The Musician's Daughter

by Susanne Dunlap

  “Gently, gently—let the string do the work. Don’t press down.” I could hear his voice, feel his comforting arms supporting mine. And eventually, I did it. I felt the vibration all down my hands and arms, and it tickled and made me laugh. After that, we spent time every day, and gradually I was able to make the sound on my own. And he taught me how to read music, too.

  Mama was a little jealous, I think, although she claimed only to be concerned that I was learning to play an instrument generally considered unsuitable for girls.

  “Let her be. She has talent. Who knows, by the time she is grown, perhaps she could give lessons,” my father would say.

  How well I remembered her response. “No mother would allow her son to be taught by a girl! At least, not taught a trade.” That’s all it ever was to Mama—a trade—although I knew it wasn’t her fault that she had no real appreciation. She smiled and tapped her foot when she listened because that’s what she thought was expected, but the tapping was never in time. Yet she was able to dance and move her head and hands prettily in a minuet, and everyone admired her. I remember once thinking as I watched her at some holiday festivity, when the servants and musicians were allowed to have their own ball with a small orchestra made up of Gypsies and apprentices, that she was the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. Even more beautiful than the nobles who danced stiffly in their tight stays and panniers.

  There was no use thinking about times gone by. It would not help me find out what had really happened to Papa. I was beginning to realize that the task I had undertaken would be even more difficult than I thought, especially with Mama so bent on finding me a husband.

  I lay awake in the dark and reviewed my circumstances. Clearly I would have to adjust my plans. First, I must not let Mama settle my marriage too quickly. Aside from the fact that it would make it hard for me to wander about the city on my own or with Zoltán piecing together my father’s movements on the night he died, I was not ready to marry. I had no doubt that I could run a house hold as well as the next girl, but to do only that, and have babies until it was one childbirth too many and I died from it—surely life held more for me. I could not have been born with the ear and the hands I possessed only to use them to listen for an infant’s cry and to knit stockings.

  I looked with longing at the empty table in my room. Only Papa would understand how I felt, the emptiness that engulfed me when I realized I no longer had an instrument to act as my voice. “Oh, Papa!” I said aloud to my room. “What happened? Why did you leave us?”

  I soaked my pillow with tears that night, and dreamt of my father, smiling and playing in an orchestra that poured out glorious music. But the music was not in Prince Nicholas’s palace; it was outdoors, in the countryside. And the orchestra was not the one in which he occupied the first chair. All the musicians looked dark and wore tattered clothes, like the Gypsies, and all of them wore gold medallions around their necks, similar to the one the apothecary’s wife had found on my father’s body. The concert was magnificent, and the brilliant green leaves and bright flowers rustled and nodded in time to the music. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the country in my sleep. I awoke feeling cleansed, and more determined than ever. What could my mother do, after all? I had money from Haydn so I would not starve even if she refused to feed me, which I knew she would not. She could talk to the matchmaker, and once I had satisfied myself concerning what had befallen my father, I would sit with her and go over the list of candidates, no doubt old widowers who wanted a young bride to keep them company and nurse them in their dotage. For no one else would take me without a dowry. Even though I had not met him, I knew that Uncle Theobald would never come through and fulfill his promise.

  Still, I wondered about my wealthy uncle. His actions did not seem very honorable to me. Just because my mother’s family could claim ties generations back with minor nobility seemed no reason to cut off a sister who married beneath her. She could see what her brother could not, that a musician who entered the right circles with a wife who was capable of looking and acting the part might rise and achieve more than any other tradesman, the fashion for music being such a craze among the nobility and royalty. Mama was an impressive sight when she dressed in her finest open gown and ribbon-trimmed petticoat, put on her one miniver-trimmed mantelet, and had her hair piled high into a sugar-water-stiffened mountain with bits of lace and velvet ribbon. We were none of us as good as Mama at appearances. I wondered how long it would be until she rose from her bed and made her own dignified way to the house in the Graben where her important brother lived. I hoped I could see it. I feared that she would be unable to manage it until after the baby was born, and I did not know how long it would take her to recover from the birth.

  I tried to imagine myself turning my back on Toby because he had chosen a bride I did not approve of. Apart from the fact that the idea of little Toby married was so absurd it made me smile, I could never see it. If he needed something from me, he would have it no matter whom he married.

  After devouring two fresh rolls Greta had baked because Mama was eating again, I put on my long wool cloak and mitts, readying myself for the long walk to my godfather’s apartment in the Marienhilf suburb, outside the city wall. That morning it snowed halfheartedly; heavy, wet flakes that soaked into my cloak and chilled me through. By the time I arrived, my teeth chattered.

  “Come, come, come!” Haydn said, leading me into a small parlor with a blazing fire in the grate. His house-keeper took my cloak and spread it over two chairs to dry. “Please forgive my wife for not being here to greet you. She could not delay a previous appointment.”

  I had heard rumors in the kitchens of the Esterhazy palaces about Haydn’s bitter and unfaithful wife. It was said they never slept in the same bed, and that she visited an old witch who gave her an elixir that prevented pregnancy. Everyone felt sorry for Haydn, and never criticized him when he had occasional trysts with kitchen maids, or for the affair he was said to have had with the widow of one of his musicians.

  “Forgive me for not giving you time to settle properly, but I must be at the palace in an hour.” He pulled a silver pocket watch out of his waistcoat and shook his head at it. I knew that watch well. It was the one he used to let us listen to ticking away, and that he would produce from the oddest places to make us laugh—a flowerpot, our ears, his own mouth. “Do you prefer to sit or stand when you write?”

  I saw that the desk was a high one, like those used by clerks in offices, and although I was not accustomed to standing up and writing, I told him that was what I preferred. When I took my place, I noticed that six or seven sheets of paper had already been lined, and the clefs for a string quartet had been mapped out. I still couldn’t quite see what I would have to do. I had no trouble hearing—my pitch was perfect—but I had never actually tried to write down notes as I heard them. The maestro must have sensed my doubt, because he spoke to me quietly and reassuringly.

  “Your papa used to dash in just the heads of the notes first as I sang, then go back later and add the stems. I still seem able to fix the rhythm. The flags don’t jump around as much as the staves and the dots for me.”

  He started with the lowest line, the cello. He did not sing it all, but more often simply called out the harmonies. My father had schooled me in figures, so I knew how to sketch in the bass that would hold the upper parts together and give them depth. The first movement was a lively allegro, and as we continued with the first-violin part, I could anticipate what was coming. Or at least, I thought I could. Every once in a while Haydn sang a note or a phrase that took me by surprise. I would look up questioningly, and he would say, “Yes, yes, that’s just what I mean, there’s a good girl.”

  When we got to the upper parts, the ones in the range where he could sing, I sometimes thought the maestro simply forgot I was there. He wandered around the room, swaying to the music he heard in his head and singing so fast at times that I could hardly keep up. Although I had to glue my eyes to the page most of the t
ime, every once in a while he would pause and I could look up. Then I would see him gazing off into the distance, eyes sometimes misting over as though the idea of music was too powerful to bear, and then they would brighten and he would start to sing again, and I would have to focus on the lines and spaces and write as fast as I could.

  By the time the mantel clock chimed the next hour, my hand was in a cramp and I realized I had bitten the inside of my lip and could taste the salty blood. Haydn approached to look at my handiwork. I trembled with fear that he would find it unsatisfactory.

  He picked up the sheets, scanned the lines, brought them close to his eyes, and held them at arm’s length and sighed. “In truth, I will not know how well you have done until after the rehearsal. But in general it looks as though you have written everything down. Accuracy is the issue.”

  “Will you refine the movement tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Oh dear me, no, there isn’t time for that. It’s first time or nothing, you see, at this time of year. You may as well come tomorrow for the other movements, which won’t be as long as this one.”

  I wanted to ask him if he had the notes all in his head already, or if they simply came to him as he paced around the room, but in spite of his kindness and consideration, I was a little afraid of my godfather. He could end the stipend at any moment, tell my mother to keep me at home where I belonged, and put a stop to my inquiries to discover what had happened to my father. I didn’t really think he would, but decided that the fewer questions I asked him the better it would be for everyone.

  “Your cloak is dry, I see!” He held it out to me. “Stop in the kitchen for some cakes to take to your mama.”

  He put on his own cloak, a splendid, blue-satin-lined affair that went with his court uniform, bowed to me, and left. I had no idea where the kitchen was, but the maid who had showed me in soon appeared with a basket full of treats. “The master said to give you these.”

  I thanked her and began the long walk home.

  CHAPTER 9

  I spent the rest of the day listening to my mother talk incessantly about Frau Zimmer, the matchmaker, who had left before I returned. I kept trying to find an excuse to run an errand, but she continued to create little tasks that would keep me busy until the curfew bells rang and it would be foolish to go out by myself.

  Toby and I had our dinner at the table in the dining parlor, and Mama took hers on a tray. She was under strictest orders from the apothecary not to rise from her bed, which obliged either me or Greta to empty her chamber pot into the water closet. Although ours was not as advanced an apartment as some, it was equipped with a pan that would send the waste down to the sewers beneath the city—built only in the last ten years—and refill it again from a cistern placed on the roof. It was a luxury not to have to go outside to visit the privy, which we had to do when we resided in the country at Esterhaza.

  “Here is a list of your chores for tomorrow. There will be no time for you to wander off. I wish I could rise myself and help with some of the work. Activity can be so soothing.”

  I looked at the long list Mama handed me. It included washing her linens, mending all the stockings, counting the silver and other valuables to inventory for the matchmaker so that she would know exactly the state of our wealth, and writing a begging letter to Uncle Theobald, requesting a meeting with him at his home with our lawyer. “Do we have a lawyer?” I asked.

  “We’ll get someone to pretend to be one. He won’t know. The point is, it probably will not come to that, because he will immediately recall his obligation and make over the funds for your dowry.” Mama’s mind was back to its old self with these plottings and plannings of hers. I also noted that she had regained her appetite and had a bloom in her cheeks. Perhaps she had suffered such a severe shock upon seeing my father dead that all her mourning had been concentrated in a few days of inertia and madness. I did not know. Or perhaps the need to provide for the infant she carried made her postpone her sorrow, as I had mine. What ever it was, I was not a little apprehensive about how matters would develop, and what changes I might see from one day’s end to the next. I was rather glad she’d been insensible when I showed her the medallion, or it might well have gone the way of the viola and been converted to cash. I did not want to relinquish it until I found out exactly what it meant. I must continue with my own plans, no matter what.

  “Toby will need new clothes to start his apprenticeship next week,” I reminded Mama, suddenly struck with an inspiration. “I shall take him to the tailor tomorrow. I think that’s much more urgent than anything else at the moment.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are right.” She could not argue. Only a few days before Christmas she herself had commented that Toby’s breeches barely covered his knees anymore. And now I had engineered a way to leave the apartment for an indefinite period of time. Which was essential. In addition to meeting with Haydn (Toby would just have to wait patiently for me), I had awakened that morning with the conviction that I must find my own way back to the Gypsy camp and look for the violin. Where else could it be? Even if they had not killed him, the Gypsies would be more likely to understand the value of a fine instrument than some desperate robber, who was probably looking for coins. It gave me some satisfaction to think that Papa had not yet received his bonus, and would have had little beyond the few Kreutzer he carried for daily expenses. I could leave Toby with the tailor for the price of enough sweets and promise of more, find the same driver at the stand, and use some of the precious money my godfather had given me as bribes if necessary.

  The next day started out exactly as I had planned. Toby was happy enough to get away from Mama’s constant prodding and quizzing him about his letters and sums, and I was so determined to follow the course I had laid out for myself that I didn’t even mind his skipping forward and running back, stopping at vegetable stands and peering into shop windows. Despite growing all in a rush recently, Toby was still small. I couldn’t imagine him working twelve hours a day learning a trade. His delicate hands that did such fine work on the miniature wooden toys he carved would soon be rough and calloused. I had seen the boys in Herr Goldschmidt’s workshop. They all had pale, dirty faces and wheezed a little when they spoke. I expected the wood dust settled in their lungs. If they could make it through, though, they would have a craft that would assure them a decent living. The apprenticeship lasted nine long years. Toby would be a man by the time he was finished. No harm in letting him remain a child for a while longer.

  By the time we had walked out Marienhilferstrasse to Haydn’s apartment, thinking about what lay ahead for Toby had thoroughly chastened me. How could I be so unhappy at the prospect of marrying and keeping a house when my young brother would soon be little better than a slave to the exacting Herr Goldschmidt and suffer beatings if he made mistakes?

  These worries were soon overtaken by others. I walked into the parlor of Haydn’s apartment with a great deal of trepidation. Had my notation the day before been correct? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “My dear, my dear, my dear!” Godfather Haydn said. “You are quite as talented as your father. I thought as much. There wasn’t a wrong note to be found anywhere.”

  I was relieved. But now I would have to work even harder to make sure my accuracy wasn’t just the luck of inexperience. We got right to it, and in an hour I had put down the next two movements of the quartet. The maestro thanked me again, gathered up his cloak, and left just as quickly as he had the day before. I collected Toby from the kitchen. We raced back into town, both breathless by the time we stopped at the tailor’s. I gave Herr Machen the instructions for the clothing that Toby would need, mostly practical coats and shirts and breeches with reinforced knees. I used one of the silver Thaler Haydn had given me to pay for the clothes, and asked if he could get the cobbler to stop in. When the tailor left us alone in his stuffy workshop for a moment while he went to get Herr Schober, the cobbler, I took Toby by the shoulders and made him attend to me.

 
“There is something I must do, and no one—least of all Mama—must know about it. I have to leave you here. Do you know the way home?”

  “Yes. It’s not far from here, and I’m not a baby, you know.”

  “Tell me.”

  He sighed impatiently. “I head toward the Hofburg.”

  “That’s right. And mind you don’t take shortcuts down any deserted alleys. When the cobbler finishes measuring your feet, you’re to go straight back. I don’t want you being kidnapped and sold to the Gypsies!” I said. “Here is a Kreutzer in case you need it. Tell Mama that I had to run an errand for Kapellmeister Haydn.”

  “She won’t like it,” he said, crossing his arms and frowning.

  “She won’t, but I have to do this. You can either make trouble for me, or you can help me. It’s important.” I stared him down. He was stubborn, but I was more so.

  “All right.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  I knew I was taking a risk by leaving him to find his own way home, but he was a smart lad, it was not even midday yet, and the weather was fine. He wore his warmest cloak and new stockings that I had knitted for him just before Christmas.

  I had taken care to dress as drably and modestly as I could, but I still felt as if I drew stares from everyone I passed. Some men who were laying bricks for a wall called out rude things to me, like “There’s a ripe one!” and “Come on over and give us a kiss!” I knew they were just doing it for a laugh, but I wanted to spit at them. I wasn’t trying to attract their attention. Why couldn’t they just ignore me? I checked several times to be sure the medallion and its gold chain were well hidden, and I pulled my cloak around me to hide myself as much as possible. Groups of men had frightened me ever since Marie whispered to me that one of the servants’ daughters had been brutally raped when she took a shortcut down a deserted alley on her way home from the market. Her parents were so ashamed they sent her off to be a menial in a convent. I never understood why they blamed her, and no one made much of an effort to find the men who attacked her.