She laid her head back against the cool leather and closed her eyes. Massimo clicked off the radio, and her lips curved a little in appreciation. After a long day of rehearsal, the last thing she wanted was to listen to music. Or to listen to anything, for that matter. Part of her would have liked to drive for hours with nothing but the hum of the fine old engine in her ears and the company of this intense young man beside her.
When the car stopped, all too soon, she opened her eyes. Massimo had parked behind a squat, unremarkable building. A faint glow showed through its curtained windows. Massimo opened her door and escorted her to a short set of cement steps that led down below the street level.
The bustle of traffic in the city center receded to a distant drone. Octavia paused before descending the stairs and gazed up at the towers of the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio, their rectangular shapes outlined by twinkling stars. She knew Sant’Ambrogio. She had heard Mass there when she first came to Milan, and she remembered, with a rush of nostalgia, coming through the great portico with Vincenzo and crossing the atrium. Vincenzo had climbed the stairs to the women’s gallery, and she had followed. From that vantage point he had sung his part in a motet for two choirs. The other voices answered his across the great nave. She had crouched at his feet, so as not to be seen by anyone looking up, and had closed her eyes to listen to the men’s and boys’ voices blending with those of the castrati, saturating the arched interior of the church with glorious sound.
The narrow lanes of the neighborhood were dark and quiet now. As they went down the steps, a bell tolled from the campanile, and she shivered a little at the beauty of it. “It’s peaceful here.”
“Yes. Have you been inside the Basilica?”
Octavia shook her head, unable to explain.
The last time she had been in the church had been at the end of Teresa’s career. She was trying to decide what to do, where to go. She had not dared go into the lovely old sanctuary, where the blessed water threatened to scald her and the very images of the saints rebuked her. She had wandered down into the crypt, instead, to sit on a cold marble bench and stare through the grille at the coffin of St. Ambrose, trying to imagine what it must be like to die. She thought of her mother, gone almost ninety years. She thought with pain and guilt of her father, who had died at a great age, but alone in Limone sul Garda. How had it been for them to face the darkness, the chasm from which no one returned? Had they been afraid, or joyous? Anxious, or relieved? She had seen the face of death so many times, but there was nothing in those still faces to tell her what the journey was like. All she read in the wide, sightless eyes of the dead was surprise.
Teresa had sat in St. Ambrose’s crypt for a long time, until the bells above her head told her Mass was beginning. She had been one hundred six years old, and no longer dared show her face in Milan.
But Octavia could not share this memory with Massimo Luca. She couldn’t share it with anyone except Ugo.
Massimo reached for the doorknob and turned it. When he opened the door, brilliant light poured over them, and the muted clink of china and glasses met their ears. Octavia sniffed in appreciation, and Massimo grinned. “As I told you,” he said with satisfaction. “The best ossubuco in the city.”
Massimo’s cousin was an elegant elderly woman, and her home was both rich and comfortable. There were only two other guests. No one made a great fuss over Octavia, but they made her welcome with good conversation and a minimum of curious questions.
And Massimo was right about the food. Though Octavia’s stomach rebelled at the sight of the generous antipasto and the insalata Toscana, the aperitif was a clear, sparkling prosecco, and it soothed her a bit. The ossobuco was a dish Teresa Saporiti would have recognized, prepared in bianco, as tomatoes had not been introduced in Milan until the nineteenth century. Despite her queasiness, Octavia managed to eat a good bit of it. A nice big Barolo helped. Its flavors of chocolate and tobacco and plum calmed the burning of her throat and placated her reluctant stomach. Massimo had poured her a third glass before she realized it. The hostess had prepared everything herself, so Octavia was grateful to find a way to do justice to the dinner.
As dessert was being served, Massimo’s cell phone rang from his jacket pocket. Octavia turned to him, surprised that he would have the phone on during a social evening, and she caught the hard look that crossed his face. He looked infinitely older at that moment, his eyes darkening, his generous mouth pressed into a narrow line. He pulled out the phone, glanced at it, and shoved his chair back with an angry gesture.
The others at the table made an evident effort to ignore all of this. Someone asked Octavia a question about her performance in Paris, and her hostess broached the subject of her Rusalka recording. By the time she finished her answer, Massimo had returned. He muttered an apology as he sat down, and drained what was left in his wineglass in a single swallow. No one asked who had called, and he didn’t offer the information.
The smooth, cool panna cotta, served in an antique sherbet dish, was the perfect ending for the meal. Octavia refused the proffered glass of port afterward, pleading the need to sing in the morning. Massimo’s bout of temper seemed to have passed, and his hand was gentle when he handed her back into the Mercedes. As they drove back to Il Principe, she lowered the window a bit, to let the passing breeze draw Massimo’s alluring scent from the car. She kept her eyes on the lights of the city as they drove. A full moon had risen, and it cast silver shadows on the public gardens. Massimo spoke from time to time, pointing something out, asking a neutral question. When they pulled into the circular drive of Il Principe, the doorman hurried to open the door.
Octavia turned to Massimo. “The dinner was wonderful,” she said. “And so is your family. Thank you so much for taking me there.”
“You’re welcome.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled, but he made no move to touch her. Part of her regretted that until, when she looked up at the line of his throat outlined by his white shirt, her teeth throbbed. She swallowed hard, denying the melting sensation in her breast, the warmth of her palm as he squeezed her hand and released it.
Moments later, she was safely inside the ornate gilt lobby of the hotel. She took the stairs to her room to work off the last of the Barolo. She promised herself, as she climbed, that when Ugo returned—if Ugo returned—and it was safe, she would see Massimo again. Then she would not be forced to hold back.
Octavia slept for a time, lulled by the soporific effect of the Barolo, but at midnight she startled awake. She had forgotten to pull the drapes, and moonlight flooded the bedroom. She lay for a moment, longing to sleep again, but her burning throat drove her to the bathroom for a glass of water.
She drank it and then refilled it to drink another. Her reflection in the mirror showed her hair in a hopeless tangle. Her eyes looked wide and hungry. She flicked off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom, which was nearly as bright with moonlight as if the lights had been on. She went to the window to draw the curtains but instead stood, wringing the heavy fabric between her hands, staring out into the night. She followed the sparse line of traffic with her eyes, the headlights sweeping down Via Turati, past the new hotels and the old businesses. None of them had been there in Teresa’s day.
Four years were to pass before Teresa saw Mozart again. The very day after Don Giovanni closed at the Nostitz, she started the long journey back to Italy. She wasn’t without work for long. With Vincenzo’s help, she won rôles in Venice, in Arsace and Rinaldo, and she returned to Milano the next year to reprise the rôle of Donna Anna, though not under Mozart’s baton.
The director of La Scala called her to an extra orchestra rehearsal. As she sang her arias, he strolled about the house, listening from various vantage points. When she had sung “Or sai chi l’onore” and “Non mi dir,” he walked down the aisle to stand be neath the stage. His eyes appraised her, running over her figure, narrowing as he looked at her face. “Your voice is not so white as it was, signorina.”
H
er temper flared, and she put indignant fists on her hips. She was no longer a novice desperate for approval. She had had a taste of success in Venice, and she had expected the same in Milano. She spoke with an asperity that made the conductor, in the pit, hide his smile. “I’m not so young as I was, signore.”
“È vero.” The director spoke with a satisfied air, nodding as if he had known all along her voice would darken as she grew older. “Better.”
Teresa spun in an irritated whirl of skirts and marched off the stage and back to her dressing room. It was blessedly empty, and she dropped onto a stool before the mirror. She raised the wick on the oil lamp for more light and sat for long moments looking at herself before she put a fingertip to her upper lip and lifted it.
Her eyeteeth had grown by a third, and their tips tapered to sharp points. They were slightly darker than the surrounding teeth, gleaming with a faint tinge of gold in the lamplight. She touched one with a fingernail, tapping it. It seemed harder to her than the others, and smoother.
She had seen a cur in the street one evening not long ago, snarling at a pack of boys who were tormenting it. Its teeth had looked like this: long, pointed, and strong. Teresa had chased the boys away, flinging curses after them through the dusk.
Her teeth were as utilitarian as any dog’s. For two years, she had used them when the thirst came upon her. Beggars, thieves, drunkards, ruffians—and, although she deeply regretted it, a maid or two. With each came a fresh onslaught of memories. She thought of these memories as the blood price.
Teresa remembered mothers she had never seen and fathers who shouted or abused or embraced. She could anguish over every detail of the faces of faithless lovers, though she had never met them. Her heart ached at the treachery of sisters who knew how to cut with their words. She knew the long days and uncomfortable nights of arduous journeys she had never taken. She recalled wedding days and funerals of strangers. She knew the rending pain of giving birth, the delight of a beloved infant’s face, the unthinkable grief of a child’s death.
At first, she feared these swiftly accumulating memories would drive her mad. One dark night, newly come to Venice, she paced across the Ponte Vecchio, clutching her head with both hands as if she could squeeze the burdensome recollections out of her head. She stopped at the highest point of the arching bridge and stared down into the dark waters of the canal for an hour, wishing the swirling current could wash her mind clean.
But her ovations grew bigger and longer each night. She pondered every memory of Mozart’s. The way he colored a phrase, how he shaped a cadence, the abundant inventiveness with which he spilled music onto a page in the form of notes and accidentals and rhythms, informed her own music making. She treasured images of Mozart’s sister Nannerl at the harpsichord, or laughing with him over some jest. She revisited endless lessons with Leopold and felt Mozart’s mixture of affection and frustration. She exulted in his first hearings of Bach and Allegri and Handel, feeling his own excitement, the thrill of discovery.
What she needed was a way to filter out the memories she didn’t want or need, that were only debris to clutter the workings of her mind. And the way she found was discipline.
Teresa learned to close such memories off from the everyday flow of her thoughts. She created a cupboard in her mind, a cubbyhole. With an iron will, she shut unwanted memories into it and latched its door. The same steely resolve that had driven her to Milan in search of an audition served her well. The distractions in her mind cleared away, like the mists on the canals dissipating before the rising sun.
But Mozart’s memories she kept in the open, as fresh to her as if each of them had happened only hours before.
To hide her teeth, she learned to sing with her upper lip pulled down, letting her jaw drop back to make space for resonance. It was this that had darkened her tone, and the effect pleased her audiences. They no longer referred to her as la voce bianca. They began, instead, to call her La Saporiti. Her public loved her, and she loved it no less in return.
She had just completed a run of Figaro in Milan when word came that Mozart was ill.
Teresa had followed Mozart through letters and reviews and reports from colleagues. She knew he had been back in Prague for the premiere of his opera La Clemenza di Tito, then had returned to Vienna with Constanze to open another new opera, Die Zauberflöte. It was rumored that he was at work on his masterpiece, a Requiem.
Vincenzo received a letter from one of his fellow castrati, a singer at the Viennese court. His friend wrote that everyone was worried about Mozart. No one had seen him in public since late November. Vincenzo told Teresa, thinking she would be interested because she had sung the premiere of Giovanni with Herr Mozart.
A terrible premonition seized Teresa. She had no more contracts until after the new year. After spending a day and a night pacing her room, worrying, she made her decision. Hurriedly, she packed her valises, gathered up the maid she had acquired in Venice, and departed for Vienna.
The trek was long and taxing, a succession of post chaises, carriages, once a wagon that reminded her of her very first journey and the kindly fishmonger for whom she had sung on the open road. Winter snows now blocked the mountain passes, and the roundabout roads slowed her progress so that she thought she would go mad before she reached her destination. Her maid complained bitterly of the conditions and the poor inns they stayed in, but Teresa would hear none of it. Compulsion drove her, a need to see him that was almost as urgent as her thirst. When she saw the spires and roofs of Vienna at last, she nearly wept with relief. It had taken her ten days to reach the city, and it was already the first of December.
She left her maid to sort out their rooms while she set out straightaway for die Rauhensteingasse, where Mozart and Constanze had their apartment. Vienna was already bright with Christmas colors. Pulling her fur stole snugly around her shoulders, she hurried past shop windows full of glistening pastries and tiered plates of chocolates, of children’s toys and festive ornaments.
At first she thought she must have been given the wrong address. Rauhensteingasse was a dreary street, clogged with dirty snow and garbage. She found the number and stood beneath it, looking doubtfully up at the slanting walls and grimy windows. It seemed just the sort of place meant for black bunting and covered mirrors, a fitting house for sickness and death.
With a sinking heart, she raised the knocker and let it fall. It was a heavy cast-iron affair with a gryphon’s head, and its echoing clang made it sound as if the house were already empty. Her heart plunged to her snow-stained calves’ leather boots.
She waited for a long moment, listening for footsteps. Once more she raised the knocker, but before she could drop it, the latch clicked and the door opened a crack. Teresa expected a manservant, or at least a housemaid, but it was Constanze’s face she saw, her eyes red, her usually plump cheeks drawn. She looked as if she had aged twenty years in four.
“Ja?” Constanze said in a faint voice.
“Frau Mozart,” Teresa said. Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “It’s I. It’s Teresa Saporiti.”
“Saporiti…Do I know you?”
“Yes. We met in Prague, when I sang Donna Anna. I’ve come to see your husband.”
The door wavered in Constanze’s hand, as if she started to pull it open, but then thought better of it. “My husband is ill,” she said. Her voice was a thread of misery.
“I know,” Teresa said. “It’s why I came.”
Constanze shook her head. “He’s too ill for visitors.” The door began to close.
Teresa felt a rush of fury, dangerously like the need that came over her when she thirsted. She put a hand on the door and shoved. Constanze fell back with a little exclamation, stumbling a step or two. Teresa looked past her, up a broad set of steep stairs. A door was ajar at the top. She felt her lip begin to curl, and she hastily put her hand over it. She spoke through her spread fingers. “I have to see Herr Mozart. I may be able to help.”
“How?” Con
stanze’s head came only to Teresa’s shoulder, but she stood in front of her, barring her way, puffing her breast like an angry sparrow defending its nest. “How can you help him when the physicians can’t?”
Teresa’s lip relaxed, and she dropped her hand. She held it out to Constanze, but the other woman refused to take it. “Frau Mozart,” Teresa said gently. “I care as much for him as you do. I—I know a thing or two about his illness. Let me try.”
“You’re mad!” Constanze blazed. “You’re one of his fancy women, aren’t you? You were in love with him. And even now, you can’t leave my husband alone!”
“It’s not that,” Teresa said tightly. She trembled from the effort of restraining herself. “And yes, I was. But everyone was in love with Wolfgang. You must know that.” She tried to bring a persuasive smile to her face. She had not, after all, traveled all this way to be stopped at the very door of his house. “Please,” she said. She fixed Constanze with her eyes as if she could force compliance through sheer need. “Let me see him for just a moment. As a friend only, I promise you. If he wants me to leave, I will. I give you my word.”
In the end, Mozart’s wife, fresh tears of despair brimming in her already-irritated eyes, stepped aside. She stretched out her arm to point up the stairs. “Five minutes,” she said brokenly. “No more.”
Teresa didn’t answer but leaped up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She took one look back at Constanze, who stood passive and defeated in the entryway, gazing up the stairs at Teresa. Teresa gave her a nod before she slipped in through the open door of the sickroom and closed it quietly behind her.
Mozart lay on his side on his pillows. His eyes were closed. One of his fine small hands was outflung, resting on a sheaf of music paper. His hair had grown thin and straggled about his face. His features had grown sharp with illness, his nose jutting, his pale cheeks hollow. The rest of his body swelled strangely, mounding the quilt that lay over him. The hand Teresa could see was also swollen, the delicate finger bones hidden beneath puffy flesh.
Mozart’s Blood Page 23
