Ecstasy

by Mary Sharratt

  Alma and her family accompanied the bridal couple to the station, where the newlyweds would catch the train to Salzburg, their honeymoon destination. While Mama, Carl, and Wilhelm’s parents were busy congratulating the bridegroom, Gretl took Alma aside to say her good-byes. Clad in her going-away dress of palest blue silk adorned with ribbons and lace, Gretl looked so beautiful and yet so wistful. Alma’s heart tore at the way her sister stared at her and kept touching her cheeks and chin.

  “I’m trying to memorize your features so I remember what you look like,” Gretl said. “Your eyes. Your mouth.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re only going to Stuttgart, not the North Pole.” Alma embraced her. “We’ll write to each other every week. Now enjoy your honeymoon. I hope you and Wilhelm are very happy.” But her voice rang hollow at the sight of her sister’s strained face, her rapidly blinking eyes.

  “I can’t believe I went through with it.” Gretl twisted her wedding band round and round her finger, then picked up the slim valise she insisted on carrying herself, not entrusting it to Wilhelm or the porters. “Do you want to know something, Alma? Last winter I was so miserable I bought a pistol.”

  Gretl spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, not lowering her voice, while Alma found herself looking around nervously, wondering if anyone had overheard. Wilhelm, Mama, and Carl continued laughing and chatting pleasantly.

  “One morning I sat for hours on the Albrechtsrampe,” Gretl said, referring to the rampartlike structure, a remnant of Vienna’s old defensive wall that had been torn down to make the Ringstrasse. “I had the pistol in my purse, and my mind was filled with the most horrible doubts.”

  A shiver ran through Alma when she thought of her sister all by herself with a loaded weapon in the busy heart of Vienna, surrounded by uncaring strangers. The Albrechtsrampe lay directly in front of the Albertina, the imperial apartments. What a place to contemplate self-murder! She shuddered when she remembered the many stories of similar suicides cluttering the pages of the Neues Wiener Tagblatt. And where was she when Gretl had been in the grip of such desperation? Moping over her piano, struggling to learn counterpoint?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Alma asked. Then she remembered when Gretl bicycled into the ditch that spring, willing herself to take the fall. The signs had been there, right in front of her.

  “Oh, Alma, don’t make such a fuss,” Gretl said carelessly. “I’m a coward, aren’t I? Too scared to pull the trigger. Too scared to call off the wedding.”

  Her sister no longer looked distressed, but seemed gripped by an eerie calm that froze Alma to her core. Before she could think of what to say, the train rumbled in, sputtering smoke and steam that left Alma’s eyes burning.

  Gretl took Alma’s face in her hands. “I have that pistol in my valise,” she said, smiling as if to reassure Alma that she would be fine, that the pistol was the talisman that emboldened her to sally forth into the as yet unchartered territory of her marriage. “And you know what? It’s loaded.”

  Alma’s stomach heaved. She thought she might retch. Gretl released her, picked up her valise, linked arms with her new husband, and boarded the train. To see her gaily waving at them through the window, anyone would think Gretl was a truly joyful young bride.

  Alma clenched her hands. What should she do with these awful revelations? Tell Mama about the pistol? Send a telegram to warn Wilhelm? But it wasn’t against the law for a woman to carry a loaded pistol if she claimed it was for self-defense. Yet if Alma did nothing, she would never forgive herself if Gretl shot herself or her husband. On the other hand, Gretl had assured her that she was too scared to pull the trigger. What could Alma do that wouldn’t be a fundamental betrayal of her sister?

  Only one thing remained certain—Gretl was deeply disturbed, and Alma hadn’t had even the vaguest premonition. No, even after witnessing Gretl cursing out Wilhelm, Alma had been as oblivious of her sister’s affliction as she’d been about her mother’s pregnancy the previous year. Gretl herself said it best: Alma with her head in the clouds, always the last to know! How could it be that she was so ignorant of what was going on in her own family? Did this prove that she was completely narcissistic and self-absorbed? And if her sister was so troubled, did that mean that it ran in the family, that they were all somehow tainted?

  Alma found she was crying openly, not caring if she made a spectacle of herself. Then Mama was there, holding her close and weeping herself, as if regretting her brusque treatment of Gretl.

  “I’m worried about Gretl,” Alma said brokenly. “She . . . she seems . . . she told me she had a loaded pist—”

  Mama cut her off before she could finish saying the word. “Your sister has a nerve disorder. Wilhelm knows. He’s promised to look after her. We should all be very grateful that she has such an understanding husband.”

  Wilhelm knew about her sister’s debility before she did? Only now did she understand why Mama had been so keen to prevent Gretl from backing out of the marriage—Mama wanted Gretl safely married off while she was still young and pretty, before her malady became too obvious. But where did Wilhelm stand in all this? What did he stand to gain besides an unstable young wife? Carl, Alma reflected, must have pulled quite a few strings to get such a young man a position at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts. To think her own family could be so slippery, so underhanded. And yet perhaps they truly meant the best for her sister. Maybe Mama and Carl sincerely believed that Wilhelm’s love could heal Gretl.

  11

  Upon the family’s return to Vienna, Gretl’s absence seemed to haunt their house. Hairline cracks appeared in the ceilings and walls. The shadows in the corners appeared darker and more ominous. Without her sister, the bedroom they had once shared seemed like a vast, lonely chasm. Sometimes Alma awakened at night, her heart hammering, certain she had heard Gretl weeping in the next bed, though, of course, no one was there.

  If Gretl was mad, Alma wondered if she would be next. What if the family curse of insanity explained her unholy lusts, her wicked dreams, her aversion to babies, and her unfeminine strivings to be a somebody, a composer? Had Papa been mad, too, she wondered. Did that explain why he lived inside his art, hid himself away from the world, and never seemed to manage their finances? Or was Mama mad, and did that explain her rumored affair with Julius Berger, Gretl’s likely father?

  Alma took refuge in her music, playing and composing with a new recklessness, a looseness she had never before allowed herself. If she indeed had this sword hanging over her, she might as well live the most passionate life possible, holding nothing back. After all, what did she have to lose? Let her show the world what she could do. A beautiful song, a masterpiece for chorus and orchestra.

  Resuming her lessons with Zemlinsky, Alma felt her music flower. Not only that—their friendship unfolded like an exquisitely painted Chinese fan. Zemlinsky suggested they attend matinee concerts together, for this, too, was part of Alma’s musical education.

  Mama might not have approved of these tête-à-tête rendezvous, but she and little Maria were away in Stuttgart visiting Gretl, who was unwell. Although Alma, too, was anxious about her sister, Mama had not invited her along, indicating that she and Gretl would be discussing the intimacies and intricacies of married life to which only wives were privy.

  To ease their loneliness in Mama’s absence, Carl invited guests to dinner night after night—not only old friends such as Max Burckhard but also Carl’s latest hanger-on, the devoted Felix Muhr. Muhr, Alma learned, had recently come into a great deal of money, and she suspected Carl lived in hope that the young architect would commission some paintings.

  With her mother away, Alma acted as hostess to Carl’s friends, a thing she resented in the beginning. But when Carl brought up the best bottles from the cellar, she found herself warming to the task, intoxicated by both the wine and the spirited discussions of art and modernity. After dinner, she performed her compositions to much toasting and praise. She couldn’t quell her effervescence, her bubbly l
aughter, her desire to be the center of attention. You will never be this young or adored again.

  She had to admit that Muhr became fascinating as she got to know him better. He told her of his travels through Persia and Mesopotamia while she listened in awe, transported to dusty mountain villages and lost ancient cities. Without Mama hovering over her shoulder and whispering about marriage, Alma let her heart be at rest. Why couldn’t she simply be friends with a man without agenda or design?

  Seemingly grateful to Alma for playing the gracious lady of the house, Carl became her ally for once and uttered nary a murmur of disapproval about her afternoon concerts with Zemlinsky. And thus Alma resolved to make the most of this interlude of freedom and independence however fleeting it might prove to be.

  Feeling utterly sophisticated, Alma slid into her seat beside Zemlinsky in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein for the Vienna Philharmonic’s Sunday noon concert—the Vienna premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no. 1 in D Major, conducted by the composer himself.

  As the first notes pierced the expectant silence, Alma remembered Wagner’s admonition that one shouldn’t listen to music with just one’s ears but with one’s entire being. The symphony sent a tremor through the very floorboards, thrumming into the soles of her shoes. Her body vibrated like a tuning fork—every nerve, every muscle. The music made her sweat and shake, for she’d never heard its like, the one-hundred-strong orchestra playing in a bewildering jumble of styles that encompassed everything from cuckoo calls, simple folk tunes, the children’s song “Frère Jacques,” and an outlandishly distorted funeral march, all climaxing in the fourth movement full of crashing, violent chords that finally gave way to a note of triumphalism that seemed to undermine everything that preceded it. The symphony both exhilarated her and annoyed her. It confounded her, for she had no clue what to make of it. Mahler’s music seemed to be galloping into the new century at such a pace that she feared she might be left behind.

  Glancing sideways at Zemlinsky, Alma saw that his mouth was wide open, as though he was just as perplexed as she.

  In the intermission, they didn’t go out to foyer with the rest of the audience but remained seated side by side. It seemed they were both in a state of shock.

  “What did you make of it?” Alma asked him.

  “To be honest, I can’t say.” Zemlinsky rubbed his face. “There’s no question that Mahler’s a genius, but it’s so overpowering. The way he juxtaposes the pastoral with the tragicomic, the ironic and the grotesque, the way he builds up a theme only to tear it to shreds—is it deeply cynical or ultimately transcendent? All I know is that his music makes mine seem juvenile.”

  Zemlinsky sat with his head bowed in an air of utter dejection, as though he were a medieval knight who had been beaten in the joust by an older, more experienced opponent.

  Alma paused, digesting his words. “I think you’re the better composer,” she said fervently.

  For a moment, he seemed too stunned to speak. Then he shook his head and regarded her with wounded disbelief, as if she were mocking him.

  “Don’t flatter me, Fräulein,” he said gruffly.

  “Herr Zemlinsky, it’s my honest opinion. I love your music more than Gustav Mahler’s. And you’re still young. What might you be capable of when you’re his age?”

  “Alma Schindler,” he said, his face bright red. “I’ve never met a girl who speaks her mind the way you do.”

  But his eyes softened, and she found herself staring at him until she had to look away. Her skin began to throb with an almost physical pain. With a shocked sense of clarity, she recognized that her excitement sprang from the sheer sensual anxiety of sitting beside Zemlinsky. Her skin crackled with the longing to touch him, for him to touch her. She imagined tugging off her glove and taking his hand, imagined his leg brushing up against hers. Where would that lead, she wondered, breaking into a sweat and fanning herself with the program. If only they could drop all pretense and surrender to the desire they both knew was there but were too well brought up to do anything about. She would simply have to learn to channel her stifled taboo desires into her music.

  12

  The winter of 1900 and 1901 proved the most prolific time Alma had ever known. She composed a piano trio and a violin sonata as well as sonatas, adagios, and rondos for solo piano. And lieder! A new song, “Ekstase,” drawn from Bierbaum’s poem of pure spiritual ecstasy, shimmered with her every yearning.

    You are the sun, my god, and I am with you.

  I see myself ascending into paradise.

    Your light surges within me like a chorale.

  Zemlinsky was delighted when Alma played and sang “Ekstase” for him.

  “Such a pity you weren’t born a boy,” he said. “As a girl, you’ll experience countless setbacks.”

  “I want to make my mark,” she told him fiercely.

  Oh, to sense the heights. To be a mountain. To be great and expansive, bursting with potentiality. To let myself go, just once.

  At the end of February, Mama returned from Stuttgart looking pale and haggard. When Alma asked her about Gretl, her mother offered only the most oblique replies.

  “Your sister just needs time to settle into her new life,” Mama said, fussing over little Maria’s hair ribbons. “Meanwhile, she’s taking the waters. There’s a lovely sanatorium, Bad Cannstatt, on the outskirts of Stuttgart. The second biggest thermal spa in Europe after the baths in Budapest—just imagine!”

  Why all this subterfuge? How it rankled Alma that both Mama and Gretl appeared to deem her unfit to know what was really going on. Just because I’m not married, they think me an idiot. Gretl’s letters revealed absolutely nothing but were filled with banal ramblings about Wilhelm’s work at the academy.

  Alma’s anxiety hung like a smoky cloud inside her brain, keeping her awake at night. In the midnight stillness, she heard Mama and Carl talking.

  “She hasn’t yet been given sexual fulfillment,” Alma heard her mother say. “Wilhelm only goes so far and no further. He told Gretl it was because he didn’t want children.”

  Alma threw her quilt over her face in despair. So Gretl had gone through with the marriage despite her misgivings, and all for what—to be left a virgin and shunted off to a sanatorium when her unhappiness became too much of an inconvenience to her husband? If I get my hands on Gretl’s pistol, I’ll shoot Wilhelm myself. Her sister’s debacle proved the ultimate disillusionment—even marriage wasn’t a guarantee of being initiated into the mysteries of sex.

  Alma thought that Mama’s return might signal the end of Muhr’s being their constant dinner guest. But he still appeared at their table at least twice a week. Mama seemed especially charmed by him and thought nothing of leaving him and Alma alone in the parlor while she put Maria to bed and Carl went out to smoke his cigar.

  One night in March, Alma played her latest composition for Muhr—a song set to Rilke’s poem “Bei dir ist es traut.” She knew that Muhr loved Rilke’s poetry. While he sat in the chair she had come to think of as Zemlinsky’s, she played and sang.

  All is peaceful wherever you are.

  Tender clocks beat as in days of old,

  Telling me sweet things, but not too loudly.

  Somewhere a gate opens, outside into a blooming garden.

  Evening listens at the windowpanes.

  Let us stay silent—no one knows we are here.

  As the last note reverberated, Alma sat with her eyes closed, her head bent over the keys. She wondered what Zemlinsky would make of this song. Oh, please let him be pleased by it. Muhr remained uncharacteristically silent—perhaps because it wasn’t good at all. A sense of defeat washed through her.

  “Alma,” Muhr said, in a strangled voice.

  She twisted on her piano bench to see him kneeling. The glimmer from the gaslights shone on his monocle and brilliantined hair.

  “Herr Muhr, are you all right?” she asked in alarm, wondering what he was doing on the floor. Had he suffered from
an attack? A stroke? He gaped at her with a half-open mouth, as though struck dumb. But she was even more aghast when he began to speak.

  “Alma Maria, we’ve become fast friends, have we not? We talk of everything together, from Rilke to Persian miniatures. Will you marry me, my darling?”

  Thunderstruck, she could only stare at him. Then, piece by piece, it all fell together. The dinner invitations, Mama and Carl conspiring to leave her and Muhr alone together. Carl and her mother wanted her married off, and Felix Muhr was their handpicked choice. At thirty, he was just the right age. He was rich and revered Carl as a genius. He owned a villa in Baden on the outskirts of Vienna, he was reasonably handsome, and he wasn’t Jewish. The perfect candidate in all things but one—Alma didn’t feel anything for him, not as a man, even though she had cherished their budding friendship.

  “Perhaps you hesitate,” Muhr said, “because of your musical aspirations. Of course, I would want you to continue composing.”

  Alma imagined Mama, Carl, and Cilli eavesdropping, holding their breath while they awaited her reply. Would it not be beneficial to all parties? Of the two of them, Alma had the stronger personality, and Muhr seemed mild mannered enough to keep his word and let her have her own way. Surely, she could do worse.

  But what about love? If she married him for money and convenience, wouldn’t she die inside? Alma shuddered to think of giving her body to a man for whom she felt not a drop of passion. Then again, it chilled her to imagine never giving her body to anyone. Never maturing, never fulfilled. The entire conundrum was simply too awful.

  Muhr awkwardly clambered to his feet. His monocle slipped and he adjusted it. “My dearest Alma, you don’t have to give me your answer straightaway. Think it over for as long as you wish. Perhaps I should ask again in six months, which shall give us a chance to become even better acquainted.”