Mozart's Last Aria Part 6

I played a few simple triads on the clavichord. Its metal tangents struck the iron strings with a sound that was sharper, spikier than the hammers of the pianoforte I had grown accustomed to playing. The white sharps and flats stood out like strips of ice against the black keys. Still, it was well-tuned.

I warmed my fingers with a brief scale, and played a minuet by Emanuel Bach.

As I played, Stadler moved closer to the clavichord. He sat on the edge of an embroidered stool, fingering the keys of his clarinet, eager to join in the music.

When I had finished, he laid his hand on the body of the clavichord with reverence. "If you dressed in the red suit Wolfgang wore for all his concerts, we'd be able to have him back. You look just like him. You play just as he did, too."

In Stadler's deep brown eyes I glimpsed his enjoyment of my performance. The pain returned to them quickly, as though he had remembered that the red suit wasn't mine to wear, after all.

"Let's get to the concerto." He worked his lips on the reed of his instrument. "I'll play the orchestral line, so that you may refresh your memory of the piece."

We played through the opening movement. At first I watched Stadler for signs of his approval. But soon I was absorbed with the music, its joyful piano part, and the melancholy of the woodwinds as Stadler figured them on his clarinet.

We finished that movement. Stadler wiped his lips with his forefinger. "Good. Just the right tempo. Many people play it too fast. Now for the Andante."

"You know, when my father first sent me the score of this movement, I thought it had been copied wrongly."

"The unusual counterpoint?"

"Exactly."

"When I think how Wolfgang could manipulate an orchestra, tease us and make us examine new horizons without our quite knowing it-well, that's when I see the difference between my kind of talent and his genius."

"This movement makes me think of a dream." I played the melody of the piece as I spoke. "It's andante, walking speed. As though you were sleepwalking through the dream. There's a little dissonance. But it always returns to a tone of serenity."

Stadler brandished his clarinet with enthusiasm. "That's it. If you were dreaming in your bed you'd be safe. Sleepwalking, though, you're never sure where you are."

"Wolfgang gives us these dissonant moments, as though the security of a warm bed were slipping away from us."

"But he brings us back to the resolving key."

"To sleep. Calm and restful."

Stadler's smile was wide. "You have it, you really do."

He lifted his instrument to his lips and went into the orchestral theme that introduced the movement. I closed my eyes for the piano solo. I imagined it wasn't I who played. I was listening to Wolfgang.

When we finished, Stadler rocked on his stool. "I remember when he debuted this piece. That must be six years ago now."

Six years in which I hadn't seen my brother, years when he had surpa.s.sed all other composers. The last three of them, years in which we hadn't communicated. Stadler averted his eyes. The warmth of our musical collaboration was gone.

"I didn't forget him, Herr Stadler."

"Naturally."

"I had his music, even if I didn't have him."

He tapped at the keys of his clarinet.

We played through the concerto again in full. He was distracted this time. When the music was over, he stared at my hands on the keyboard with such agitation that I hid them behind my back.

To escape Stadler's glare, I turned to the window. The hood of a woman crossing the square lifted in the wind. I was reminded of the gust that had caught my own cloak outside the Collalto Palace.

"Who was the gentleman I saw you with yesterday?" I asked.

Stadler laid his clarinet across his knees. "What?"

"A tall gentleman. A n.o.bleman, in fact, by the crest on his coach," I said. "You spoke with him as he departed. I think he went toward the Hofburg."

Stadler coughed. His reluctance was evident. He whispered, "The Baron van Swieten."

Swieten had been my brother's greatest patron at the palace since Wolfgang's arrival in Vienna a decade before. He had often written to me of him. "Tell me about the baron?"

"What's there to tell? He was born in Holland. He came here as a boy, when his father was ordered into the service of the late empress as her physician. He's close to the emperor."

"Shall I meet him tonight? At the concert?"

Stadler rapped his knuckles on the clavichord. I sensed he wished he had chosen a different soloist after all. "It'll be hard to miss him. He commands-"

"Attention?"

He shrugged.

"Love?" I asked.

Stadler looked at me curiously. "Respect. He commands respect."

I remembered the way the baron's gaze had fallen upon me in the square, the moment when I had thought he would speak to me.

"Did he recognize me?" My voice had an unseemly eagerness. Stadler rubbed his nose. Perhaps he had heard it.

"The baron asked me if the person he saw could be Wolfgang's sister. I told him it was."

He stood. "Perhaps you'd like something to drink, madame? The air is cold, but your exertion at the keyboard shall have put you in need of sustenance." He tried for joviality and kindness. But the discomfort in his voice was like an ill-tuned string, the sound that would be heard above all others.

"Very kind, thank you."

He excused himself with relief and went through the apartment to the pantry.

I wandered across the room to Stadler's desk. Sheets of music in my brother's hand spread over its slanting surface. A concerto for clarinet and orchestra in A major. Wolfgang had signed and dated the ma.n.u.script only a few months ago. It would've been one of the last pieces he wrote.

I took up the sheets, reading across the orchestral and solo parts of the first movement. Wolfgang must've written it for Stadler, because it required the low tones of his friend's ba.s.s clarinet.

Stadler called from the kitchen. "I can find only brandy, madame."

So absorbed was I by Wolfgang's beautiful composition that the loud voice startled me. I went to the door. "Very good, Herr Stadler. Brandy will do just fine."

As I returned to the desk, I noticed that the score had lain on top of a souvenir book, Stadler's record of friends and visitors to his home. It was open to a page marked with a few lines of script and a signature. The same signature as the one on the music I held.

The text was in English. I recalled what Schikaneder had said about the Masons, writing to each other in the language of England in token of their Brotherhood's origins.

To my dear Stadler, whose clarinet is a magic flute to free mankind and promote higher feelings. Never forget the brother (you know what I mean) who loves you from his heart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The signature was followed by two triangles drawn one beside the other.

The brother. Indeed I did know what that meant. Stadler had admitted that he was Wolfgang's Masonic brother. Schikaneder had told me about the triangles Masons drew as signs between each other.

I traced my fingers across my brother's handwriting. You know what I mean. His suggestive, winking voice. I flipped the pages, looking for another message from Wolfgang.

Two more triangles caught my eye. They concluded a note by a different writer, though in the same language. It was on the most recent page of the book to have been used, dated only a day before.

Be industrious. Flee idleness. Your sincere friend and brother, the Baron Konstant von Jacobi.

On the facing page, another note in English. Signed by the Prince Karl Lichnowsky, followed by two triangles. Constanze had named Lichnowsky among Wolfgang's Masonic brethren. Here was the proof in the prince's own hand.

I would've examined the book further, but I heard Stadler returning. I laid the concerto over it and pretended to read through the score.

"Some brandy to revive us both, madame." Stadler came in with two tumblers.

I realized that I hadn't turned the pages of the souvenir book back to the one signed by Wolfgang. I hoped Stadler wouldn't notice.

My pulse picked up. The strange signs in the souvenir book. The fear that my intrusion would be discovered. I took the cup of brandy and drank.

"It brings some color to your cheeks, anyway." Stadler laughed.

I flushed and laid my hand on the desk. "I was enjoying this concerto for clarinet, Herr Stadler. It's wonderful."

"I premiered it in Prague less than two months ago. A great success. I couldn't have imagined then-" Stadler picked up the score. He hesitated.

His glanced hovered on the souvenir book. I was sure he had noticed that its pages had been turned. He hummed the opening theme of the concerto. "Couldn't have imagined then what a disaster was to come with Wolfgang's pa.s.sing."

He put the ma.n.u.script on the desk. "Enough of such things. No more disasters await us. After all, I've heard you play now. Tonight's concert shall be a triumph. Don't you think?"

"I'm sure of it, sir."

As I crossed Jews' Square I glanced from under the hood of my cloak. Stadler stood in his window. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he saw me, he bowed and retreated from the light.

Chapter 8.

As the afternoon light faded on Rauhenstein Lane, I halted my exercises at Wolfgang's piano and listened to my sister-in-law singing in the next room. An aria of my brother's composition, about the pain of love. He wrote it during their courtship, for a character in his opera who bore his future wife's name. Now she practiced it for the concert at the Academy, to raise funds for the family that had lost him.

"Sorrow dwells in my breast," she sang. Her ascending trills made me grasp at the shawl covering my chest. Her technique was exceptional, but it had been more than fine breath control that inspired Wolfgang to write such music for her.

On the sole occasion when Wolfgang had brought Constanze to Salzburg, I had been cold to her. I might've blamed the influence of my father, who had thought her a poor match for his only son. But in truth I had been jealous of their love and companionship-things which had been denied to me. I saw now that I had overlooked her talent as a singer. Perhaps this wasn't all I had neglected to notice in her.

She came to the door, with little Karl behind her skirts again. Her smile bore a touch of apprehension that reminded me how soon we were to perform. "The carriage will be ready shortly," she said.

We negotiated the narrowness of Backer Street toward the University Square, our carriage rocking over the cobbles. Constanze's thin shoulder b.u.mped against mine.

"Tell me about life in St. Gilgen, sister?" She watched the pa.s.sing houses as though searching for something in the courtyards beyond their arched entranceways. "Is it peaceful, out there in the mountains?"

I wondered if there was something about Vienna she wished to escape. Maybe only the painful memory of her husband's death.

"There are seven children in the house. My five stepchildren are quite unruly," I said. "The boys are little liars whom my husband refuses to discipline. In her studies, the eldest girl has no application. My home is no more peaceful than the Graben during the hour when all the rich Viennese promenade."

"But it must be delightful to have so many children around?"

"My husband's children from his first wives lack concentration. I tried to teach piano to the twelve-year-old, but she couldn't focus. She won't brush her teeth or eat when she should. She runs about the house, screeching. It's all so irregular. My husband is a good man, but he's unconcerned with the education of his children-something I consider to be paramount and, of course, to be handled competently only by the parents."

She mumbled something into her hand, but it was inaudible over the horses' hooves on the cobbles.

"What was that?" I said.

Constanze's black eyes rested on me with a frankness that was blank and terrible. "I said, you sound like your father." She returned her gaze to the window.

I loved my father and believed him to have been a warm parent, but I hoped I was a more forgiving educator. I saw that Constanze had been hurt by his rejection of her marriage. I decided not to reason with her about Papa's true character. Better to concentrate on my performance. Inside my fur ruff, I let my fingers trip through the Allegro which begins the Concerto in C.

Our driver turned into the square beneath the austere towers of the Jesuit Church, where my father once conducted Wolfgang's Dominicus Ma.s.s. We drew up before the cla.s.sical facade of the Academy of Science.

The tall windows on the upper floor illuminated the Corinthian columns to a rich cream. Where the lights were brightest, there would be the hall. It ran across several of the windows and would surely hold a large crowd. My breath was quick, but not with nerves. I was expectant, excited to play before such an audience once more.

Stiff from the drafty carriage, Constanze stamped her feet. She inclined her head toward the entrance and took my arm.

Inside, we halted at the bare stone and whitewashed walls of the stairs. Constanze stared up the steps, as though they would be too far for her to climb.

"I've never sung his music when he wasn't there to applaud," she whispered.

Her tiny hand clawed my upper arm. "It was surely not for his applause alone that you sang," I said.

In the mellow flickering of the stairwell lamps, her black eyes swam with tears. We went up.

As we reached the first landing, I noticed Stadler at the top of the stairs. He circled a man of aristocratic bearing who lifted his chin so high he seemed almost to be examining Stadler's cropped hair, though he otherwise ignored him. Both men looked dour and sullen. I supposed that ought not to have been a surprise. It was a concert in support of a dead man's impoverished family, after all.

Rushing skirts gained on us. "Stanzerl, wait, my darling."

A small woman with a rounded face and cheeks red from the cold came to our side, her chest and neck wrapped in fur. From the resemblance in the wide black eyes I saw that this was one of Constanze's sisters, and by the easy resonance of her voice I judged her to be Josefa, who had appeared as a soprano in the Vienna premiere of Wolfgang's Don Giovanni. She kissed Constanze, then laid her cheek against mine. She touched my shoulder and gave a mournful look.

"My dear, my poor, poor dear," she said. "We must bear up. We simply must." She shook her head and led us up the stairs with a dramatic gasp.

Constanze raised an eyebrow.