Ecstasy

by Mary Sharratt

  In the morning, Alma sent off her compositions to Zemlinsky. Walking back from the post office, she reflected how the young man had cut through her staleness like a mountain wind. Was it her admiration of his music coupled with his interest in her scores that explained the rapport that had blossomed between them? She had spent hours with him, ignoring everyone else in those rooms full of artists and architects, raconteurs and wits. And Zemlinsky had seemed quite pleased to spend his time with her.

  So what was stirring inside her? Was it simply the dream of finding a teacher who truly believed in her, or was it something even deeper? Just the thought of him made her skin tingle. A warmth kindled inside her, a joy that threatened to spill over into laughter as she marched down the crowded street.

  8

  Alma spent the following days racking her brain to think how she would tell Mama she would be taking lessons from Alexander von Zemlinsky. Would Mama put her foot down? Alma didn’t even have her own money to pay for the lessons, never mind the fact that she would turn twenty-one this August—the age when other young women of her class would be coming into their portion. Why hadn’t Papa thought of this in his will? Alma had to stoop to begging the money off Carl, claiming she needed a new pair of gloves.

  But on the Monday of their scheduled lesson, to Alma’s great good fortune, Mama took Gretl shopping in preparation for her wedding. Though the nuptials were not until September, six months away, the arrangements for this hallowed event swallowed every spare hour of Gretl’s and Mama’s time. Alma cheerily waved them off. Zemlinsky arrived punctually at eleven.

  With a flourish, Alma took his hat and coat and ushered him into the parlor, where her scores were neatly arranged on the piano. After summoning Cilli to bring their guest coffee and a plate of Vanillekipferl, crescent-shaped cookies sprinkled in vanilla sugar, Alma seated herself at the piano.

  “Tell me, Herr Zemlinsky, did you have any time at all to look at my scores?” She strove to sound dispassionate and professional.

  He nodded. “I’m extremely impressed with your lieder. You have a gift.”

  A warm rush flooded her cheeks. She struggled not to weep all over him in gratitude. Throwing back her shoulders, she proceeded to play and sing her song, “Ich wandle unter Blumen” that the English lady in Venice had so warmly lauded. When she finished, she froze, her old dread seizing her as she awaited his appraisal.

  “Fräulein Schindler,” he said. “You have talent, to be sure, but little ability. You’re full of ideas, but you need to apply yourself.” Any air of budding infatuation she had seen in him at the Conrats’ party was gone, replaced by an air of brusque competence.

  “That’s what I’m doing now,” she said, championing herself in a way she would have never dared with Labor.

  Doggedly, she began to play her song “Laue Sommernacht.”

  One turn of phrase gave him pause. “That’s so good, I wish I’d written it myself.”

  Alma quivered to hear such praise from a true composer. But before she could even exhale, he returned to his criticisms.

  “You’re the worst interpreter of your own music, Fräulein. Your playing is too nervous, too fidgety. You lack technique.”

  She gazed straight into his eyes. “Show me what I must do.”

  A flush spread through her when he got up from his chair and sat beside her on the piano bench, something Labor would have never done. Alma shifted her seat to accommodate him.

  “Watch and listen,” he said, before proceeding to play her song more masterfully than she had ever heard it.

  His virtuosity made her piece sound good enough to be performed at the Tonkünstlerverein.

  “You need lessons in harmony,” he went on, as he paged through her scores. “And notation. One thing, though. If you want to be my student, you mustn’t contemplate publishing any of your songs for quite some time.”

  She took a deep breath, almost wanting to pinch herself to prove that this was really happening. Zemlinsky wasn’t indulging her or belittling her or even flirting with her. He was taking her seriously, as though she were one of his male students. This, her first lesson with him, was like a thermal bath—invigorating and soothing at the same time. His kindness and encouragement buoyed her up while his incisive critique kept her on her toes.

  “To start, I want you to concentrate purely on technique,” he said. “Using Beethoven piano sonatas as an example”—he pulled the sheet music out of his briefcase—“I want you to write short movements based on the expositions.”

  “Herr Zemlinsky,” she said solemnly. “I will do this with joy.”

  They both turned at the sound of Mama and Gretl clattering up the stairs. Alma heard Cilli mutter that a young man had come to give a piano lesson. Straightaway, Mama bustled into the parlor. Alma had left the door wide open as proof of the utter respectability of this enterprise. Zemlinsky was already on his feet, inclining his head in deference to her mother. He appeared every inch the well-mannered gentleman.

  “Mama,” Alma said, rising from the piano bench. She smiled as innocently as she could in this, her moment of truth. “Let me introduce you to my new composition teacher, Alexander von Zemlinsky.” Never mind that Mama had already been introduced to him at the Conrats’ party.

  “Good day to you, Frau Moll,” Zemlinsky said, shaking her hand.

  Mama appeared far too flummoxed to be anything but gracious. She could hardly risk being unfriendly to a rising star like Zemlinsky. If she snubbed him, all Viennese society would declare that Carl Moll’s wife was a philistine. Mama even managed to ask him if he would stay to drink more coffee, but he declined, having to leave for a rehearsal at the Carlstheater.

  After he departed, Mama didn’t berate Alma for inviting a young man into their home without her permission. Instead, she looked at her daughter imploringly. “Will you go talk to your sister? She’s completely out of sorts.”

  Alma found her sister slumped on the edge of her bed. Her face was deathly pale. Scattered at her feet lay the many parcels she and Mama had brought back from their shopping trip.

  Feeling bumbling and awkward, Alma sat beside her. If only she had a clue what to say. Normally, Gretl was impenetrable, rarely revealing her emotions, but now she began to weep uncontrollably, as Alma had not seen her do since she was a little girl. What, Alma wondered, did her sister have to be upset about? Her life was progressing exactly as a young woman’s should.

  “What is it?” Alma tried to take Gretl’s hand, but she couldn’t—her sister’s fingers bunched into a hard fist.

  It took some minutes before Gretl could speak coherently. “Wilhelm wants us to live in Germany. He’s just heard he has a place at the Stuttgart academy.”

  Alma was frankly baffled why Gretl should find this so disturbing. Many a young Austrian left to seek his fortune in Germany. “Is that so bad? He’ll surely make more money there, and Stuttgart’s not too far away.”

  Alma took her handkerchief and attempted to dry Gretl’s tears.

  “He wants me to convert.” Gretl stared off into space with fixed, glittering eyes. “Become a Lutheran.”

  “Mama’s Lutheran,” Alma pointed out. “Will you even miss not being Catholic? It’s not like we’re convent-raised girls who say the Hail Mary every time we sneeze,” she added, trying to coax a laugh out of Gretl.

  They hardly set foot in church anyway, so what difference did it make? As far as Alma had observed, Wilhelm wasn’t very religious either. He was probably asking Gretl to convert just to placate his parents and pastor.

  “I can’t go through this alone.” Gretl began to sob helplessly once more. Turning away, she groped beneath her pillow and pulled out a book, which she handed to Alma—a manual on the Lutheran faith. “Will you convert with me?” Gretl asked, sounding so miserable that Alma felt her heart tear even as she struggled not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

  I’ve forsworn religion, but Gretl is asking me to become a Lutheran—without reason or conviction—
because of her fiancé, a man I don’t particularly like. And yet, if Alma agreed to this bizarre proposal, Mama would be indebted to her and perhaps not make such a fuss about her future lessons with Zemlinsky.

  “All right,” she told Gretl. “If it makes you happy.”

  Her sister flung her arms around her, her tears soaking into Alma’s shirtwaist. She clung to her with a desperation that terrified Alma. My poor sister is falling to pieces.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Alma said, stroking Gretl’s hair.

  Her sister pulled away and wept even harder. “But he made it a condition of our marriage!”

  Alma held Gretl by the shoulders and swallowed before saying the unsayable. “I mean the wedding. It’s not too late to call it off if it makes you so unhappy. You’re only nineteen, and there are other men apart from Wilhelm Legler, you know.”

  Gretl stared in horror, as though Alma had run her through with a butcher’s knife. “What? Not get married?”

  Crying fresh tears, Gretl reached for one of the parcels at her feet and opened it, revealing a lacy bridal veil that she spread out reverently across both their laps.

  Alma threw herself into her music. Never had she worked harder or progressed so quickly. If she couldn’t study at the conservatory, this was the next best thing. If she persevered with Zemlinsky, she had no doubt that he would transform her from a dilettante into a professional. In the light of his attention, she flourished. Her three-part counterpoint was getting better, and he was pleased with her variations on the Beethoven piano sonatas.

  They also saw each other outside of their lessons, as they attended many of the same soirees and concerts. After Alma and Erica Conrat went to see Zemlinsky’s opera, Es war einmal, he sent Alma a postcard of Selma Kurz singing the role of his princess. He signed it, To Fräulein Alma Maria Schindler, with all my affection. Alma’s heart brimmed to read those words, and she decided to surprise him with a gift in return.

  On a May morning, Alma sat at her escritoire with her most recent photograph. It depicted her as a self-possessed young woman in a lacy, high-collared dress, her hair pinned up elegantly. Her face was in profile, gazing not at the camera but into her dreams of the future. Alma dipped her pen nib into the pot of violet-scented ink and began to write across the bottom of the picture.

  To Herr Alexander von Zemlinsky in heartfelt friendship.

  What a debt I owe Zemlinsky. His mentorship lent her the courage she had previously lacked—the sheer willpower to shut out the world and give herself over to composing. Because he believed in her, she would indeed prevail. His faith sent her soaring. How she longed to impress him, to win his admiration on all levels. Working against the clock, she succeeded in writing two new songs for their upcoming lesson. One was set to a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, the other to a poem by Richard Dehmel. She had surpassed all her previous efforts, for these weren’t ordinary lieder but part song, part recitation, part chorale. She had allowed herself the freedom to be truly inventive, to come up with her own unique form.

  Sitting at the piano, she played “Lobgesang,” based on the Dehmel text.

  “Love is like the sea,” she sang. “Wave on wave, up and down, wave after wave, surging as one.”

  The night before her lesson, she was too excited to sleep, her heart drumming away in happy anticipation. Awakening early, she practiced her new compositions, ignoring Gretl’s moans of protest and Mama’s annoyance that she might disturb the baby. Dashing out to the garden, Alma picked a voluptuous bouquet of peonies to adorn the table beside the chair where Zemlinsky would sit. She nagged Cilli to bake fresh Vanillekipferl.

  When Zemlinsky failed to arrive punctually, Alma didn’t fret at first. After all, he was coming from the other end of Vienna, from the Obere Weissgerberstrasse near the Danube Canal. While the smell of baking Vanillekipferl filled the house, she told herself to be patient. She waited and waited, her fingers going clammy as she played her warm-up exercises. Mama and Gretl took little Maria out to the garden. Their laughter wafting through the open windows peeved Alma to no end. The morning post arrived with no message from Zemlinsky, and then the clock struck noon, the hour their lesson was to have ended.

  He didn’t come. He sent no word. Alma buried her smarting face in the peony blossoms. She didn’t know whether to weep in disappointment or fume at his fecklessness. Her stream of thoughts was interrupted by Gretl coming in and nibbling one the Vanillekipferl intended for Zemlinsky.

  “All that moping just for a canceled lesson!” her sister chided, sidling up to Alma on the piano bench. “Have you forgotten that Aunt Mie’s collecting us to go cycling this afternoon?”

  Alma numbly retreated to their room to button on her high boots and change into her cycling costume, with its crisp white shirt, black tie, and the skirt far shorter than would be seemly for any other activity. She pinned on her straw boater.

  Alma and Gretl piled into Aunt Mie’s carriage while the driver strapped their bicycles to the running boards. Grimly determined to put Zemlinsky out of her mind, Alma whistled Viennese carnival waltzes. Never let the world see you sad.

  Though no blood relation, Aunt Mie was a dear family friend and far closer to Alma and Gretl than their real maternal aunts, who lived in faraway Hamburg. She expounded on the beauties of spring as they cycled down the broad avenue running through the heart of the Prater, the sprawling oasis of parkland tucked between the Danube Canal and the Danube River. Their way was shaded by chestnut trees with flowering candles of pink and white. They glided past the Wurstelprater, the amusement park with its Ferris wheel erected only three years ago in celebration of Emperor Franz Joseph’s golden jubilee. Alma lifted her eyes to watch the passengers conveyed up to the very top where they might enjoy a sweeping panorama of Vienna, the Danube, and the hills and forests beyond. But just as they reached those giddy heights, the wheel’s motion brought them back down to the noisy chaos of the fairground where simple folk crammed their way into the freak show tents to see bearded ladies and the Living Torso—a man with no arms or legs.

  And so it is with me. Alma reflected upon the dizzy peaks and troughs of her emotions. For all my ecstasies and agonies, I’m only going around in the same circle over and over again. If only I could find a sense of inner sovereignty.

  She practiced smiling beatifically while they cycled past a replica Ashanti village and the market stalls selling gingerbread hearts. Serenity, she told herself while laughing at Aunt Mie’s jokes. She tried to find solace in the soothing rhythm of her feet pumping the pedals. She resolved to be a New Woman, completely independent and self-contained.

  But she jerked out of her reverie when she heard Aunt Mie’s raised voice. “Gretl, what are you doing?”

  Alma came to an abrupt halt to see her sister, in her pristine lavender cycling costume, sailing straight into a ditch. Leaving her bicycle on the path, Alma ran to help Aunt Mie tug Gretl out of the mud. In the process, the two of them became nearly as filthy as Gretl, who was now covered from crown to toe in muck, her hat a battered mess. But they were thankful that Gretl had not suffered as much as a bruise from the whole misadventure.

  “How could you be so careless?” Aunt Mie asked, trying to wipe Gretl’s face clean with her decorously embroidered linen handkerchief.

  Gretl only laughed hysterically until Alma nearly wanted to slap her for making such a mockery of their concern. What troubled Alma most was that Gretl hadn’t appeared to lose control of her bicycle. It was almost as though her sister had done this deliberately just to get a rise out of Aunt Mie. But surely that couldn’t be—those were the antics of a naughty child, not her cool, collected sister.

  “Stop making a fuss,” Gretl said, sounding once more like her sober self. “I’m fine.”

  When they returned from their cycling jaunt, Alma found Zemlinsky’s letter on the hallway table. It had arrived with the late post. Her heart pitched in sadness as she read his message.

  My dear Fräulein Schindler,


  Please accept my heartfelt apologies for not showing up for your lesson today. My father is seriously ill.

  With all good wishes, Alexander von Zemlinsky

  9

  Ten days later, Alma laid her bouquet of roses and delphiniums on her father’s grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

  Emil Jakob Schindler

  1842–1892

  Mama and Gretl stood with their eyes closed, their hands clasped in prayer. What was the point of praying, Alma wondered. Did Mama and Gretl truly believe their prayers would make any difference to a departed man?

  Alma had loved Papa as much as anyone. His death, just before she turned thirteen years old, had been the most shattering experience of her life. Her family had been visiting Mama’s relatives in northern Germany and touring the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Papa had set up his easel on the beach and shared with Alma his delight in the quality of the long summer sunlight that far north, so different than in Austria. Never before had Alma realized that each place and season had its own unique light. It was as though Papa had given her a pair of magical spectacles that allowed her to see the world with brand-new vision. A week later, her father, a hale and hearty man in his prime, was dead of appendicitis. The loss of him had left a permanent scar that would never heal. That was why it seemed such a mockery to make obeisance to a carved stone slab. Alma felt far closer to Papa’s spirit, his essence, when contemplating the light in his paintings.

  Though the anniversary of Papa’s death was not until August, they would be away then, and thus Mama had herded them out here to pay their respects to his grave before the family left for their summer vacation. Mama attempted to light the votive candle in its red glass jar, but she kept burning her fingers and dropping the match until Alma lit the candle for her. At last the ghastly rite was complete.