The Musician's Daughter

by Susanne Dunlap

  I was too nervous to sit, so I wandered around the room, picking up knick-knacks and looking at them without really seeing what they were. The room was much bigger than our parlor, but so full of upholstered furniture, porcelain figurines, and pictures that it felt smaller. Somewhere a clock ticked. I tried to follow the sound to see where it came from, but the surfaces of the room bounced it around. Eventually, I spotted a small brass timepiece on the mantel, almost hidden between two plaster lions. I could not imagine what it would be like to live among so many unnecessary possessions.

  Just as I was beginning to give up hope of seeing my uncle, the door to the room opened to admit a distinguished gentleman wearing a powdered bob wig and a green velvet coat. His dress was rather formal for midmorning, but I simply assumed that, like Kapellmeister Haydn, Uncle Theobald had some court position—perhaps even worked for the empress herself—that required a uniform. Although I did not see much resemblance to my mother in his features, I decided that I had to impress upon him immediately the dire nature of our circumstances. I put the back of my hand to my forehead and uttered a cry of distress, just as I had seen the opera singers in Esterhaza do, then ran forward and threw myself at my uncle’s feet.

  To my immense surprise, he did nothing. I tried hard to cry tears, but I could not. I had so effectively dammed them up after that first night that I was unable to pretend to be weeping with any conviction. Soon I just stopped and lifted my face.

  “Herr Wolkenstein is not presently at home.”

  What had I done? I saw the smile playing around the fellow’s lips. He must have been no more than a valet, and I had made a fool of myself in front of him. He did not reach down to help me up, and my toe caught in the hem of my underskirt so that I nearly fell over again. Once I was upright, I lifted my chin and stared him down.

  “The parlor maid said you claim to be Herr Wolkenstein’s niece?” he said.

  “No, I do not claim to be. I am his niece, and am in need of his—” If I said “money,” I might well be tossed out on my ear. Running through the possible reasons for my unexpected visit, I landed on “Advice.”

  This response did not impress the valet. “Many people seek the councilor’s advice. I suggest you petition him in his office at the Hofburg.” He held the door open as if he expected me to walk through it.

  Instead I spoke again. “But how many of them are his niece?” There, I’ve caught you, I thought.

  He sighed. “A great many, I fear.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. His words caught me completely by surprise, and so I walked past him into the vestibule and waited for him to open the main door for me. I refused to behave like a servant when Herr—apparently Councilor—Wolkenstein was in truth my relative. He waited, I assumed to see if I would be stubborn, then walked in three long steps to the door and opened it. I stopped in the doorway so that he could not shut it. “Please be so good as to tell my uncle Theobald that Theresa Maria called. I wish to discuss a matter of business.”

  I whirled around and walked calmly away. Truth be told, I felt like running home as fast as I could, but I forced myself to keep my chin level and my pace sedate. The morning’s adventure had been completely unsatisfactory. I heard the bells in the Stephansdom chime eleven times, and my stomach rumbled angrily. I had not eaten more than a few bites since Christmas Eve.

  The fine morning began to cloud over, and the air had that icy dampness that foretold snow. I slowed my pace. I did not want to return home with no progress made in any direction.

  It was a little too early to go to Prince Esterhazy’s winter palace to meet Zoltán. Yet if I went right away to the Wallnerstrasse, where it rose in all its splendor from the other buildings around it, I would have time to seek out Kapellmeister Haydn before rehearsals started. Perhaps my father had said something to him that would indicate that someone bore him a grudge, or someone coveted his violin, if that had been the cause of the attack. I still could not imagine anyone wanting to harm Papa. He was all goodness and music, treating everyone kindly and always giving a few spare Pfennigs to the beggars most people simply ignored.

  I turned my steps toward the north. I felt anxious, but I decided there was no sense delaying an interview with the man who had already been very kind to me, and whom Papa had respected more than anyone else in the world.

  CHAPTER 6

  I knew my way around Prince Nicholas’s Vienna residence from years of being allowed to play hide-and-seek there with other children of the officers and upper servants in his house hold. It was not quite as large as the palace at Esterhaza, but just as grand. Not bothering to enter through the formal front door, I made my way around to the kitchen entrance. The prince’s cooks always had treats for the younger children and never minded having the older ones help peel potatoes or apples by the warm kitchen hearth.

  “Ach! Theresa!”

  Before I knew what was happening I was engulfed in mounds of flesh and getting flour up my nose. Elsa, the prince’s baker, had known us all our lives. She could always be counted on for sweets, but we had to submit to her suffocating embraces before making off with tiny cherry tarts or slices of torte. Today, I did not mind. There was warmth in her meaty grasp, and I had been feeling so alone ever since the night of my father’s death that contact with anyone felt reassuring.

  Elsa’s eyes shed fat, round tears that she wiped away with her apron, smearing yet more flour over her already decorated face. “I was so sad when I heard. He did not deserve such a thing. There are criminals everywhere! But you look so thin. Are you ill? What about your mama? Is the baby safe? And Toby—don’t leave without a basket of his favorite bon-bons.”

  She went on and on so that I thought I would be stuck in the kitchen forever, but I did not want to hurt her feelings by telling her I had business elsewhere in the palace. I barely attended to her words until she said, “Heinrich’s daughter was here earlier, young Marie. Isn’t she your particular friend?”

  Marie and I had grown up together around the court, but we couldn’t be more different. She never had much interest in music, and lately had become so obsessed with the latest fashions that she could talk of nothing else. No, she was not the person I needed by me just then. She would never want to talk about the one thing that obsessed me: what had happened to my father. I hoped she was not in the palace. I smiled noncommittally at Elsa in response.

  It was Zoltán who rescued me in the end. He had come to request a glass of tea for Herr Haydn, who had just finished rehearsing the quartet.

  “I’m here to see Kapellmeister Haydn,” I said quickly, suddenly embarrassed about being there so early, and not wanting Zoltán to think I was hovering around just waiting for him to be finished so that he could show me where Papa had been found. His last rehearsal might not be over until later that afternoon, after which Haydn would direct only the singers in a small service of prayer before supper.

  “He will be delighted. Come with me.”

  I kissed Elsa and gave her assurances that I would come by as often as I could so that she could fatten me up, then followed Zoltán through the maze of corridors in Prince Nicholas’s winter home.

  When we found Godfather Haydn, he was in an anteroom off the ballroom, his informal office, resting in an armchair with a damp cloth over his eyes.

  “Maestro,” Zoltán said, his voice full of gentle respect.

  Quickly, the Kapellmeister sat upright, pulling the cloth away from his face as if he’d been caught stealing something.

  “Ah, little Theresa!” he said. “Although now that I see you standing, you are not so little anymore. Quite a lady, tall like your papa and pretty like your mama. Your papa would not have wanted to see you still so sad.” He rose and kissed the top of my head. “Sit, child,” he said, motioning me to the chair opposite his.

  “Shall I rearrange the chairs for the symphony?” Zoltán said.

  “What? Oh, of course. Off you go.”

  I said a silent thank-you t
o Zoltán for having the discretion to leave us alone. I was beginning to notice that he had a way of understanding what I wanted before I even understood it myself.

  “Now, dear one, what is it that troubles you?”

  I didn’t quite know where to start. What did I want from Haydn? He had already given me money. I knew he wasn’t a wealthy man, however much the prince respected him and however much it looked as though he belonged with the nobility. He worked as hard as any laborer. “I suppose,” I started, “I suppose what troubles me most is wondering what became of my father’s violin. I mean, if robbers attacked him and took the fiddle to sell, surely it can be traced.”

  Haydn leaned back in his chair. “Do you care so much more about the violin than about Antonius?”

  I felt ashamed. My question had not come out at all as I thought it might. “No, of course not. Only the violin—the music—it was him, wasn’t it? And if the violin was destroyed too …” I couldn’t go on. The thought was too horrible. It would be like having my father die twice.

  “Are you still playing the viola?” Haydn asked.

  I nodded. A large knot had suddenly lodged in my throat, making it impossible for me to speak.

  “I thought you should know that I have told Prince Nicholas that I replaced your father immediately with another musician.”

  It seemed odd that Maestro Haydn would tell me this, especially when the pain of my loss was so new and raw.

  “I neglected to give him the name of this fine new artist, but he trusts me and will continue to allow me to pay a stipend—not as large as your father’s, you understand, but that of a young musician starting out, twenty Gulden a month.”

  All at once what he was saying became clear. He had lied to the prince, pretending to have hired someone new, so that we could continue to receive some money. And it was enough to pay our rent, at least, with a little left over for food.

  I could hardly speak I was so moved. I wanted to tell Haydn what he had done for me, granted me the time I needed to try to discover what had really happened, to retrace the steps Papa took that last night, piece together the events, dig back into the past if need be. How could I not? Only the answers would make me able to go on. Nothing could be worse than not knowing. “Thank you, Godfather,” I finally managed to say. “You will have helped me discover the truth.”

  Haydn had a distant expression on his face, as if he was thinking of things far away from us at that moment. “It’s not always best to know the truth.”

  Not good to know the truth? The truth was all that was left to me. “What ever it is, I shall find it out before long.”

  “Well, my dear, if verity is what you seek, perhaps I should start by telling you that my gesture—the stipend—is not really a gift. I’m afraid I have rather a large favor to ask of you in return for having told a small untruth to the prince.”

  A favor? What could I do for the most eminent musician in Austria and Hungary? He turned away from me, rubbing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, then fumbled in his pocket for something. I expected him to pull out a handkerchief, but instead, he held a pair of spectacles between his thumb and first finger.

  “I have been wearing these for some time. The demands on my eyes, as I get older—you understand.”

  I nodded, but still couldn’t see what his spectacles had to do with the task he said he wanted to give me.

  “Last month, I composed a mass—it was just a routine work, in fulfillment of my regular duties. I wrote out the score initially by myself as is my custom, and then gave it to one of the copyists. But when we came to rehearse, there were sour notes all over the place, and I thought my own musicians were making a joke at my expense.”

  The maestro walked over to the desk where his paper, quills, and the special five-nibbed pen he used to make staves on the paper lay. He picked up a sheet that was partly filled with notes. “I quizzed the copyist, at first insisting that he was being malicious, but he swore to me he simply wrote out my sketches, filling in some of the parts as usual. He showed me. I have since destroyed that manuscript, but here is another one.”

  He held out a score and I took it from his hands. It was the beginning of a string quartet, with the main parts for the two violins, viola, and cello written out, gaps left for the accompanying sections, where notes simply needed to be repeated. It looked just as it should to me. “It’s a quartet,” I said.

  “Yes, but look more closely!”

  I started humming the lines to myself, and then I began to understand the difficulty. Several of the notes were misplaced, in the spaces when they were clearly meant to be on the lines and the other way around.

  “You see, it’s my eyes. Even with the spectacles, the lines of the staff wave and I can’t seem to get the notes down anymore. Your father knew. He more than knew.”

  It seemed that Maestro Haydn was trying to tell me that my father had helped him somehow. “What did he do?”

  “He is—was—acting as my hands. He had an exceptionally good ear. Never made a mistake.”

  “Why don’t you ask someone else in the orchestra to help you?”

  “At this time of year there is simply no time. Everyone has to rehearse. Besides, your father had an interest that went beyond the music …” He paused again. “But even more than that, I need someone who is very fast. If I do not meet my contractual obligations, which call for new compositions every week, I will lose my position. And …”

  His voice trailed off. I knew how much the Kapellmeister accomplished. The more I learned about music as I increased in ability myself, the more astounded I was at all the new symphonies, divertimenti, chamber music, masses, and even whole operas he wrote every season. When it came to music, Prince Nicholas was insatiable. But surely, if he knew Haydn was having difficulties, he would find some way to help him. “What more is there, Maestro?”

  He shook his head. “You are so young. I don’t want to burden you with my sorrows. But I must beg your assistance—if you will trust me.”

  “Of course I will do what ever you ask of me, if I am able.” It was a rash promise. Not the sort of thing I should be saying to anyone, when I hardly knew what would happen day to day.

  “No one must know. It is apparent that you have much of your father’s talent. Let us hope you share his excellent hand and keen ear. Meet me at my apartment every morning at ten of the clock.” He scribbled the address on a scrap of paper and gave it to me.

  “But my mother—” I began to say that she would object, since that was the normal hour of my needlework lessons, but in her present state I doubted she would even notice. “No, I suppose it will not be a problem. But Maestro,” I continued, “what of my father? Can you not tell me anything that might help me find out what happened?”

  Haydn’s expression was difficult to read. He was holding something back from me, I could tell, and I desperately wanted to know what.

  “Your papa was a good man. He cared a great deal about many things. And he loved you very much, and your mama and Tobias.”

  I knew all that about Papa! Why must he be so mysterious? “Can’t you just tell me what happened after the concert on Christmas Eve?” I cried, too frustrated to be polite.

  He paused again before answering. When he did, he looked straight into my eyes with an expression that pierced through me. “Your papa did not play in the Christmas Eve concert.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Zoltán returned just at that moment, before I could collect myself enough to ask the maestro anything else.

  “Are you prepared?” Zoltán asked me. “Kapellmeister, I have an engagement with Fräulein Schurman, if you would excuse me from the symphony rehearsal?”

  “Of course, of course,” my godfather replied.

  At first my thoughts were so confused by my god father’s revelation that I wondered, prepared for what? Then I remembered that Zoltán had said he would take me to the place where they had found Papa. I gathered up my cloak and gloves. I supposed I was
as ready as I could be. I nodded.

  “I will see you tomorrow then, as arranged?” Haydn’s tone held something desperate in it. I still couldn’t quite understand why weak eyesight could not easily be overcome with a little assistance. But I was happy enough to help him, after all he had done for us, and hoping that spending time with him would give me an opportunity to ask him everything he knew about my father.

  Zoltán did not speak to me until we reached the kitchen courtyard of the palace when he gave me a black mask to hold over my face. No one in our class of society ever wore masks in public—they were mainly for the well-born who wished to disguise themselves while meeting a lover, or to avoid the anger of the populace after the passing of an unfair tax that benefited the nobles. “What’s this for?”

  “It would be best if you were not recognized where we are going,” he said.

  “Who would recognize me?”

  “It is for the best.” Zoltán turned away from me and strode off, clearly not wanting me to ask any more questions at the moment.

  An icy wind had come up. I pulled my cloak around me more tightly as I followed him to a carriage stand. He spoke to one driver, who responded by shaking his head emphatically. Before I caught up with Zoltán so that I could hear what he said, he had moved on to the next driver. This fellow gave a more halfhearted refusal, and I saw with dismay that Zoltán fished a silver coin out of his bag and gave it to him. Surely we could not be going anywhere so far as to require such handsome payment. But what ever our destination, the second driver agreed to take us there, and Zoltán handed me into the carriage as though I were a fine lady.

  I found myself inside a small space that smelled of old sweat, despite the cracks in the leather hood that let in the wind and would certainly not provide shelter from a driving rain. Fortunately it was too cold for that. And the close space meant that we had to squash together to fit. I was both grateful that I could take a little of Zoltán’s warmth from his nearness, and afraid that it was somehow unseemly to do so. I wondered what he was thinking. I glanced quickly toward him, hoping he would not notice.