Mozart's Sister: A Novel (43 page)

“Today I rose in a strange fit of restlessness, with the fear that what I have done up to now is not yet enough. The more I immerse myself in the endless mass of works that Wolfgang left to this world, the more I pledge to spread his marvelous musical soul, the closer I feel to that soul. And yet, my love, from time to time I find myself fighting with people who want to make it a commodity, who want to get rich off Mozart, something that never occurred to us.”

She interrupted herself, realizing that a woman was looking at her curiously. She made a polite gesture indicating that she didn’t wish to be disturbed, and the woman immediately went off.

“I know what you would say, Baptist. It’s natural that certain people want to take advantage of the name of someone who has been successful; it’s inevitable, and the intention itself constitutes the testimony and proof of that success. Therefore, my actions are good and just, and I shouldn’t be afraid; and yet sometimes I wonder what Wolfgang would think, if he would approve the direction I’ve chosen, or if he would consider it mistaken. Because I don’t know what he would say to me.”

She rose and tenderly caressed the high-sounding name of the baron, her husband. She placed a kiss on her fingers, then touched the cross and slowly left.

The other grave that awaited her care was modest but no longer bare: for Nannerl was not the only one to dedicate floral homages to Leopold Mozart.

“Do you know, Father, that in a published anthology of Wolfgang’s compositions for the piano, four spurious pieces were inserted? You would be horrified, certainly, but I find it enormously funny. First of all, let me tell you that I couldn’t prevent it, and it isn’t my fault: clear? Second, the idea that some innocent doesn’t know Mozart’s handwriting and takes someone else’s mess for it makes me laugh. Who knows how long it will be before the knowledge of the centuries traces a clear line between what is his and what isn’t. So, for the moment, dear Father, we have to resign ourselves and wait.”

She took a few steps toward the gate, then turned back, chose a daisy, and set it at the top of the cross, murmuring, “I love you, Father.” And, at peace, she went home.

II.

Sebastian, having exchanged the duties of a coachman for those of impeccable butler, was waiting for her at the door. “Baroness,” he said in a complicitous whisper, “that Italian has come back.”

“Oh, no—why did you let him come in?” she asked, scrutinizing a man with a large build lounging on a chair.

“Even I don’t know how he managed it. One minute he was on the landing, the next in the middle of the study.”

“He hasn’t touched the scores?”

“Heavens! I haven’t let him out of my sight for a moment.”

“Good. Come with me, please,” she said, and went through the archway declaring, “Your perseverance is admirable, Signor Bencini.”

He wouldn’t let her continue. He began to revolve around her like a top, babbling, “My dear, dear Baroness, I see you looking even better than usual today—do you know, blue becomes you? It makes the color of your eyes even more intense and alluring.”

“Spare the compliments or I’ll begin to fear you’re asking for my hand.”

He laughed nervously, and his belly quivered. “Think of it! The baroness is witty as well. Oh, oh, oh.”

“You wouldn’t marry me? I’m a little past my prime, but still presentable, they tell me.”

“Well, of course, naturally,” he stammered, “you are even today a grand, a beautiful woman, and without a doubt, I—”

“Bencini, why have you come again? I am not selling Mozart’s manuscripts. Have you got the idea? I am not selling any manuscripts,” she repeated, unruffled yet severe. “Must I tell you in your own language for you to understand?”

“But I—I have come purposely from Florence. It’s a long, difficult journey, days and days in a coach, in severe weather—it’s not a joke, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” she answered distractedly, placing the bag of pastries on the piano and picking up a package of proofs.

“Have you ever visited my country, Baroness?”

“I, no, but my brother and my father traveled all over Italy.”

“Then if you ever decide to undertake a journey to the land of opera, you must be my guest. And I warn you: I accept no excuses. I will welcome you to my abode in the hills like a true sovereign, or, rather, more like an empress! I will put my maid at your disposal. You will taste the prized Tuscan cuisine, and one beautiful sunny afternoon I will take you through the streets of the city and you will admire the baptistry in its imposing, shining elegance. Oh, I beg you, bestow on me that honor.”

“Spare your entreaties, Bencini—at my age, it certainly isn’t the thing to start on a journey,” she said, sitting down at the desk and preparing paper and ink. “Now, kindly let me work. Sebastian, please, accompany him to the door.”

“But I,” Bencini said, looking at the servant with a somewhat fearful air, “I promised that I would bring back at least one manuscript. Please, Baroness, put yourself in my shoes.”

“I have an idea they would be very big on me.”

“Hear me, oh most dear lady!” he cried, near desperation. “Consider my request, which isn’t excessive: one score! Only one. Only one tiny little manuscript of dear Mozart’s. Ultimately what does it cost you to lose one bit of paper? And, furthermore, I assure you,” he added in a conspiratorial tone, “that I can pay well.”

“It’s not a matter of money,” Nannerl said, giving him an icy look. “I won’t sell them, and that’s it. Go and don’t ever come back again.”

“No-o-o! I won’t go!” he shouted passionately. “I will not go unless you, cruel creature, let me look with my own eyes at the precious papers, at least for a moment!” And he fell on his knees at Nannerl’s feet.

“Should I throw him out, Baroness?” Sebastian said. “I fear I can’t manage it alone.”

She sighed. “All right, Bencini. I will let you look at the manuscripts, as you wish.”

“Oh yes! Thank you, adored Baroness!”

“Look and that’s all, clear? Get rid of any idea of buying even one. And while you’re looking, I don’t want to hear a word. And now promise me that as soon as you go out of that door you will disappear from my life forever.”

“I swear it,” he said, kissing the hem of her dress.

“We are agreed. You can examine this shelf. Handle every piece of paper with religious care. Now let me see your hands.”

He showed her his palms, which were fat but clean.

“Perfect. But if you dare to make even just a tiny crease, I warn you, Bencini, I will send you flying out the window.”

“I won’t, I promise. You will find the scores more beautiful and tidy and clean and smooth than when you handed them to me.”

“I hope so,” Nannerl said, then whispered to Sebastian, “Make sure he doesn’t take anything.”

While he was looking, she returned to the desk and began passing the pen from one hand to the other, wondering how to begin the letter.

Most esteemed Herr Krabbe,

With great delight I received your edition, and I much admired the quality of the paper, not to speak of the leather binding, which has been beautifully stamped. What bewildered me was the surprising insertion of those four Minuets, which, alas, do not seem to me to be by Mozart. Their structure is too simple to belong to his last period, and if Wolfgang had composed them in his youth I would know them. You must have inserted them certainly thanks to a zeal for which one can only praise you, my conscientious friend; but I wonder where you found the manuscripts, and if it’s not too much trouble, I would be grateful if I could examine them, if only out of curiosity. In any case I would advise you not to insert those pieces in the next printing.

“What in the world is the Kingdom of Back?”

Jumping to her feet she upset the inkwell. Bencini was staring at a score with a skeptical expression.

“No, that no! You weren’t supposed to look at the other shelves! That music is not my brother’s. Sebastian, weren’t you checking on him?”

“It isn’t your brother’s? Then who wrote it, may I ask? The handwriting seems his.”

On the old woman’s face appeared perhaps the most foolish expression of her life. Since she said nothing, the Italian tried to guess the author by the style: “So, let me see, it could be Haydn. It’s a composition clearly intended for children. Yes, from the development I would say Haydn.”

“No. Not Haydn.”

For thirty seconds, no sound was heard apart from the ticking of the clock.

“May I play it?” Bencini said, and he was at the piano before she could resist him, and as he gave life to the notes, she felt her own inner strings vibrate.

It was a short, simple piece that she had written in loving homage to Wolfgang and their excursions through the places of the mind and the capitals of Europe, both so far away now. She hadn’t composed anything else, for she hadn’t felt the need, really, but that sweet musical piece was an expression of affection in brief, whispered notes.

“It’s pretty,” Bencini commented, playing. “It has echoes of a game, and yet there is a thread of melancholy. At this point it gives a sense of comfort, certainly. However, this title is strange:
Kingdom of Back…”
He delivered the last chord and looked at her. “So tell me, Baroness, is it Haydn or Mozart?”

“Well, on the…surname I would say there’s no doubt, it’s…Mozart.”

“A thousand florins!”

“What?”

“Deal done?”

And without waiting for a response he threw down a pile of banknotes on the piano and went off triumphantly, with the score under his arm.

“Baroness, should I stop him?” said Sebastian, and she remained staring at him openmouthed. Then slowly she walked to the window and looked beyond the glass: down in the street Bencini was pursuing the score, which the wind had torn from his hands. The page floated irregularly, like a butterfly, and as it was about to be seized by the sausagelike fingers of the Italian, it seemed to fly away laughing. The echo of that laugh reached Nannerl’s heart and she, too, burst into a noisy laugh, laughing so hard she cried. She leaned on the windowsill, unable to control the contractions of her stomach and the sense of fun that completely possessed her. She opened the window and spread her arms like wings and threw back her head, letting the gusts of wind ruffle her hair; in a moment it had freshened the air of the house and swept to the floor her letter to the publisher.

When she turned, the man in the cape was standing beside the servant. “Oh, engineer, do we have the answer?” she murmured, composing herself in a hurry. “I got some pastries for you. Sebastian, please, prepare some coffee.”

“Better not, Baroness,” the engineer said, very seriously. “You must come right away.”

III.

“It’s incredible! Every time one digs in the ground a find is made. But, really, did the Romans have to live right under the statue of my brother?”

“They went as far as England, Baroness.”

The square was still crowded with workers and the hole in the center, now deeper, revealed a mosaic with a legend in Latin. The workers were carefully cleaning it.

Nannerl approached. “Excuse me, I know you’re doing your job, but could you move aside a little, please. Otherwise I can’t see anything.”

The workers promptly did as she asked and she tried to decipher the writing, but there wasn’t much light at the bottom. The first word she managed to bring into focus was
Nihil,
and she repeated it aloud.

“Do you know Latin, Baroness?” the engineer said with a hint of envy.

“Not very well. I studied it a little, many years ago. My brother taught me, to tell you the truth. Now, if my memory is right,
nihil
means ‘nothing.’”

Then laboriously she deciphered the two words beside it, one and then the other, and it seemed to her they were
felicitas…intret.

Her face broke into an incredulous smile. She looked up at the statue of Wolfgang and stopped at his mocking sneer: it’s really a joke worthy of him.

“Here forever happy are we, and nothing bad will ever be. Thank you, my king. Thanks to you!” she cried aloud, with the joy of a child.

The engineer thought it might be the first sign of senile dementia and rushed over to her protectively: “Baroness, do you feel all right? Do you want to sit down?”

Just then Bencini arrived, chasing his precious piece of paper. “My score! My score! My original score by Mozart! I paid a fortune!”

The piece of paper ended up on the monument, right on Mozart’s face, like a slap. Then a gust of wind seized it and bore it off into the sky.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Hic Habitat Felicitas, Nihil Intret Mali.

The Roman mosaic found on the site of the monument to Mozart, which bears this inscription, is preserved in the Caroline Augustus Museum in Salzburg.

Mozart’s Sister
is a work of fiction, but the events that inspired it actually happened and the main characters really existed. Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart was a child prodigy and, together with her brother, performed at the courts of Europe as a child musician. The family letters are testimony that in her youth she also composed vocal music, although none of her works have come down to us.