Mozart's Sister: A Novel (8 page)

It was the gravelly voice of Marie Leszczynska that started the conversation. Behind the appearance of a foolish old woman, the queen had a lively mind, and if Madame de Pompadour was impossibly arrogant, she had simple and courteous manners.

“Monsieur Mozart, I am happy to meet you at last.”

“If you please, Your Highness, it is an honor for me to sit at your side!”

“Your French is excellent—perhaps better than mine.”

“Your Highness, please; you flatter me.”

“Not at all. For me, too, it is a second language, so my judgment may be even more severe than that of a native speaker. And, I must say, your pronunciation and your choice of language seem to me outstanding. Are you also able to write in French?”

“Oh yes, if necessary. I was made to study it very seriously when I was young.”

“So you must have translated personally your violin method.”

Leopold looked at her with sincere surprise, and equally sincere gratification. “You have read my humble work, Your Highness?”

“I confess I have not. Music is not among my accomplishments—I would not have understood it. But I have heard it spoken of. I know that it has crossed the borders even of Russia.”

“In fact, such a systematic treatment of the material had never been published.”

“Do you intend to write other works?”

“I fear not, my queen. My present duties do not allow it.”

“That is indeed a pity.”

“Do you think so? I am convinced that a man must devote himself to the only activity in which he excels. And as the promoter of my children’s career, and especially my son’s, in all modesty, I excel.”

The queen was silent while a waiter removed her empty plate and another took from a basket a bottle of Chablis and poured some into the wineglasses. Leopold feared that his proud estimation had irritated her and he was about to plunge into a thousand excuses when he realized that the waiter was about to pour wine for Wolfgang.

“No, not for the child, please!”

“Well done, Monsieur Mozart,” the queen said with a benevolent smile. “In fact, take away all his wineglasses,” she ordered the servant.

So she wasn’t angry. While Leopold sighed with relief, the man hesitated before the child’s bowl, which was still full to the brim. Wolfgang was squatting on his chair, looking down and pouting, prevented from protesting by paternal dictates and from swallowing that disgusting thing by his own palate. The waiter understood, winked at him, and Wolfgang’s potage returned untouched to the kitchens.

“A life dedicated to one’s children,” Marie Leszczynska reflected aloud, sipping the Chablis. “Truly admirable, Monsieur Mozart. And also rare, on the part of a man. But tell me, what would happen if one day the children wanted to take paths different from those you have laid out for them?”

Leopold was no longer willing to risk contradicting her and answered as meekly as a lamb. “Once he is grown up, Wolfgang will be able to do what he wants, naturally. I offer him a possibility, no more; accepting or rejecting it is a matter of free will.”

While he tasted the
croustades à la Saint Cloud,
the queen nodded, but her keen intuition told her that Leopold was lying.

At the other end of the table the situation was completely different. Philosophizing was impossible, since Anna Maria didn’t know a word of French and had on her face the same expression as the mullet in sauce
cameline
that was lying on her plate. Nannerl, on the other hand, would have been able to start a simple conversation, but until the king had spoken to her, she was obliged to be silent; and Louis XV was not exactly a chatterbox, or at least he wasn’t that day. Perhaps he thought that one’s mouth should be used for one activity at a time. He barely moved his fork and knife, cutting his food into tiny pieces that he chewed with an air of utter concentration, as if it were an intellectual activity; his relationship with the external world was represented exclusively by slight nods addressed sometimes to one, sometimes to another of his guests, but never to Anna Maria or Nannerl. But the food was very good, and both happily gorged themselves.

“So, Monsieur Mozart, what might be your next move in promoting your son?”

“I intend to publish his compositions.”

The queen looked with lively surprise at Wolfgang, who was at last contentedly chewing something that he liked: a
filet de bœuf
that the sympathetic waiter had already cut up for him.

“And this child writes music? I don’t know much about it, sir, but I imagine that that is exceptional.”

“Indeed, Your Highness. I intend to begin immediately to publish his works systematically, in such a way that a larger number of persons may become acquainted with his gifts. And naturally I have preserved his manuscripts in order, since there is no doubt, my queen, that one day they will be in great demand. I am preparing a splendid future for him.”

“I know, I know, but now enough of this subject,” she said, looking at the child with a maternal smile. “Let me hold this dear little fellow. May I?”

“Of course!” Leopold rose quickly, picked up Wolfgang, and placed him in the queen’s arms. Torn away from that delicious meat, shifted from a comfortable chair to a slippery old lady covered with jewels, the child threw a glance of desperation at his sister, who was too far away and, in her turn, chained by etiquette, so that there would have been no way to intervene.

Marie Leszczynska had not only a keen mind but keen eyes as well. She immediately noticed the violet bruise on Wolfgang’s temple, which someone had tried to camouflage with a layer of powder and hide beneath the elegant wig that he was wearing for the occasion.

“Oh, poor child. Did you fall?”

Leopold started. “How did that happen, Wolfgang?”

Nannerl, taking in the scene from the other end of the table, felt the food stick in her throat.

“Don’t be shy; answer your father,” Marie urged him graciously. “I give you permission to speak. And if the queen tells you to do something, you have to do it.”

“Well, I—I hit the portable harpsichord with my head.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” the father said suspiciously.

“Because—because I made a scratch on the harpsichord and I was afraid you would get angry.”

Leopold was justly incredulous. “You made a scratch on the instrument—with your head?”

“No, no. It’s that when I fell I was holding the violin.”

Leopold raised his voice. “And so you also ruined the violin?”

The queen laughed heartily, shaking and making Wolfgang shake with her. “Let it go, Monsieur Mozart. I assure you, you won’t get to the end of it. I have had more children than you, and I am much older. You’ll never know what really happened. And if you find that one of your instruments is damaged, what is the problem? You have it repaired. Now, little one, what would you say about tasting this
suprême de profiteroles à l’écossaise
?”

What that pyramid of sweetness had to do with Scotland is not known, but certainly it had something to do with gluttony. Sitting in the arms of the queen and eating from her plate while she cuddled him and caressed him, Wolfgang filled his stomach with chocolate, cream puffs, and custard, and then with strawberries and cream, and then almond-stuffed apricots, and finally the most delicious flavors of ice cream. And when the dinner ended and it was time to leave, his pockets were overflowing with candies of all kinds, hidden there by the loving and tremulous hands of the queen of France.

XIV.

Who had seen the sea? It had a strong odor, of salt; kitchen salt has no smell, yet the sea does. And it was so big it was frightening, and it moved on its own, pushed by an invisible power. It seemed possessed by a dark rage, eager to avenge some insult, in harmony with the leaden sky, which, at its signal, would descend to meet and mingle with it.

Wolfgang raced from stern to prow, looked out to observe the fish, lay down on the bridge to better feel the pitch of the small boat. Anna Maria pursued him uselessly, with the constantly sharper sensation that her stomach had gone somewhere else, not the right place but higher up, in the direction of her throat, and that it was tying itself in knots. She took her husband by the arm and begged him to sit in the stern beside her, and not to leave her alone, at least for a few minutes.

“It’s nothing, seasickness,” Leopold declared. “Seasickness doesn’t exist. You have only to concentrate on something else, and right away it passes. Pray. There’s always a need for that: ask the Lord to grant us all good health.”

Dragging a rope, Wolfgang darted past them and disappeared through a trapdoor. Frau Mozart sighed wearily.

“Let him go; don’t worry. He certainly can’t escape from here. Come, my dear, please.”

Nannerl was alone at the prow, crouching on the bridge like a little Siren, letting herself be slapped by the wind. The English coast was already visible through the fog, and she wondered what that island was like, inhabited by such adventurous people, people who went boldly forth to seek glory and wealth in the farthest corners of the world. Their language was made up of words more familiar to her than Italian or French; but if it was true that the sun never shone, then what source of joy did they have?

She was joined by her brother, who knelt quietly beside her and in turn gazed at the distant strip of land. In harmonious silence, the two remained squatting beside each other, like two statues carved in the same rocky group, elaborating on their expectations for the London stay.

“What will Christian Bach be like?” Wolfgang asked.

Nannerl seemed to see him: he was a true maestro, a man who would be able to understand and help her as her father never would. “He must have…white hair, and big hands that are nimble and quick on the keyboard, and ink-stained. Also the keys of the harpsichord are stained, and he wipes them off himself, with a white cloth, and then…and then the pen that he uses to compose is one of those long silver ones. And he keeps the ink in a dark blue inkwell.”

“I think he is better than Papa.”

“That’s obvious, Wolfgang! Is there any need to mention it?”

As for Leopold, sitting in the stern, his ears didn’t burn, but something must have happened in his body, because he was paler than before. His wife serenely prayed:
“Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae…”

“Amen,” he said, choking, and vomited into the sea.

It was another world! It wasn’t Europe! All the customs, the objects, the behavior were different. The houses were low, of dark colors, gray, brown, even black, or the dirty red of unstuccoed bricks. In front of every building was an iron gate, to protect passersby from falling into the basements; every doorway led directly to a house. Buildings of apartments didn’t exist: only many single houses next to each other, with rooms stacked three or four stories high. As a result, there were no internal courtyards: if Wolfgang and I had been born in London, where would we have placed the king’s throne?

The rooms were small, which gave them the advantage of being very warm. The stoves used coal, not wood; wood was used, rather, for furnishing. Walls covered with wood, wood-beamed ceilings, even the floors that squeaked under your feet were of wood; the smell of pine was strong enough to make you faint. The windows were not wide, except those on the ground floor, which is called the first floor; and they had a strange system of sliding the windows open upward, so that they could never be opened completely; looking out, you were amazed by the view of streets swarming with an incredible mass of humanity.

Both men and women were tall, strong, and good-looking; blacks, Chinese, people of the lower classes mingled with the wealthy, and the latter did not consider this an insult or claim gestures of deference. They all seemed to be wearing costumes. The men’s coats were long, reaching to mid-calf, and had tight sleeves that restricted their arm movements. The women never went hatless: they wore broad hats, round, with wide soft brims, tied behind, of shiny material or of straw, or of taffeta, and richly decorated with ribbons and trimmed with lace, bows, flowers, and sometimes even precious stones. The skirts were of linen, silk, cotton, fabrics from Persia and the East Indies, printed with little flowers or embroidered with delicate floral designs. Victoria, I assure you, would have been mad for those fabrics! The boys had short hair and felt caps perched on their heads, which they held on to with one hand when a sudden breeze threatened to carry them off. Then, one moment it was warm, and the next, cold air from the north lowered the temperature until your teeth chattered, and you’d want to go to bed immediately.

You might find yourself witnessing a quarrel right in the middle of a square: two men savagely beating each other—breaking teeth, cracking bones—while passersby ignored them, or stopped to watch as if at a stadium, or maybe they even joined in the fray. It could also happen that you would be accosted roughly by a stranger, because of your continental dress: we endured what to the English is the worst possible insult, to be taken for French! So my father brought us in a hurry to a tailor shop and had us dressed anew from head to toe. And so, proudly, in all things now similar to an ordinary local family, we mixed with the dust and smoke and were lost in the crowd…