matter? We’ve been holding our breath since you left.” She made the sign of the Cross. “Oh what’s the matter?”

  Maria Caecilia cried, “What news?”

  “They heard four arias,” Aloysia said breathlessly.

  “And?”

  “They kept looking at me when I sang.”

  “Yes, but then ... tell us.”

  “They made me an offer to begin rehearsals on my first role just after the first of the year. ”

  “Praise God, praise Christ,” their mother gasped. “But is there a contract? Is it secure? You don’t know how we’ve been waiting for you.” They pulled Aloysia inside by her cold hands. “Where are your gloves? How was the journey back? What did you wear to sing?”

  “The green wool.”

  They pulled her to the warm kitchen still talking, one voice louder than the next. “Which arias did you sing?”

  “Did you show your full range?”

  “Did you show your triplets and ornamentation?”

  “Who accompanied you? Alfonso ... he’s middling on the clavier. Or did they have a fortepiano?”

  “They had a beautiful fortepiano, and yes, he played—”

  “Did you curl your hair in back and put it up?”

  “I hadn’t time to do those things; one of the carriage horses was sick, and we got there hours late. Frau Thorwart came flying out at us, saying we were expected at once, that very hour. Uncle Thorwart had gone the day before and said we were coming, you see.” She was panting as if she had just run for miles. “And we went at once, and they were waiting.”

  Sophie turned and looked toward the door, then back again to her sister. “But Aly,” she said, “where’s Josefa?” Then the only sounds in the kitchen were those of the water boiling in the black pot and the crinkling flames beneath it.

  Aloysia closed her eyes for a moment, then looked toward the black kettle. She dropped wearily to a chair by the table. It never ceased to amaze Sophie that beautiful faces could at times be absolutely plain. Swallowing before she spoke, Aloysia whispered, “It was terrible, terrible. I didn’t want her
to lose to me. I wanted to win, but I didn’t want her to lose. She sang after me, and her voice just rang out; it’s so big and rich and dark and high, but then they had me sing two more songs. Cousin Alfonso said later they wanted a small soprano with a lighter voice. She sang very well; Father would have been so proud.”

  She leaned against the table. “I tried to console her, but she wouldn’t allow it. This morning since the inn she would hardly speak to me, and just before when we came to Munich she insisted on getting down from the coach. She walked off I don’t know where. She says she won’t move to Vienna and I can go to the devil. And it’s not my fault; it isn’t my fault!” She dropped her head onto her arm, which rested on the table.

  Maria Caecilia now sat down as well, so heavily the chair creaked. “The best joys come with difficulties,” she murmured. “What can we say to her when she comes in?” She looked about, her blue eyes bewildered. They all were silent. There was very little their mother could say to her oldest daughter these past months. Since their father’s funeral, Sophie felt she had been holding together by sheer will the last of the love between Josefa and their mother, smoothing differences, telling each one varying versions of the same story until she felt exhausted. Now, perhaps, she couldn’t do it anymore. She polished her spectacles, then excused herself to stand by the parlor window and watch over the cold winter street.

  Josefa arrived home after dark and went at once to her bed in the farthest place by the wall, her shoulders turned to them. If they tried to reach out to her, she seemed to move even farther away. Exhausted, they all slept late the next morning. As they woke one by one and tiptoed to the kitchen in their dressing gowns, Josefa slept on, her long reddish brown hair loose on the pillow. Sophie touched the warm shoulder before she went, and then posted a notice on their apartment door that they were not well and no copied music would be ready today. The traveling bags of both sisters stood, still packed, just inside their door.

  In the kitchen Aloysia, arms bare and dressed only in her smock, was bent over a bowl of warm water, washing her hair. As quietly as they could they opened cupboard doors to take out dishes and cheese and bread. Someone had lain Aloysia’s new letters from Salzburg by the ale pitcher. Their mother entered; she rolled her eyes when they shook their heads at her silent question. Aloysia knelt by the fire to dry her hair.

  They had gathered around the table when they heard the bed creak from their room. Then the door opened, and bare feet approached them. Josefa appeared at the kitchen door. There was a sense of voluptuousness about her—her large breasts and shoulders under the half-closed dressing gown, her hair tumbled about her shoulders—though her face was sullen and withdrawn. Sophie hardly breathed, but she nudged Constanze’s knee with her own. “Where’re your slippers, Josy?” she said tenderly. “You’ll catch cold.”

  Josefa nodded, and returned a few moments later with their father’s old slippers on her feet, shuffling across the floor. She sat down moodily, reached for the bread; then, feeling them all looking quietly at her, she crumbled a bit of crust and said, “I suppose Aloysia has told you what I said yesterday. Well, I meant it. I’m not going to Vienna.” She tipped her head to one side, her full lower lip extended, one shoulder raised slightly under the nappy blue wool gown.

  She added, “I suppose I should tell you why. It’s not just disappointment. Cousin Alfonso said he’d help me find singing work there. There’s another opera house, and concerts given all the time, ten times more than there are here. So it’s not just that.” She crumbled the crust smaller and smaller. They sensed her emotion pressing and pressing until it would burst forth. “I might not have been able to go even if I had won the place.”

  She looked up. “I don’t always tell the truth; I’ll admit it. I like to keep people guessing, and I haven’t told you the truth about myself, none of you. The real reason I don’t want to leave Munich is because I have a lover here.”

  Her three sisters and mother all looked at one another; Maria Caecilia, her dull gold wedding ring still on her finger, covered her mouth with her hand.

  Constanze leaned forward, blinking. “You can’t mean what you’ve said, Josefa,” she said practically. “You don’t know what you’re saying ... you’ve said a terrible thing. It’s wrong for a girl to speak that way and make people think badly of her reputation; you shouldn’t joke about such things.”

  “I have no reputation; I have a lover, Stanzi.”

  “You mean there is some man here in Munich whom you went to bed with? You can’t mean that. That’s not possible. I know you. You’re my sister. Good women don’t go to bed with men until they’re married. You can tell. We would have known. What you say isn’t possible.”

  Josefa suddenly slammed both her hands on the table; Sophie jumped. “Is it so impossible for you all to believe that someone loves me?” she cried. “Why do you all stare at me? It’s true, it’s true. I met him at the bookstall. We’ve been lovers since the summer. He’s twice my age and has all the money he needs.” She stood up, her large hands opening and closing rapidly as the words poured out, and stared at them all scathingly. “Where do you think I got the silver locket I always wear? It was his present to me. Yes, if you must know, he’s married. His wife’s sickly and is always away taking the baths, and when she dies he’s promised to marry me. He will marry me; he keeps his word. So you see, I’m not going to Vienna to help my sister curl her hair for her performances. No, I’m not following you anymore, Aloysia Weber; I’m not picking up your scraps and crumbs. Someone loves me. Mother, you have never believed it could be true, and I hate you for that. Have any of you thought it? Now I’ve proven it’s possible.”

  Only then did Maria Caecilia manage to rise to her feet. “How dare you stand there,” she gasped, “in my very kitchen ... and say that you have given all honor away, thrown away your good name? How dare you boast of it? Who is this person? I’ll have the law on him. What, have you made yourself a hussy and a whore? I’ll beat you with my wooden spoon. Your father would die if he had not passed already from this earth; yes, he would die of shame. What, a lover? Are you with child? Are you with child?”

  “Indeed not,” said Josefa scornfully, putting her chair between them. “Don’t you think I have enough sense not to get with child?”

  Sophie was balling up her apron as she fought tears, her throat contracting as if she were trying to swallow something large and bitter. “What are you saying, Josy?” she stammered. “Oh, what have you done? What will people say of us? And even if you do have a lover, we can’t go without you. No, Mother, leave her alone; you’re always saying cruel things to her. Oh, Josefa, married lovers never marry the girls they lie with. Even you told us that once.”

  By that time Maria Caecilia had found her wooden spoon, but Josefa dodged her, knocking over the bowl of milk, which splashed down her father’s blue dressing gown, and ran from the kitchen. Their shouts and cries echoed through the rooms, and the girls could hear the voices of their neighbors leaning out the windows in the house next door, trying to discover what the noise was about. Sophie was now crying openly as she knelt to mop up the spilled milk. “It’s not true; it can’t be true,” she repeated again and again.

  Josefa disappeared that afternoon, and they searched the city for her, running up stairs to ask friends, inquiring at the three bookstalls they knew she liked. The third seller, scratching his head, said he did recall an unusually tall young woman talking for a long time with a man, but he did not know their names. The man bought a great many books, he said. He had no idea if the young woman had been wearing a silver locket. He said he had seen the couple a few times since the summer.

  It was the worst Christmas of their lives. For the first time no one baked the festive weihnachtsgebäck, the honey pastry made with ginger and spices, or the springerle, the rectangular hard cookies with dancing figures or holy pictures stamped on them. The goose burned, and everyone cried throughout the meal, at which Josefa did not even appear. She stayed awa
y from the rooms for two days; when she returned, she refused to say a word. When they tried to follow her the next time, they lost sight of her. Constanze looked at her curiously and with some awe. Was there a difference? It was said that you could tell when a woman fell; you could know when a bride had come through her wedding night. But they could tell nothing. If this great truth was not so, then what was true? Still Josefa declared she would not go to Vienna.

  By this time it was the new year, and Aloysia’s contract was to begin. They had either to send her on alone, or leave quickly with her, arranging for most of their things to be sent after. Still Josefa came and went as she pleased, with such hard, screaming words between her and their mother that the others were sick with fear. The night before they were to leave, she came home alone after midnight and dropped, fully dressed, across the bed. “Never ask me,” she murmured. “I’ll come,” and for an hour they heard her weeping in short, furious sobs. Slowly they moved closer to her.

  Aloysia clung to her. “Please don’t be angry with me. You’ll find singing work as well, and look, sometimes I’ll pretend I’m sick and send you in my place. Promise me you’ll forget this horrid person. Life’s nothing to me if you don’t speak with me; I love you with all my heart.”

  My dearest dear Aloysia,

  I rejoice at your incredible news and good fortune to go to Vienna. Dearest love, you see I was right from the start about the value of your voice. The only thing that hurts me is that this move will take you still farther from me. It’s been too long since I’ve held you in my arms. God willing it will be soon that I can hold you in my arms forever.

  My sister didn’t bake for Christmas either; she was too sad. I found her by the open flour bin with gingerroot on her lap, still mourning our mother.

  I serve daily here with discouragement for the works I want to write, and the places I want to play are so far away from me. I’ve been inquiring about a good post elsewhere, but every time I hear of one, someone else has been given it first. Leutgeb has returned to Vienna and writes that the Emperor is promoting opera in German, which I could compose with joy, and also that they may be looking for a kapellmeister. I have written at once to a few old acquaintances who are in His Majesry’s circle, but with discretion, for if my Archbishop knew of it, he would throw me from his service. I swear faithfulness with one hand and hold the other behind my back.