Nightingale

by Juliet Waldron

  Laughing, Akos and Klara together shook Mozart’s slight shoulders.

  "Although you are just a bit too astonishing to be entirely real, Herr Amadeus." Klara blew him a kiss.

  "I am good, aren't I?" Mozart’s grin flashed.

  "Brat!" Akos said, shaking his head again. "You have no idea how daunting it is to the rest of us, those of us who have had to work six months for every half inch we gain."

  "Well, I practiced too. I studied all day, every day, for years and years."

  "He did, indeed, and I know because I set him to it." Leopold Mozart had just come in, back from whatever mission of diplomacy he'd been on. His aging, handsome, and eminently respectable black-suited figure filled the door. "Still, Wolfgang loved to work, didn't you, my boy? I tell you, Concertmaster, I often had to pick him and carry him outside into the garden and then lock the door on him, just so he'd get a little sunshine." The pride in his smile brightened his stern face.

  Although the intimate tone of the rehearsal would change when he came in, musically the experience remained exciting. Leopold was an accomplished violinist, and the things he had to say about business were always insightful. Still, when it was just the three of them, it was so easy!

  Wolfgang watched, with unabashed interest, as Akos' fingers moved against Klara's, as his arm encircled her slender waist and remained there, while, heads together, they leaned over the score.

  "It's too bad you aren't a singer, Herr Almassy. Although I can't say that I'm partial to the male of the species." Mozart sometimes interrupted their concentration, after a long pause in which concertmaster and prima donna sat silently, simply holding hands.

  "And why is that, little brother?"

  "Because I could write you a love duet to sing with Fraulein Silber." Wolfgang smiled archly.

  "Well, why don't you write us a duet for violin and voice, or clavier and voice, instead?"

  Smiling hugely, he produced a score from behind a stack of paper on the klavier. "Already done, Concertmaster."

  "Oh, heavens above! Thank you!"

  "Prima Donna Silber." Mozart got up from his seat at the clavier to kiss her hand. "A present from an admirer who regrets that your heart is already engaged."

  After the lovers had studied the piece, Akos picked up his violin and tuned it. Soon they were trying it, while the young composer sat at the harpsichord, his skinny legs crossed, for once playing the role of audience. Klara and Akos felt rewarded when, after a while, Wolfgang's blue eyes closed and he sat, chin lifted, concentrating upon their sound, as the shining lines of voice and violin wound passionately together.

  ***

  One day, waiting for the Adambergers to return to their apartment, the lovers found themselves waiting for the others, but for once, except for the cook in the kitchen and a maid who showed them to the parlor and left, they were quite alone. It was easy to be patient under those circumstances, for every stolen moment, every private conversation, was so precious! They both had so much to say to each other. They settled into a sofa and straight away began.

  "What do you want to know?" Akos smiled indulgently, his miraculous eyes shining.

  Klara bit her lip, for suddenly she wondered if he would think her rude. "You – you – don't look like the grandson of an apothecary. You carry yourself like an aristocrat.”

  “I hope you do not think badly of me when you know the story of my birth."

  "Should I dare to think badly of anyone? Me, a child abandoned in a nightingale cage? The nuns told me that my father was a poor young musician who said his wife had been a singer, a story often told when they were handed a young child born out of wedlock. The man who left me at the convent gave me the name I still bear, although he told them that my name was simply ‘a name as good as any other’."

  "Pure Silver, like your heavenly voice."

  "You have spoken with so much affection of your grandfather. It always makes me a little jealous to when people talk about their families. I wish I had one."

  "Weren't the sisters good to you?"

  "Some were and some weren't. Sister Maria Beate taught me to sing and she loved me, but there was pride in that love, for I was her pupil. The one who loved most was Sister Anna Maria. I think she would have been a mother had this world been a kinder place. She was warm and comfortable and we little ones always fled to her lap if we had been punished.No matter how bad we'd been, she always was ready with a hug and to say that the Blessed Mother would forgive us. I remember, though, the day when I went to her and she was holding a new babe. She gave me a kiss and a kind word, but she told me that I was too big to climb on her lap anymore. I remember how sad I was and how jealous I was of that little one."

  "Ah, poor Klara! That was something my good Matichka – that's 'little mother' in my tongue – denied, that anyone could ever get too big for hugs." Akos gathered her close and when she leaned her head against him, he dropped a kiss on the fair back of her neck, where the auburn tendrils curled.

  "Dear Akos, do tell me your story. Let us have no secrets….” Klara's voice trailed away, for she had resolved to keep so many of her own. She had such terrible fear that if he knew it all – all and everything – that he wouldn’t love her anymore.

  "Well, voice of an angel, since you ask, I shall tell you a story that is like an Italian romance, but which, unfortunately for me, is the truth of my beginning. Some would call my parent's story a scandal and a disgrace, but I believe it was a tragedy. As I’ve said, I am the grandson of an apothecary, but that is only half my pedigree. Grandfather Almassy had an only son, Miklas, who had a musical gift. I am like him, I am told, in that he played both harpsichord and fiddle well. He was taken from grandfather and trained to be a house musician. My mother, and, Klara, this is the heart of the secret, was Judit, a daughter of Prince Vehnsky. She was the youngest child of his second wife, whose name was Edit. My father Miklas used to play for these ladies, sometimes within Princess Edit’s chambers, for she had a disturbed mind and frequently couldn't sleep. Sometimes, Grandfather Almassy has told me, my father would play all night in a room full of women, because Princess Edit had a deep horror of ever being alone. She had several beds kept in her chambers, shared by daughters and ladies in waiting. My father's duty was to play them to sleep."

  "A weary task, to play all night while others sleep."

  "Indeed! And because of this odd arrangement, my father became familiar with these royal ladies. They and Lady Edit treated him kindly, almost like one of the family. To make a long story short, Lady Judit and my father fell in love. With the assistance of Princess Edit, they were married by a sympathetic priest. They intended to go to a farm in Moravia which was a part of her mother’s dowry and live there, for that the Princess believed she could protect them. As they crossed the Danube, they were overtaken by one of my mother's half-brothers, Count Laszlo. Laszlo killed my father and threw him into the river. He intended to kill my mother, too, but another nobleman, horrified that his friend would shed the blood of a sister, even such an errant one, rescued her. He found her safe haven inside the gates of a closed nunnery north of the river in the land of the Slovacs.”

  "Gott in Himmel!"

  Akos nodded. "Prince Vehnsky soon knew all of it. He arranged with the Abbess to keep my mother permanently, for she had disgraced herself and her family. No aristocrat would ever want her in marriage now. I was born there, at the Convent of the Fountains, along the road to Komaron."

  "And the Prince did nothing, I suppose, to punish his son for a murder?"

  "Of a trespassing servant?" Akos lifted an ironic black brow. "Still, there is One who may command even princes. When I was a year old, that same intemperate Lazlo met his end in a duel, one which his own pride had provoked. God himself may be said to have dealt justice."

  "Did you live long in the abbey?"

  "When I was five, my Grandfather Vehnsky ordered that I be sent back to his estate. Perhaps it was at the request of Princess Edit, whose mind now afflicted her
so painfully that she had been confined to a few rooms in the palace. I remember being taken to see her, a woman with long white hair which she incessantly combed. She hugged me and wept. I would cry, too, for her strange way of talking frightened me."

  "Poor lady! But why did she encourage your father and mother to run away? Surely she knew what must happen."

  "She, I think, had been forced to marry Vehnsky. She was young. He was much older. Perhaps she wanted my mother's life to be different, even against all the odds. You know," Akos ended, "a plan is only called 'foolish' when it fails."

  "But why did Prince Vehnsky want you? A reminder of his wayward daughter?"

  "He said that I was to be the recompense to his loyal Apothecary, my grandfather Almassy, for the loss of his Miklas. My grandparents and I lived in a cottage between the forest and the great garden that they tended, at a distance from the great folk in the palace. My mother took the veil and died as a Bride of Christ. She said she would never have relinquished me to the Prince her father, had her her half-brother Laszlo not already gone to his reward."

  "’Tis truly said that to have a life others call 'interesting' is little more than a curse. My life, too, has been interesting."

  "We both seem to have been born in tales from tragic opera," Akos sighed.

  "In Opera Seria, your father would have been a prince in disguise and it all would have ended happily."

  "Yes. He did not have that good fortune."

  They embraced each other. Just for an instant, Klara felt a tremor in his arms. The melancholy story fingered chords of their own forbidden love.

  "Did you ever see your mother again?"

  "Yes, but only a few times and in deepest secrecy, not only from my two grandfathers but from the Abbess as well. The last time, we met in a room where I could play for her, but that was a mistake."

  "Oh, but why?"

  "She wept, my angel, as if she would never stop. I fear that hearing me play only disturbed the peace, the resignation, for which she prayed."

  Klara felt tears rising. In silence they held each other, as if nothing on earth could pull them apart.

  "Are your eyes like hers?" Klara murmured at last, gazing into his magical, mutable hazel.

  "Yes. How did you know?"

  They shared a sipping kiss. "Because," Klara breathed against his mouth, "they are too beautiful, too full of understanding, to belong to any man."

  "Mother says that except for my eyes, I am very like my father. On the other hand, Grandfather Almassy, who has a strict regard for truth, says that I look like myself and not much like either parent, for which he frequently says I should thank my lucky stars."

  Klara considered that and then she asked, "And why are you called Akos?"

  "It is a name from Princess Edit’s family. I was christened ‘Miklas Akos’ and that is how my mother addressed me, but for obvious reasons the first name was never used after I was brought back to Komarom."

  "And what does Akos mean, dear one? I’ve never heard of the name before.”

  “It is old Hungarian, and it means ‘Hawk’.”

  Klara thought it was like something out of a fairy tale. “And what of that great Prince, your grandfather? Your bearing always honors him, and yet how strange it must be, knowing who he is."

  "I do honor him. I have everything to thank him for, even my life, but I do wonder what those mighty Vehnskys think now that the child of their runaway daughter is a man. By blood, a high Prince of Hungary is my grandfather, and yet my station is such that I must bow to cousins as a servant. Still, considering the transgression of my humble father against his noble house, the old Prince has been to me the very opposite of that violent son of his. He did not force my mother to give me up as soon as I was born. She said that to have me by her side for those first sad years was a great comfort to her."

  "But do not others of the family despise you?"

  "One of them makes his scorn plain, but the Prince simply sends me away on other tasks while he visits. Fortunately, that gentleman's lands border the Turk, and he has things greater than me and the long-ago folly of a half-sister on his mind. The others, including the Prince's heir, Count Bela, simply treat me as they would any other servant, not marking me out in any way, but complaining or complimenting as the mood takes them. As a matter of fact the Vehnskys have many illegitimate sons among them. The boys have all been educated like gentlemen and sent into the army or other suitable professions. I believe that this explains their tolerance toward me, although the sin of a woman of high blood is always more severely punished. Grandmother Edit is now dead, as are the two other gentle ladies who were my mother's full sisters. That whole branch of the family was doomed to wither, touched by one queer fate after another. In fact, I am the only shoot of Prince Vehnsky's union with the Lady Edit still living. Of course, my identity is an open secret."

  Klara shook her head. "And did the Prince have you taught swordsmanship too?"

  "There were always boys about the palace learning swordsmanship and horsemanship. There was one group of three boys close to my age, all illegitimate children. As four are required for fencing, I was included. Grandfather Almassy hated my learning that, and resisted it, too, for some time. He wanted me to keep to his trade and to, as he says, 'stay simple and keep thy place and thy life’. My father had been the apple of his eye. In fact, a few years ago he told me that if Prince Laszlo had not so quickly made his own end, he had formed a plan to avenge himself."

  "Oh, heaven! What did he intend? For killing a nobleman, the death is terrible."

  "An apothecary has ways the world does not always recognize," said Akos softly. "Thank God, though, that he did not have to resort to that. You know, at first dear Grandpa Almassy even feared my training in music, but he couldn't deny the gift I had. Finally, he wept and gave in. It was the greatest moment in my life when, just last year, he told me that to listen to me play gave him back his beloved son.”

  "And you are a very fine musician, dear Almassy! The best accompanist I've ever had, bar none."

  "Thank you, Klara. It was my mother who gave me my first lessons at a little spinet. I can remember her holding me on her lap. I remember wanting so much to please her."

  "And so you must have."

  "Well, I have pleased others, Klara, but not yet myself. Perhaps it is as Grandfather Almassy says, Jack of all trades, master of none, but the truth is that I don't believe I was meant to be a great one. Compared to someone like young Mozart, I am a mere mechanism."

  "No, Akos," Klara said. "Don't ever say that! Little Mozart plays divinely, 'tis true, but you must not deny that your talent brings your listeners great joy."

  He'd been watching her, her earnest expression, with growing delight. In the next instant he'd bent to catch her mouth with his. When the tender kiss ended, he said, "I am at least wise enough to know that I've found the woman to whom I wish to play a blissful accompaniment for the rest of my life."

  "Very pretty, Herr Concertmaster Almassy, but don't you men truly have to hold center stage?"

  "Not at all, you rascal!" Akos' face brightened at her lighter mood. "But I share with young Mozart a pleasure in getting inside the main melody."

  "Am I the melody of which you speak?" This was wicked, but Klara couldn't resist the jest.

  They shared another sweet, sipping kiss.

  "Tell me your birthday."

  "Why?" he teased, running his lips across her full throat.

  "Because it seems we were fated to love each other."

  "And if you find I am born under a sign for which you have no taste?"

  "I could never believe that."

  "Ah, believe! Believe! That is what Pisces must by nature do."

  "How do you know I am born under Pisces?" Klara ran a long finger along the curve of his mouth. "Don't tell me now that you are an astrologer as well as apothecary and musician?"

  "Let us simply say that I am good at mathematics, and the man whom the Prince employed to teac
h us children was an enthusiast."

  "Ah! Then 'tis as I suspected. You are the magician!"

  "Shh," he murmured, "don't tell."

  "But your birthday," Klara whispered. "I want to know."

  "Guess.” At the same time, his hand was busy, on a teasing exploration of the soft whorls of her ear. "Show me your famous Piscean intuition."

  She looked up at him, the vitality of his cat's eyes, his shining black mane. She ran her hands along his strong arms and up to his square shoulders. He was sensual, physical, impetuous, and clever….

  "Sagittarius!" Dark fire, she thought, with all the dangerous power of the sign.

  "An excellent guess, but the Archer is not the best match for you."

  "Perhaps it is the moon which makes us compatible," she said, laughing softly.

  "My mother was not precise in her reckoning, for her labor was long and afterwards she was desperately ill. In fact, the sisters did not think she would survive, for I had the bad judgment to arrive breach. October, late, is what I know."

  "Oh," Klara whispered, suddenly solemn. She had been told that her own mother had died in childbirth. She could not even begin to imagine the anguish that a family must feel under those dismal circumstances.

  "We have both survived against great odds and have found each other."

  "Destined. That is how I felt the first moment I saw you."

  There might have been more, much more, but footsteps and voices in the hallway heralded the end of their time alone. Moving away from the other, they presented a mannerly, if slightly rumpled, picture to Olympia and Florian, who came after a loud knock, into the room.

  Chapter 10

  On the night of the Melgrube ball, Klara donned a dress of blue and green brocade which fell just below her knees. In the back, with Liese’s help, she attached a large bustle, ornamented with long blue tail feathers and dangling ribbons of blue and green. There was a high-necked blue jacket with feathers sewn down all over it which buttoned up tightly on top, and the bird look of the costume was completed by bright yellow stockings and matching heels.