Mozart's Sister

by Nancy Moser

  The musical introduction began, and the dancers stepped into place. My memory prepared to grab hold of the notes as my body employed the correct moves. As we bowed and curtsied to begin, Joseph made a face, trying to distract me.

  With a lift of my chin, I looked away. I would not be distracted by his handsome smile.

  That would come later. In due time.

  I untied my cloak and carefully put it on the hook near the door. I slipped off my shoes and tiptoed toward the bedchamber I shared with Mama, carrying a candle in my free hand. I walked in an angled manner so my wide skirt would not skim the walls of the narrow hall. I did not want to wake-Mama was not in bed. She sat in the dark, on the window seat, her green shawl over her nightdress. Her night cap was squarely in place. And she wore slippers. She had not been to bed. “You are late, Nannerl. Very, very late.”

  I set the candle on the cabinet holding the wash basin. I knew she was right. The last time Joseph had checked his pocket watch it was nearly one. In the morning.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. Surely, you didn’t wait-?”

  “Surely, I did.” She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders. “You are my one and only daughter. There are no men here to protect us and take care of us and …” Her words broke off and she put a hand to her mouth, dipping her head.

  Was she crying?

  “I just want you to be safe.”

  I set my shoes on the floor and hugged her. “I was perfectly safe,” I said. “I was with Joseph and other friends. After the ball we went to have coffee and kugelhopf cakes. I didn’t mean to make you worry.

  Mama pulled away, wiping her eyes with the corner of her shawl. I retrieved a handkerchief from my waist and gave it to her. “I am alone here, Nannerl,” she said. “I want you to have fun. You are young, you must be out with others in order to find a husband. But be mindful that I do get lonely sometimes.”

  The guilt fell upon me. I honestly had not thought of Mama, alone and lonely. She had her women friends. She seemed content to stay at home and manage the household.

  She sniffed. “I enjoyed balls once too.”

  Ali. That was it. “You could come with us “

  Mania shook her head vehemently. “Not without your father. Never without him.”

  “But it’s already been six months. He may be away for a long …” I did not finish the sentence. I could not. For no one knew when they would be back. And both of us knew that all plans were variable as new opportunities presented themselves.

  Mania took a deep breath and managed a smile. “I’m just being a needy old woman.”

  “You’re not old.” Too late I realized I should have added “or needy.”

  She kissed my cheek. “Get to bed now, Nannerl. We both have a busy day tomorrow”

  I knew I did. I had two pupils conning for lessons. But as far as Mama’s busy day? I wasn’t sure what that entailed. But as I began to undress, I promised myself and God above that, from now on, I would make a point to be a part of it.

  Three months later, as summer started its descent into autumn, I ran into the kitchen. “Mama! Letters!”

  Mama stopped cutting the turnips and wiped her hands on her apron. “Four letters?”

  I held three toward her and held the other against my chest. “Three from Papa to you, and one from Wolfie to me.” This was the way it was; as if the two men had been assigned our names as their partners of the quill. Occasionally Papa put a line in his letters specifically for me, but it was clear they were mostly meant for Mama’s eyes. In his defense I recognized there were a lot of household issues that needed to be addressed, ones that Mama was not used to handling. It wasn’t easy for her, and I noticed she periodically asked Herr Hagenauer for help.

  She took the letters and sat at a stool near the light and breeze of the window. I leaned against the sill and did the same. This was our usual custom-we read the letters to ourselves first, then shared by reading them aloud. It was a wise habit because Wolfie could get quite crude in his choice of words, and though I didn’t mind-for I understood his odd humor better than anyone-I felt some responsibility to edit them for our mother’s ears.

  Wolfie wrote: I have no time to write much. My pen is not worth a fig, nor is he who is holding it. Immediately after lunch we play boccia. That is a game which I have learnt in Rome. When I come home, I shall teach it to you. When I have finished this letter I shall finish a symphony which I have begun. The aria is finished. A symphony is being copied (Papa is the copyist, for we do not wish to give it out to be copied, as it would be stolen.) In Milan we saw four rascals hanged. They hang them just as they do in Lyons. We also saw a ballet in Cremona. There was a woman dancer there who did not dance badly and, what is very remarkable, was not bad-looking on the stage and off it. The others were quite ordinary. A grotesco was there too-whenever he jumped he let off a fart. As you know I have never been shy about telling other musicians their weaknesses. But Papa is trying to make me change. “Don’t be so candid! Play the Englishman, Wolferl.” But I like being candid. The pride of some of these musicians is legion, as if they truly know what they’re doing. Thanks for sending me that arithmetical business, and if you ever want to have a headache, please send me a few more of these feats. I am simply panting from the heat! So I am tearing open my waistcoat. I send a thousand kisses to Mama and one pockmark of a kiss to you. I remain the same old … old … what? … the same old buffoon.

  It was signed: Wolfgang in Germany, Amadeus in Italy.

  I’d finished reading mine first. As usual, Papa’s letters were mul tiple pages, and Mama was still on the first one. She noticed I was finished, but instead of asking me what Wolfie had said, she pointed to the letter she held. “Papa reminds us again to save all his letters.”

  Yes, yes. I glanced toward the cabinet in the corner of our workroom. “Soon we’re going to need a separate room for them all.”

  Mama gave me a chastising look. “They’re important, Nannerl. They chronicle many things.”

  “But who will ever want to read them?”

  Mama did not answer at first, then said, “Someone. Someday. We must do as your father says.”

  I shrugged, knowing she was right, yet also slightly bothered by the instruction. I doubted Papa and Wolfie were keeping our letters.

  Mama began to reiterate what was in Papa’s letter, passing on tales of mountain roads that prevented him from sleeping and Italian audiences that crowded Wolfie so he had trouble reaching his instrument. The audiences in Naples accused Wolfie of having a magical ring that made him able to play so well so he’d taken it off to prove them wrong. The two of them had seen the volcano Vesuvius smoking, the ruins of Pompeii, and had ridden in a gondola in Venice so long they continued to feel the movement when in bed. They’d even attended the carnival.

  I was glad that most of the time they didn’t go into much detail but told Mama and me to look the places up in the three-volume guidebook Papa had bought for us. Though I hadn’t done that much of late…. My rebellion was childish, but it was my way of handling what I was not seeing.

  Mama laughed. “Apparently your brother has deemed the Mediterranean the Muckyterranean Sea. That sounds so like-” Suddenly Mama stopped her reading and gasped. “Oh no, Papa was injured in an accident!”

  My bitterness left me. “What does he say?”

  Mama read the letter aloud. Apparently, in the act of leaving Naples for a second trip to Rome, Papa had hired a sedia, a twowheeled carriage pulled by one horse that had a groom riding to the left with another horse yoked to the frame. By using such a light and fast rig, it was possible to take only twenty-four hours to make the trip.

  But one of the horses reared and stumbled, pulling the carriage down. Papa had extended a hand in front of Wolfie, trying to keep him safe, but in the process they fell, and Papa split his shin on an iron bar. The injury was the width of a finger. They’d finally gotten to Rome, and Wolfie had been so tired he’d fallen asleep in a chair and Papa had undress
ed him without waking him.

  “I don’t care about Wolfie’s sleep-I want to know about Papa,” I said.

  “He says he’s fine … yet that was over a week ago.” She set the letter aside and tore open the next. She skimmed it. But the news was far different than I expected. “They had an audience with Pope Clement! And Wolfgang has received the papal Order of the Golden Spur! He is a knight.”

  I glanced back at Wolfie’s letter. “He doesn’t mention that here.”

  Mama put a hand to her chest, her face proud. “He can now legitimately take the title of cavalier.”

  “I can’t imagine Wolfie using a title like that.” But what of Papa’s injury? And what of … I thought of something that had happened during their first trip to Rome. “I’m surprised the pope gave Wolfie that honor after he got in trouble for writing down the Miserere after hearing it played in the Sistine Chapel. It’s forbidden to take away even a single part of it, to copy it, or to give it to anyone. He could have been excommunicated for that, yet they give him this honor?”

  Mama looked perplexed. “Papa must have made it right.”

  That seemed to be the only explanation, yet did Papa really wield such power?

  This question didn’t seem to bother Mama, as she went back to reading the letter. “Papa wants us to make sure the archbishop knows about the honor. And they got new suits too.” She referred to the letter and read, ” `Our Wolfie’s is a rose-colored moire trimmed with silver lace and lined with sky blue silk. While mine is the color of cinnamon and is made of piqued Florentine cloth with silver lace, lined with apple green silk. I’m going to have Wolfie’s portrait painted in his, with the sash of the order across his chest.”’ Mama sighed. “How beautiful.”

  And how expensive. Papa constantly reminded us to be frugal, yet he and Wolfie were indulging themselves in extravagant new clothes?

  “They are meeting with royalty, Nannerl,” Mama said, guessing my thoughts. “They need to look their best”

  I nodded, understanding. In theory.

  “Perhaps when you receive payment for your Tuesday lesson, you can use a bit of it to buy a new hat. We could go without meat on Sunday if need be.”

  I got a hat at the expense of meat, and Wolfie and Papa got silk and silver lace? Yet there was no point arguing.

  Mama turned to the second page of the letter. “Here. Finally mention of the leg … He says it’s worse. His leg has swollen so much that he’s hobbling around Rome. But he assures us he’ll be fine.” She turned the page over. “That’s not enough!” she said. “I need more information!”

  “The last letter, Mama.”

  She hurriedly opened the final post. Her lips moved frantically as she read Papa’s words. “The wound opened … his ankle is swollen to the size of his calf. And now he’s getting pain in his other ankle!”

  “Has he seen a doctor?”

  Mama scanned more of the letter, then nodded. “They’ve been offered housing by the field marshal Pallavicini at his estate not far from Bologna.” She read in silence a few moments. “It’s very palatial, and they are waited on like royalty.” She smiled and finished reading. “They provide a comfortable chair for him in every room, with a stool for his foot, and he is not required to stand even when his host comes into the room.”

  I let out the breath I’d been saving. “So they’re all right, then.”

  Mama nodded, her face clearly relieved. “They are fine. They plan to stay there many weeks, until his leg is completely healed.” She folded the letter carefully. “It also says that Wolfie has ridden a donkey and loves the variety of fruit there”

  Donkeys and fruit? What did that matter? Papa had been injured, and we hadn’t been there to nurse him back to health.

  Mama finished folding all the letters. “My son, Cavalier Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Knight of the Golden Spur….” She put the letters in the cabinet and went back to the turnips. “By the way, Papa sends a thousand kisses.”

  The feelings of envy I thought I’d set aside returned. During the past nine months, I’d managed to deal with a myriad of letters regarding the sites they’d seen, the important people they’d met. But for them to stay in a palatial home and be waited on, while we lived in the three rooms Mama and Papa had lived in since they were married, the same house they’d birthed seven children in. The same house they’d lived in since before Papa was Vice Kapellmeister. And then for Papa and Wolfie to have an audience with the pope and receive an honor from him …

  “I have a pupil coming,” I said, moving toward the door.

  Mama looked up. “But Wolfie’s letter? What did he have to say?”

  “Nothing important. But he also sends a thousand kisses.”

  Mama actually smiled. As if a million kisses would be enough.

  Some piano teacher I was. Once again I’d subjected a pupil to only an ounce of my attention as I dealt with my own problems.

  Or was it the same problem, come round and round in different form?

  The day after yet another half-hearted lesson I took action to quench the issue once and for all. I packed a lunch of hard-cooked eggs, bread, and ham, put on my oldest dress and sturdiest shoes, and headed up the mountain.

  “To think” had been my excuse to Mama. And in her moment of hesitation, I saw a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes. Although she was more resigned to our fate than I, she did seem to understand my torment.

  But did I? I could only hope….

  I remembered a path where Papa had taken us one Sunday afternoon. It had been years earlier, before we’d started our travels. I remembered it to be peaceful and lovely, two commodities that would be helpful in my situation.

  I walked down the streets to the east edge of town. There were many paths that led up the hills that cradled Salzburg. There were even craggy mountains close by. Yet hills were enough for me. It was not the exercise I craved but the need for solace and solitude.

  Although I planned to think while I walked, I found my mind consumed with watching my step on the path that was covered with dirt and small stones. I’d tied my lunch in a towel. As I carried it with one hand, my other hand held my dress and petticoat out of the way so I could see the path. Oh, to be a man and wear breeches.

  Suddenly I turned an ankle. I grabbed the branch of a tree that lined the path to steady myself, only to trip again and end up with scratches. I searched for a rock on which to rest, but there was none. Maybe I should go back?

  I shook my head against the thought. It was then I realized I had not even begun to think through my problems. I had to go farther. I could not return home until things had been resolved.

  I remembered a clearing where we’d sat to eat our lunch. Wolfie-he must have been only three-had chased a butterfly there. I needed to reach that clearing. Ankle or no ankle.

  I leaned against a tree and gave my ankle a look and a rub, though neither did it any good or harm. Then I tested it out. If I was careful how I placed it on the path …

  I had no choice. I had to work through my pain.

  Work through my pain. I snickered. Yes indeed, that was exactly what I needed to do.

  I headed up the hill.

  The clearing matched my faded memory. Low grass mixed with edelweiss and other wild flowers. I stopped to take deep breaths and look over the city. The church spires poked their way above the rooftops as if they had a head start to heaven. The Salzach River meandered through the town while the Hohensalzburg Fortress loomed large from the top of its precipice, our protector for seven hundred years. Salzburg was a lovely city, as lovely as any I’d visited, and it made my heart race to be able to be here, above it all-Above it all? Surely I didn’t think of myself in that way? Surely I didn’t feel that somehow I was better than the rest of Salzburg? Because of my travel, because of my talent, and even because of my family?

  My legs felt weak-and not merely from the hike. I sat on the grass and pondered the notion of such pride.

  But I had been places most Salzburg res
idents had never visited. And I did have talent, and so did my family. After all, my brother had just been honored by the pope himself.

  But you weren’t.

  I shielded my eyes with a hand, blocking the truth as well as the sun. But no matter how I hid my eyes, my mind and heart had seen the truth. Knew it intimately.

  I was jealous of my brother.

  There. I’d admitted it. I wanted an award too. I wanted to meet the pope. I wanted to travel with Papa and see volcanoes and oceans and visit Italian churches, eat Italian food, and speak Italian to Italians. I wanted things to be like they used to be when I was important too.

  You are important to Me.

  I started at the thought. Me who? God? Had God put a thought in my head? How absurd. Speaking of being prideful …

  A sparrow lit on the ground beside me, turning its head so we looked eye to eye. It was probably just interested in the bread wrapped in the towel.

  Yet it didn’t move toward the towel, didn’t peck at it. It just stood on the grass and looked at me. At me.

  So small. So unimportant.

  And yet it too was there in the meadow. Thriving. Carefree. Living with an assurance that food would be found and the wind would keep it aloft. If God took care of this little sparrow, then surely …

  Wasn’t I of more value than this lowly bird?

  “Of course I am,” I said aloud.

  I remembered my previous thought: You arc important to Me. I knew it was a message from God, and I knew He meant it, and I knew I was loved.

  The bird was still beside me. But at this point he stopped his stare-down and hopped over to the towel. He pecked at it, as if asking for his share now that his work was complete.

  I was happy to oblige. I unknotted the towel and tore off a piece of bread for him. I tossed it close by and tore off another piece for myself. Nourishment for two creatures loved by God.

  What did I care for honors or fancy sashes or portraits or the praise and attention of any man? I had worth in my own right. Up here on the edge of magnificent mountains, above the city I called home. I belonged here.