Mozart's Last Aria Part 7

Her sister approached the gentlemen at the top of the steps, extending her hand for a kiss, exuding the emotional exhaustion of the demonstratively bereaved.

Stadler bowed to Constanze and took her hand. When he kissed it, her skin was pale against his flushed features. He gave an edgy, apologetic glance to the man beside him, before reaching out a hand to introduce me. "The Prince Lichnowsky," he said, with another bow.

One of the men who drew triangles in Stadler's souvenir book. Lichnowsky lowered the lids of his eyes in acknowledgment of Stadler's introduction. He was about thirty, dressed in a simple black frock coat of velvet and a vest of gold thread. His clothing gave off a scent of rosewater, but on his breath I detected a strong odor of the rolled tobacco leaves known as Sevillas.

"Would Madame de Mozart do me the honor of accompanying me into the concert hall?" Lichnowsky bowed and took my hand. He moved as though his limbs were hinged like the puppets in the emperor's marionette theater at Schonbrunn.

He led me through white double doors into a lavish hall. Pink and gray marble rose in a stucco relief up the walls, to give the effect of cla.s.sical columns. The Grecian figures of the ceiling fresco represented the academic disciplines studied at the university.

The hall filled with the conversation of perhaps four hundred people. Many were of the highest society, holding themselves on their upright chairs with a listless rigidity that reminded me of the kings and queens for whom I had played as a girl. I noted much greater animation among those who wore plainer attire. These were probably wealthy merchants. Wolfgang had often said that aristocrats no longer had sufficient funds for household orchestras and so he had gathered groups of businessmen to support his concerts. These had come tonight to show that the pleasure of his music hadn't died with him.

Lichnowsky guided me to the front row. He bowed from the waist to some of those seated around us.

Everyone on the front row shifted to see who had arrived. Except one man. The Baron van Swieten stared ahead, silent and still. Looking sideways toward his seat at the center of the first row, I scrutinized him, unseen.

He was a broad man. His frock coat was embroidered with silver on a frosty gray fabric. His hands rested on a silver-topped stick that he held upright, its tip on the marble floor. Perhaps a decade older than me, he had very black hair. The shadow of his beard was thick on his cheeks and chin.

Swieten ignored the chatter around him, gazing at the piano with a look of puzzlement and pain. I had the impression he was trying to will Wolfgang back into existence so that he might hear him play once more. He bore himself with the air of one so powerful that he was used to having his wishes granted. His stare intensified, vexed to find this single, profound desire beyond his command.

Lichnowsky touched my elbow and gestured to my seat.

When we settled, the prince spoke so softly in the direction of the elaborate crystal lantern beside the stage that at first I failed to understand he was addressing me. "I consider myself to have been a close friend of your brother, madame," he said. "As close as is possible between two men of such different station, you understand."

"No doubt my brother was mindful of the honor you did him, my prince."

"I might even say I was his companion. We traveled together."

Wolfgang took to the road only when he was a.s.sured of paid recitals at the end of his journey, so I admit that I forgot to whom I was speaking. "You performed with him?"

Lichnowsky's eyebrow quivered in annoyance. Like all aristocrats, he thought of the public performance of music as a task fit only for servants. "We made a trip to Berlin together," he said.

"Rather a long journey."

"Which brought us into close companionship."

I recalled that Magdalena's husband had lent my brother money for that trip. I wondered why he had needed extra funds, if he had traveled with a prince.

"My brother went to Berlin in search of a position at the court of the Prussian king. May I ask why you went?"

"My family has estates in the Prussian province of Silesia. There were some rental issues to resolve."

"Do your estates take you to Berlin often?"

"Not at all." Lichnowsky spoke so sharply that, in the orchestra, a double ba.s.s player and two cellists looked up from their tuning in surprise.

The prince waited, to be sure that the musicians had returned their attention to their instruments. "I suppose I could've avoided the trip had it been solely to manage my estates. I chose to accompany Wolfgang for other reasons."

"As a brother Mason?"

He faked a cough, to disguise my words.

I would've questioned him more, but Maestro Salieri, the court composer, entered the hall from an antechamber. The orchestra rose.

Salieri acknowledged the applause. The room grew quiet. Salieri gathered himself, his mouth tight, his eyes full of suffering. He raised his arms and began the Allegro vivace of Wolfgang's last symphony.

It was the first time I had heard it. It carried me away with a complexity and majesty I hadn't encountered in his earlier symphonies.

By the time Salieri drove his arms high to end the fugue of the Molto allegro finale, all power had drained from my body. I had known my brother as a prodigy, then as a man of extraordinary talent at the keyboard who possessed a sensitive compositional technique. Until this moment I had failed to comprehend the staggering extent of his gifts.

My mouth opened and I cried low, while those around me rose to applaud. When he had been merely my brother, I had mourned Wolfgang's death. Now that I saw him as a man of such stupefying musical genius, I felt his loss so much more greatly. It was this which kept me in my chair, shivering.

Lichnowsky regarded me in puzzlement, as though embarra.s.sed by my emotion. "Madame?"

I brushed a finger below my tearful eyes and smiled. I wished to divert him, to alleviate his discomfiture. I touched his wrist. "You were telling me about the trip to Berlin. How was the journey?"

"Wolfgang and I went slowly to Berlin, by way of Leipzig. Your brother made a study there of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach." His lip twitched and he stroked his nose. "We progressed to Berlin and attended upon the king of Prussia at the Sanssouci Palace. It's a most delightful place. The gardens are the best of it. While we waited, we walked through the terraces and into a pleasant grotto behind a waterfall."

"A grotto?"

He faltered over my interruption. "Quite so. A little cave. A cool place to sit during the hot summer months. The king was also constructing an Egyptian garden, with statues in the pharaonic style and mystical pyramids."

I slipped my hand into the pocket of my dress and touched Wolfgang's note. The Grotto. I closed my eyes.

The prince leaned toward me. "Are you unwell?"

Applause, once more.

"Your sister-in-law is about to perform," he said.

Constanze sang "Ah, I was in love," and her sister followed her with a virtuoso aria that, Lichnowsky informed me, she was performing in The Magic Flute at Schikaneder's theater.

But I heard little. I was overcome with confusion. Lichnowsky's mention of a grotto in Berlin, Stadler's fury over the letter, Gieseke's strange numerical rant. I tried to slow my thoughts. I needed to clear my mind before I performed.

My fingers were crooked and cramped. Staring at them, I feared I'd disappoint the audience. As a girl, I had often waited to perform while Wolfgang ran through his tricks and delighted everyone, playing blindfolded and improvising on demand. He frequently went on so long and to such acclaim that there was no time left for me to play. I would watch, downcast, as the dukes and princes wandered away to their dinners without hearing me. I wished that this would be my fate today. One after the other, Vienna's best musicians displayed their interpretations of my brother's genius. Soon I was to demonstrate that the name of Mozart might attach to mediocrity, too.

Mademoiselle von Paradies completed her recital of a piano sonata by Wolfgang in B-flat major with a vigorous cadenza. She came to her feet, breathing hard, defiant and triumphant. Her rolling, blind eyes seemed to seek me out in the audience.

As the applause for Paradies subsided, the orchestra tuned up once more. Maestro Salieri bowed to me, gesturing toward the piano.

I stared at him, my vision out of focus, a chill in my belly. I had never been frightened in front of an audience. Neither was I now. I was scared of Wolfgang. What would he think of me?

My legs shook. I would not stand. I heard the coughing and muttering of the spectators as though I were listening with my head submerged in a washbowl.

I couldn't do it. Wolfgang would be ashamed of me.

"Madame de Mozart?"

I looked up. Baron van Swieten extended his hand. A long spray of white lace fell from his cuff, but the hand was thick and black hair ran along the backs of his fingers.

A delicate tug from that strong hand, and I arose. He led me to the piano, the tapping of his cane on the floor the only sound in the room.

I sat before the piano and watched him step to his seat in the front row.

As the soloist, I was to double as the conductor. But I found I couldn't lift my hands. A few of the musicians cleared their throats. Someone in the audience snickered.

The baron snapped his fingers to get the attention of the violas and cellos. Like me, the musicians saw the command in his face. He twisted his wrist to count the beats and conducted the orchestra into the march at the opening of the Allegro.

I stared at the hands in my lap. The keyboard seemed so far away from them. When I looked up at the baron, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and a shaking in my jaw. He smiled and nodded encouragement, then he gestured for the woodwinds to answer the theme.

We approached the moment for me to play. I raised my hands and brought them through the brief scales with which the piano enters the concerto. By the time I neared the conclusion of the opening movement, I sensed a new strength in my fingers and through my shoulders. I improvised an intricate, exhilarating cadenza. My body felt weightless, drifting above the floor and the stool, connected to nothing but the keyboard.

I took in a long breath and lifted my head toward the baron. He led the orchestra into the serene second movement.

The music soothed me. Every note spoke to me like the voice of my brother when we had been children rattling from town to town in the coach my father bought for our longest tours. Wolfgang's smile beamed from the keyboard and his laughter reached out of the body of the piano.

In the final movement, I grew exhilarated by the speed of the arpeggios and scales. The joyous theme carried me to a sense of such complete triumph and life that I barely heard the applause.

Baron van Swieten gestured for me to stand.

I bounced on my toes with excitement. Constanze wept against her sister's shoulder.

In a strong baritone, the baron called, "Brava." He rose, and the crowd followed him.

I laughed when I caught his eye. My delight was pure and childish. But it was because of the music, not the applause.

He stepped forward and raised the silver head of his cane to quiet the crowd.

"Our dear Maestro Mozart has departed from us," he said. "He left the astonishing power of his music, whose secrets we amateurs might only guess at. But he understood, as until this moment we did not, that someone remained who might reveal those mysteries to us." He reached for my hand. "Thank you, Madame de Mozart, for restoring to us the great spirit of your lost brother."

I lifted my lower teeth over my upper lip and grinned. It wasn't the most sophisticated of gestures, but after all no one knew as well as I how lost my brother's spirit had appeared to be-nor how strongly it had returned to me.

As the audience applauded again, I vowed that I'd repay Wolfgang for this moment, no matter the cost to my soul or my body. I had rejoined him in his music. Once more we were together.

Chapter 9.

Baron van Swieten concentrated on his cane, as though its tip clicked out a message in an obscure code on the floorboards. The muscles of his face were tight. I saw he struggled to overcome a strong emotion, but his voice revealed it. "It was as though Wolfgang performed for us here this evening."

"You flatter me, sir."

He rubbed his finger beneath his nose. "Oh, I'm really not given to flattery."

"It's something I've never learned, either. So you'll believe me when I say that Wolfgang wrote of you very often and most fondly."

"Less of me, I imagine, than of the concerts he gave among my friends. I host small musical gatherings each Sunday afternoon in the great hall of the Imperial Library. We used to sing around the piano, and Wolfgang would play and sing and correct our harmonies all at once. It's as if a beloved son has been taken from me." Swieten's eyes lifted from the floor and brightened. "Will you join us tomorrow for our little musical salon? You'd honor us."

Perhaps, in Swieten's library, I'd find others who had been close to Wolfgang. They might know more about the mysterious Grotto, or at least a.s.suage my doubts about his death. "I should be delighted. I hope my playing won't disappoint you and your guests."

"After hearing you this evening, I'm sure it shan't."

"The audience was most distinguished. It was a lovely evening of music all around."

Swieten glanced at the aristocrats and merchants promenading about the hall. "These people are stinking and corrupt. Their unwashed bodies reek beneath this tide of cologne on the air. But you're right, the music was lovely."

Though I wished only to relish the thrill of my success, I was sensitive to his evident preoccupation. "Something is amiss, my lord?"

"Let's say I have some troublesome duties at the palace. In addition to the library, I head the emperor's censorship office. But I find that I don't believe in censorship. I would have everyone free to say and write just what they wish." His smile was bitter. "I'm forever at war with those in the emperor's service who'd ban all but the Bible."

Lichnowsky came to Swieten's shoulder with Stadler and Constanze.

My sister-in-law took my hand. "You played so beautifully," she said.

"The concerto was divine, Madame de Mozart," Lichnowsky said. "Wolfgang was so much ahead of his time, almost not of this world, an angel. One might say he was too much for us. That's why he died-to enter a heaven fit for him."

Swieten rapped the floor with his cane. "Nonsense, my prince. Wolfgang was of this time more than any of us. He represented its new ideas of enlightenment and freedom and equality, of scientific and intellectual inquiry. You'll find all these things in his songs and in the themes of his operas. If there are some who'd prevent the course of progress, it's they who truly drove him to his death." He looked about as though he might find such people nearby and wished to confront them. He radiated a potency that was at odds with the lace and embroidery of his costume.

"But Wolfgang's ideas can't be killed off," he continued. "He never allowed his fears to silence his art."

I caught a glance between Lichnowsky and Stadler that carried a warning. I wondered about Swieten's last words. What had Wolfgang had to fear?

"So Maestro Mozart was free of fear? If so, it was a fault." A smooth, cultured voice behind us. " 'Fear should sit as the guardian of the soul, forcing it to wisdom.' "

Our group turned toward a gentleman in a green coat who smiled at Baron van Swieten, twirling the curl of his periwig above his ear.

"But Aeschylus goes on to add that mercy should take precedence over harsh judgment," Swieten said. "Your cla.s.sical learning is faulty, sir."

"If only I might ruminate all my days in your Imperial Library, I'd correct this fault. Alas, my duties are of a more practical nature."

Swieten squared his jaw, but was silent.

The newcomer opened a gold box, tapped some snuff onto his knuckle, and sniffed it into each nostril. "I overheard the prince calling Mozart an angel. Perhaps our departed maestro has, indeed, become a myth. After all, he's now in the realms beyond earthly power." He lowered his voice. "Even if none of us has yet escaped it."

Lichnowsky took a step backward. His eyes registered fear. "An angel? I meant it as a figure of speech. I-"

"There's too much unthinking speech nowadays and not enough reverence for the way things are." The gentleman bowed to me. "Madame de Mozart."

His manner made me hostile and pedantic. "I ought to correct you, sir. I'm Madame Berchtold von Sonnenburg, to be precise," I said.

"Oh, I'm aware of that." His expression was devout and insouciant, like a priest before a cowering sinner, pleased by the knowledge that secrets could never be hidden from him.

Under that gaze, I felt a quiver of disquiet, as though by mentioning my husband's name I had implicated him in some conspiracy as yet unknown to me.