Ecstasy

by Mary Sharratt

  Alma felt teary even after she was able to get out of bed and hobble around the apartment. She wept at the sight of Gustav holding Maria and singing her lullabies. He had already given her a nickname, Putzi—dear sweet little one. His heart was an unstoppable font of paternal love. How Alma wished it was as easy for her. She longed to be a good mother, patient and tender, a glowing madonna like her sister, whose letters waxed rapturously about the joys of motherhood. Gretl swore that her new son, named after his father, was the fulfillment of her every desire.

  Motherhood, the sacred destiny of all good women! That dumbfounding rush of love that was supposed to come all by itself. But to Alma’s despair, she didn’t know if what she felt for her daughter was true mother love. Putzi was more beautiful and perfect than she had ever dared hope, that darling girl with her pink cheeks and dark curls. When Alma made herself focus on how very vulnerable the infant was, tidal waves of emotion overwhelmed her. Was this love—or just fear and a woeful sense of her own inadequacy? She discerned none of the bliss Gretl described but felt only weak and broken down, gasping for air as though she were underground.

  Breastfeeding was an absolute torment. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. Alma struggled to banish such evil thoughts and coo contentedly over her newborn like a good mother should. But Putzi seemed to sense her underlying resentment and retaliated by squalling and rejecting her breast, which sent Gustav, Mama, or Miss Turner running to whisk the baby into their capable arms. Alma felt like an imposter going through the motions—even an infant could see right through her. Putzi knew straight off who her real parent was—Gustav, whose singing could send her to sleep even when the nanny was at her wit’s end. It was as if Putzi, like Athena, was sprung from her father’s thigh, wholly his. All I’m here for is to provide milk, like some stupid cow, and I’m not even particularly good at that. Dear God, what is wrong with me? Alma wondered if she was a proper woman at all. Gretl is the normal one and I am the sick one.

  And yet, through it all, Alma’s devotion to Gustav remained unshaken. She hungered for him, for any sign of affection from him, as never before. All of me belongs to Gustav. Her love for him was so all-consuming that everything other than Gustav felt dead to her. But she couldn’t possibly tell him this. In her blackest moments, Alma found herself dreaming of how much happier she had been, in love with Gustav and copying his scores, before Putzi had come into the world. If only she hadn’t succumbed to him before the wedding. If only she hadn’t come into their marriage already pregnant, they might have had months and months of freedom, sensuality, sharing the same bed. I could have been so much happier.

  How could a decent woman even think such things? Her guilt and shame clung to her like an invisible hair shirt.

  One morning in January, when Putzi was ten weeks old, Alma managed to slip out for a few hours to visit the opera. While the nanny lurked in the corridor, prepared to summon Alma if the baby needed to nurse, Alma watched her husband direct the blocking rehearsal of Carl Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe. How stimulating it was to watch Gustav block out each scene, demonstrating where the singers should move on stage for the most dramatic effect. Every nuance had to be considered. The sight line of the audience, the acoustics, and the electric lighting. Witnessing the rehearsal unfold, Alma began to feel a sense of blessed reprieve blooming in her chest. How good it felt to inhabit her old self again, to once more be that clever, cultured observer, that person who lived for the opera.

  Gustav had thought that Euryanthe in particular would delight her with its sheer escapism. Drawn from a medieval French romance, it told of a count’s wager concerning the fidelity of his betrothed, the eponymous Euryanthe. The victim of wicked conspiracies, this hapless damsel was falsely accused of wantonness, which caused the count to attempt to kill her. But just as he was about to commit the deed, a giant snake entered stage left. What, Alma wondered, would Dr. Freud make of that? Euryanthe sacrificed herself to the serpent in order to save her would-be murderer. Miraculously, she survived. But the count required several more melodramatic scenes of plot reversals before he was fully convinced of her innocence and finally agreed to marry her.

  What a pathetic story line, Alma fumed.

  Fortunately, the grandeur of the music redeemed the work. Mildenburg, who played Euryanthe, was in top form. Her artistry lent a power and poignancy to the role that completely transcended the inane libretto. How vividly she expressed what it was to be a maligned woman.

  As much as Alma had come to dislike her as a person, she was spellbound. Mildenburg wasn’t a mere diva but a consummate actress. Grudgingly, Alma found herself in agreement with Gustav’s assessment that female suffering had never been portrayed with such magnitude as by Anna von Mildenburg. There was no greater tragedian, male or female, on the opera stage. All the critics acknowledged that Mildenburg was Gustav Mahler’s greatest protégée. He had nurtured her career while, in turn, her glory reflected back on him. If his post as director of the Vienna Court Opera was his golden crown, Mildenburg was his crown jewel.

  As long as Mildenburg was singing, Alma could overlook any personal frictions. But when the singers took a break, her doubts began hammering away. It sickened her to see the camaraderie between Gustav and his star soprano. Mildenburg, his former beloved who refused to give up her career in order to marry him. And yet she spent more time with him—meaningful hours wrapped in the golden passion of their music—than Alma, his wife, who had renounced everything for him, even her health. Gustav, I could have been your protégée! As the honorary president of the Guild of Composers, her husband took young composers under his wing all the time, such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alex’s student and brother-in-law. What if Gustav had been broadminded enough to mentor her, to raise her to his level as a composer, rather than treat her as only a wife and helpmeet? What might she have been capable of?

  How Mildenburg seemed to gloat, basking in Gustav’s attention while he barely even looked Alma’s way. Your sacrifice to him didn’t ennoble you, you idiot! It only made you the biggest dupe.

  Mildenburg trilled that she needed some water to soothe her precious throat. Alma stiffened to her fingernails to see her husband letting that whore drink from his own glass. Alma’s eyes misted red to see him billing and cooing as though he were some besotted pigeon.

  Out in the corridor, Putzi shrieked, giving her mother the perfect excuse to bolt and return straight home.

  Back in the apartment, Alma locked the door in disgust. After bidding the nanny to set the cradle beside the piano, Alma began to play and sing Götterdämmerung at the top of her voice, singing to her daughter who gazed up with her huge blue eyes. When the neighbor, in protest, started grinding out military marches on his gramophone, Alma played and sang even louder. She shook in dread of what was truly transpiring between Gustav and Mildenburg, so much that she feared his coming home. What if she smelled that whore’s perfume on him?

  Shoving Götterdämmerung aside, she stormed off to find the forbidden folder of her own music. Hers! She began to defiantly play through her compositions. Her piano sonata. Her lieder. Nothing has reached fruition in me. Neither my beauty, nor my spirit, nor my talent.

  If only Alex was there to work with her, but Gustav would never permit such a thing. I must recover my own voice, I must, before it’s lost forever! But when she concentrated and listened deep inside, all senses honed, she could hear only his music, those bombastic horns, those tremulous strings. Already, after less than a year of marriage, she had lost her muse. Once I had a voice, but it’s been replaced by his. He wanted to break me and he succeeded. And now that her husband had robbed her of every last shred of individuality, he was off nuzzling his star soprano, who got to keep her own music—and him, too!

  May he never come home! May he twist his ankle! May he get struck down by a streetcar!

  Alma hated herself. Swooping to lift Putzi from the cradle, she bowed her hot, weeping face to her daughter’s infant sweetness.

  L
ying on her bed with Putzi in her arms, Alma collapsed into a black state that was half sleep, half trance. From her shattered, broken body another self arose and looked down upon her pityingly. This other woman was as glamorous and confident as Mildenburg. And as uncompromising. A woman who wasn’t afraid to be selfish, shameless, brazen.

  Pity poor Eve who tried to be so good and yet bore the blame for everything. Kill Eve and let Lilith rise, sweet Lilith with her black wings and talons, her coiling serpent’s tail. A woman who seized her life, her lust, her desire, her music without apology. Lilith, as dark and sultry as the midnight sky, whispered in her ear: I am a sphinx. I can’t be contained. I belong to no one. A woman, raw and wild, intoxicated with her own power.

  Alma jerked awake in a panic to find Gustav shaking her shoulder. Her husband’s face was knit in consternation. He had come home for his midday meal only to find the door bolted to him! Of course, Elise had the meal waiting for him on the table and let him in, but what was Alma doing in bed in the middle of the day instead of coming to greet him? Unable to listen to another word of reproach, a torrent of fury lashed out of Alma’s mouth as if she were a striking cobra.

  “I thought you would be dining tête-à-tête with Mildenburg. Or would that be too indiscreet? Perhaps the sofa in your office would be much more private.”

  The anger ripping through her voice made Putzi cry. Deft and fleet, Miss Turner tiptoed in to extricate the baby from her weeping, ranting mother.

  “Such sordid insinuations!” Gustav cried. “My regard for Anna is strictly professional. Really, this is beneath you, Almschi.”

  “You take so little interest in what goes on inside me! I’ve lost all my friends because you won’t see anyone! And my music!”

  She broke off into jagged weeping.

  “Almschi, you made your choice before we were married.” Gustav sounded as though he was rapidly losing patience. “And now, when we’re blessed with a beautiful daughter, you’re bitter that your girlhood dreams weren’t fulfilled? If you insist on being so unhappy, that’s entirely up to you.”

  “Oh, God!” she cried. “How can you make such a mockery of my deepest feelings? I’m suffocating.”

  There was an edge to her despair that cut like a sword through his platitudes. Silenced, he lay beside her on the bed and enfolded her in his arms while she wept. He held her tightly, his face in her hair, as though his embrace could melt away her rage. Banish Lilith and bring back Eve.

  24

  Gustav’s travel schedule remained as hectic as ever. In late January he was invited to conduct his Fourth Symphony at the Kurhaus in Wiesbaden. During his absence, he wrote Alma once, sometimes twice a day. His letters were filled with a romantic urgency, as though he were courting her all over again.

  During the adagio, I imagined you gazing at me with your dear blue eyes. Not with that worried look (I can’t bear to see your eyes when they’re like that) but with that ineffable sweetness that shines in them when you love me and you know that I love you as much as you love me.

  Reading this, Alma felt a rush of warmth, as though she were an infatuated girl again. Yet Gustav’s time away spelled a welcome reprieve. She allowed herself to relive her girlhood freedoms as much as motherhood and household duties would allow. Returning once more to her favorite books, she not only steeped herself in her beloved Nietzsche but also devoured Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande, a symbolist drama of forbidden, doomed love. Never mind that Gustav condemned her books as balderdash.

  For once, Mama appeared to take her side. “You’re no use as a mother if you’re miserable. It’s good for you to read and play piano if it makes you happy, but don’t spend too much time alone either. You need to get out and see people. Gustav will have to understand.”

  Alma’s Sunday visits to Mama and Carl’s allowed her to spend long lazy afternoons with old friends including Berta Zuckerkandl, Erica Conrat, and Max Burckhard.

  When the Easter holidays came, Gustav would have preferred for Alma to remain in the environs of Vienna, but Mama insisted on taking her and Putzi to Abbazia, the lovely resort town on the Istrian coast. On the lido, Alma knelt in the sand and helped little Maria build sandcastles while Mama cuddled Putzi. By and by, Alma recovered in body and mind. Gone were her crying jags and crippling self-doubt. Gretl, Wilhelm, and their baby came along as well. Alma went for long walks on the promenade with her sister, arm in arm, while Gretl twirled her new parasol. How lovely it was to laugh in the sunshine and sip Dalmatian wine, to dine on swordfish and scallops instead of the bland vegetarian fare Gustav favored. To gaze drowsily at the lapping waves and fall asleep over a book. To accompany Mama, Gretl, and the children on carriage rides through the coastal forest of bay laurel trees and take a boat up and down the rocky shore.

  Catching her reflection in the mirror one morning, Alma was astonished to notice she hadn’t lost her looks after all. She was still the same young woman with the blue eyes and glossy brown hair whom Klimt had longed to paint. Her skin glowed from the spring sunshine and sea air. When Gustav was finally able to join her in Abbazia, they made love for the first time in what felt like an eternity. She kissed and caressed him hungrily, then languorously, taking possession of the voluptuous fullness of her desire until she drove him half-mad with longing for her. Afterward, as they lay spent and naked in the thick linen hotel sheets, she felt as sleek and sated as a purring cat. Pleasure filled her every cell, along with a renewed call to live her life instead of watching it pass her by like a funeral procession.

  Back in Vienna, Gustav’s career ascended to ever more resplendent heights. In June he traveled to Amsterdam to direct his Third Symphony, and then headed down to Switzerland for the Basel Festival, where he would conduct his Second Symphony in the city cathedral.

  “Go on, meet him in Basel like he wants,” Mama said. “I’ll look after Putzi.”

  “Only for a few days,” Alma said, half-dizzy with the sense of freedom since her daughter, now seven months old, was weaned.

  Traveling alone to another country! It felt so daring, so sophisticated, so modern. And it was gratifying indeed to see that she could still turn heads. When Alma took her seat in the second-class carriage, the young cadet seated opposite winked at her over the top of his newspaper. Averting her gaze, Alma removed her gloves to reveal her wedding ring and pretended to ignore him while she perused the latest issue of Ver Sacrum. It was all she could do to hide her secret smile.

  A pity she had nothing stylish to wear and must make do with clothes dating from before her wedding. The clothing allowance in their limited budget all went to Gustav, who needed to look the part of the rising composer and world-famous conductor. He ordered his suits from the best tailors, his shirts from London. Yet her excitement mounted as the train shot through tunnels to pass between glacier-crowned peaks. She thought she had reached the roof of the world.

  Stepping out on the platform in Basel, Alma waved her handkerchief at the wiry figure of her husband, who came bounding toward her as though they had been separated for three years instead of three weeks.

  “Almschi!” Gustav threw his arms around her. “Wait till you see what’s in store! This will be even bigger than Crefeld. Everyone is here, from all over Europe, and they’re clamoring to meet you.”

  After dropping off Alma’s valise at the hotel, Gustav took her on a walking tour of the old town, the medieval heart of Basel. Such was his eagerness, he was practically jogging. She was obliged to trot to keep pace. They flew by the Renaissance Rathaus with its golden spires, and up and down the narrow twisting lanes that threaded between ancient patrician houses, before they emerged at the square in front of the great cathedral with its twin Gothic towers. Evening rehearsals of the final choir movement were about to begin.

  “Erasmus of Rotterdam is buried in the northern transept!” Gustav seemed beside himself. “The great humanist, Almschi. To think that my ‘Urlicht’ shall be performed at his final resting place! It couldn’t be mo
re perfect.”

  Before Alma could reply, a troupe of top-hatted dignitaries ambushed them.

  “Herr Direktor Mahler, this must be your lovely young wife.”

  Gustav made the introductions while Alma shook hands with the local worthies, who looked as though they were prepared to fling themselves prostrate on the cobblestones, so great was their reverence for Gustav Mahler.

  A photographer appeared. “Herr Direktor, would you be so kind as to pose with your wife?”

  Alma wanted to shrink away into the darkest alley. She hadn’t even had a chance to brush her hair and felt completely disheveled from the long train journey and their dash across town. But in the golden evening light, she took her place at Gustav’s side on the cathedral promontory overlooking the foaming blue-green Rhine.

  “Herr Direktor, please hold this.” The photographer placed a scrolled-up copy of the Second Symphony under Gustav’s left arm.

  Not one to enjoy smiling for photographs, Gustav squinted and frowned off into the middle distance, looking every inch the moody genius. Alma inwardly cringed at her unfashionable clothes. Dear God, my hat is so frumpy! Dropping her gaze in a gesture of feminine modesty, she did her best not to appear taller than her husband.

  This festival was a gathering of the greatest living composers in Europe, including Richard Strauss and Frederick Delius. But Gustav Mahler dominated the event, his Second Symphony given pride of place, to be performed in the cathedral, no less. A buzz of intrigue and anticipation seemed to accompany Gustav wherever he went. Alma heard her husband’s name on everyone’s tongue.

  On the evening of the concert, Alma reflected that Gustav’s Second Symphony was as fresh and new to her as it was to everyone else assembled here. Though she had studied the score and played it on the piano, she had never before heard it performed. What could be a more magnificent setting for a piece titled Resurrection Symphony than this vast Gothic cathedral, a shimmering galaxy of candle flames beneath that lofty ceiling?