Mozart's Last Aria Part 10

The servant removed the dishes and brought a steaming ceramic pot from the sideboard.

"These days the emperor listens to the suspicions of Count Pergen, whom you met at the concert last night. The Minister of Police, as you may have noticed, is no liberal."

From the pot, the servant drew out a slice of boiled beef with a thick band of fat and ladled some potatoes onto my plate.

Swieten watched the servant set a plate before him and frowned. "I'm losing my battle against Pergen. The battle to preserve a place in our society for progress and free thought."

When I had entertained n.o.blemen on the harpsichord as a child, I had known nothing of their struggles to promote their ideas and to make the state in the image of themselves. Listening to the baron, I felt foolish to have been so concerned with the color of my ribbons and the dressing of my hair. All around me had been conflict over issues of great importance, yet I had tinkled out a gavotte or a minuet.

"Wolfgang's music allowed me to believe this battle would soon be over," the baron said. "His art embraced these new ideas and gave me the feeling that they were unstoppable. Even Count Pergen would tap his foot to one of Wolfgang's contredanses. Your brother's compositions were irresistible in a way that my arguments in the emperor's council could never be."

"I'm sure that only your grief for Wolfgang makes you see things so darkly." I heard the emptiness of my words and so did the baron.

"Without him, my failures are highlighted rather too brightly," he said. "Perhaps it's because I miss Wolfgang's inspiration that I've turned to desperate speculations about how he met his end. I beg you to put them aside."

"In only three days in Vienna, I've learned some curious things about Wolfgang's death. I don't know what to make of them, but they're more than mere speculations."

I drew the paper from my pocket and unfolded it. I saw that Swieten recognized the handwriting as my brother's even across the table. His features were instantly alert. He laid down his knife and fork, and reached for the page. I pa.s.sed it to him.

"What was Wolfgang's Grotto?" I asked.

The baron flicked his wrist for the servant to remove his plate. "Grotto?"

"He appeared to have in mind some new Masonic lodge at the time of his death."

Swieten read over the two paragraphs of Wolfgang's writing.

The servant hovered, waiting for the baron to remove his free hand from the rim of his plate. He stood back when he saw his master's preoccupation.

"A new lodge?" the baron said. "How did you-?"

"Constanze found it among Wolfgang's papers."

He shoved his plate away. He whispered Wolfgang's name, as though admonishing a child.

"Herr Stadler seems to believe that this put my brother in danger," I said.

"You'd think that with so many aristocrats among the Masons, Wolfgang would see it as a pleasant debate club. You know, just a way to meet influential patrons," Swieten said. "Indeed, it was-for a time. Until our emperor concluded that the Masons spread radical ideas, and placed restrictions on them."

"So people are afraid to be known as Masons now?"

"Terrified. Most of the Masons simply resigned from their lodges. They've no wish to risk a confrontation with the emperor."

I drew in my breath. I knew my brother's dissident temperament. "But not Wolfgang."

The baron stared at the paper I had given him. "Wolfgang became one of the most prominent men in the remaining Viennese lodges. He wrote music for their meetings."

"And he allowed his partic.i.p.ation to be widely known?"

"He didn't hide it."

"Did he put his life at risk?"

Swieten watched the sunlight, green through his winegla.s.s. "You haven't seen The Magic Flute yet?"

"With respect, my lord, is that the answer to my question? Did The Magic Flute endanger Wolfgang?"

"I'd be delighted to accompany you to a performance."

"I heard that it's full of the symbols used by Masons in their secret practices."

"So it is."

"Could Wolfgang have been threatened by Freemasons angry that their secrets were revealed?"

Swieten tipped his head. "I don't know. But I'm sure Wolfgang only wanted to show the emperor that Masonry aims to create a brotherhood of mankind. That it's no threat to his power as ruler."

The naivete of the project sounded true to my brother. "You believe another Mason murdered Wolfgang, don't you?"

"The Masons live in a state of mutual suspicion," he said. "They're infiltrated by Pergen's agents. They fear to be accused of treachery against the emperor so much that they become traitors to each other."

He handed the Grotto note to me. I returned it to my pocket, as he went into his study. Through the door, I saw him draw a file from a pile of ma.n.u.scripts and open it. He came back to the doorway.

"Listen to this. 'The police are charged with observing what people are saying about the monarch and his government, what the general att.i.tude of the people is concerning the government, whether there are any malcontents or even agitators at work among the upper or lower cla.s.ses, all of which is to be regularly reported to headquarters.' This is a secret decree of the emperor granting new powers to Pergen to employ agents at every level of society. No one may speak freely anymore."

"But one may sing freely?"

He raised his finger. "Wolfgang believed so."

"Was he wrong?"

"When people speak out against the state, only a few radicals on the fringe of society pay attention."

"But when Wolfgang played his music-"

"Everybody listened."

The bells sounded the Angelus, three strokes followed by a pause for prayer, repeated three times. I whispered a Hail Mary between each set of chimes.

When the chimes stopped, Swieten cleared his throat, as though prayer were an embarra.s.sment. "My guests will be arriving. It's almost time for your performance."

Chapter 13.

Two dozen gentlemen of the Society of a.s.sociated Cavaliers chattered and swigged from their cups of hot wine, as the footmen lit the lamps in the Imperial Library. Across the courtyard, the lanterns of the emperor's ceremonial apartments glimmered amber through the double-glazed windows.

I took my seat at the piano. Baron van Swieten stared at the men until they quieted like guilty schoolboys on their gilded chairs.

"Madame de Mozart," he said, with a bow.

For the occasion, I had practiced one of Wolfgang's fugues, because I remembered he had written of Swieten's liking for that style of composition. It was a complex piece by a mature musician. But these men already knew that Wolfgang. I wished to show them the Wolfgang I had known. I closed my eyes and recalled a room at an inn in Amsterdam when I was fifteen.

Wolfgang would've been ten years old. My mother was reading a new English novel, though she managed to learn little of that language despite our year in London. Our father was writing another of his letters to our landlord in Salzburg enumerating our many successes. I was at the piano, while Wolfgang scratched his quill over the notebook he used for composing, humming a bland little melody.

Even as I lifted my hands to the keyboard in the Imperial Library, I recalled the way my brother and I had laughed as he forced his way onto the piano stool, b.u.mping his hip against mine, so that he might try out the set of variations he had written. They were based on a song by the prince of Orange's court composer.

So, instead of the fugue, I went into that trilling Dutch theme. I continued through the syncopated variation, the triplets, the shorter notes, the Adagio.

I became that fifteen-year-old girl once more, happy and playful, her family around her. Within the music I created a fantasy life in which I hadn't lost touch with my brother. In this fiction, I had spoken to my mother and father as I had wished to speak, rather than as I thought they'd prefer to hear me. These fictional parents duly consented that I should follow a musical career, like Wolfgang.

While I played his music, I imagined that he hadn't died.

Then the variations were at an end. I was in the Imperial Library once more. The cupola resounded to the applause of some of the most powerful men in Vienna.

And Wolfgang was dead.

The florid faces around me beamed at one another in enjoyment. Anger tightened my hands into fists. When I played Wolfgang's music it was as though he were alive. How could they hear the piece reach its end without experiencing once more the tragedy of his death?

Baron van Swieten's lips were firm, not smiling. I saw that for him, too, Wolfgang died every time he heard his music. We watched each other until the applause ended.

Someone cleared his throat as if in embarra.s.sment. Swieten collected himself. "Herr Gieseke, please."

I hadn't noticed the actor when I entered. He came to stand before the piano. I gave him a smile of surprise and recognition, which he didn't return. He wore the same black coat I had seen on him in the pavilion at the Freihaus Theater. He had scrubbed the milky stain from its hem. His cravat was high around his neck and he had brushed his thinning hair into a romantic sweep back from his brow. I took a chair beside Swieten.

Gieseke declaimed the opening lines of an ode by the scandalous poet Schiller. I had heard that it portrayed ordinary men as equal in station to their monarchs. Yet the aristocrats smiled approval as they listened to the actor.

"Anger and revenge shall be forgotten. Our deadly enemy shall be forgiven."

The strength of Gieseke's voice surprised me. When I met him, he had been sneering and shrill. I wondered if an actor speaking lines might be transformed as I was when I sat before the keyboard.

"Delivery from the chains of tyrants."

Swieten's chin quivered, moved by the poem.

"A serene hour of farewell. Sweet rest in the shroud."

Gieseke paused.

In the silence, he caught his breath with a hiss and lifted his eyes, expectant and fearful, toward the cherubs and sages painted in the dome above.

He raised his arms high. "Brothers, a mild sentence from the mouth of the final judge."

"Bravo." Swieten shot to his feet and applauded.

As the other cavaliers followed the baron, Gieseke dropped into a brief bow. A tightness across his brow looked like doubt. Was he unsure that his own sentence would be as forgiving as the poet suggested?

Swieten clapped Gieseke on the shoulder and thanked him. The actor shuffled toward the punch bowl.

"More music," the baron called.

Maestro Salieri took the piano, Swieten and two others the vocal parts, to perform an oratorio by Handel.

A heavy man in a blue coat with gold edging and white breeches settled on the chair beside me. His brows were low, and his face gave the impression of an eager wolf dog, jocular and predatory.

"Your performance was excellent, madame," he said, straightening his short, white wig.

"Thank you, sir."

"I had the pleasure of a close brotherhood with Maestro Mozart." He smiled in the direction of the singers and spoke without moving his lips. He glanced to the side to take me in. Though he was at home in the palace, his eyes had a feral meanness that belonged in the slums.

"I'm at the disadvantage of not hearing your name, sir," I said.

"The Baron Konstant von Jacobi, madame." His accent was harsh and clipped, northern German.

A close brotherhood with Wolfgang. I recalled his name and the triangles he had signed after it in Stadler's souvenir book. Another Freemason.

"A pleasure to meet your Honor. I detect by your voice that you're not Viennese. What brings you to this city?"

"Duty. I'm the amba.s.sador of the Prussian king."

"Had you shared your-your brotherhood with Wolfgang a long time?"

"Since his visit to Berlin two years ago. We renewed our acquaintance soon after, when I took up my post here."

"In Berlin. So you first saw him with the Prince Lichnowsky?"

The prince sat across the room, stiff and upright, his back not touching the support of the chair.

"Yes, with that scoundrel." The amba.s.sador flicked his hand in dismissal in the direction of Lichnowsky.

I found myself offended by this attack on a friend of Wolfgang. "He seems to me a fine gentleman."

"You think so? He's like one of the barges floating down the Danube toward Hungary. He travels well in the direction of the current, but he can't make the return journey against the tide. A trimmer, you understand, who follows other men. Without principle." The Prussian licked his lips and grinned. "He ought to be broken up for firewood, as those barges are when they reach their destination. Quite a scoundrel."

"But also a brother, is he not?"

He saw the inference and watched me as though amused by my deduction. "One can never be sure of escaping wickedness, even in the most brotherly of circles."

I had no wish to debate Lichnowsky's character. I returned to Wolfgang. "On your first meeting with Wolfgang, he sought a position at the court in Berlin."

Jacobi puffed out his cheeks. "The king wished to employ him and, therefore, extended the invitation. But there were cabals in the king's service opposed to Maestro Mozart. Threatened by his talent, no doubt. It was, in the end, beyond my lord's power."