Mozart's Sister (18 page)

I stood with my friend Katherl in front of the glass case. "Papa
had Herr Hagenauer make it special. See? It has a lock." I opened
the glass door and took out a gilded snuff box. "The queen of
France gave this to me the second time we played at court" I held
the intricate box in the pahn of my hand. "Go ahead, you can touch
it. It's real gold. Just be careful."

Katherl moved her fingers close but at the last minute withdrew
them, clasping them behind her back. "What do you need with a
snuff box?"

A good question. "It's not what it's used for that's important, but
the fact it's gold, it's beautiful, and it's worth a lot of money. The
queen wouldn't have had to give me anything. One does not question gifts-especially from royalty."

"I wouldn't know," Katherl said.

I put the snuff box away and picked up a cloisonne mirror a
duchess in Holland had given me. "This used to have a matching
brush, but Wolfie dropped it and it broke into a million-"

She looked toward the door. "I got a new kitty."

It took me a moment to move my thoughts from royalty to pets.
"What's its name?" I asked.

"Pfc[fcr.."

I imagined a peppered calico. I turned back to the display case.
My eyes focused on the figurine of a cat Baroness Solomon had
given me when I'd played for her birthday.

"Want to see her?" Katherl asked. "And Otto Ferringer spent a
week in Vienna with his parents and brought me back some chocolates. I saved one for you."

I glanced back at the case. How could she not be interested in
these treasures and hearing the stories of how I came to have them,
and who gave them to me? And so what if ferret-faced Otto Ferringer had been to Vienna for a week? My family had been gone three
and a half years. I'd brought Katherl back some Belgium lace. Wasn't
that better than any chocolates that were here today, gone tomorrow?

"Come on," Katherl said, taking my hand. "When I get her
playing with yarn, Pfeffer will jump a foot off the floor."

I wanted to pull my hand away. What did I care of a house cat
when I'd seen the world?

But I did not pull away, and I let Katherl lead me into the streets
of ordinary Salzburg.

Papa came into the kitchen for dinner and tossed his gloves on
the chair. "Gossip! I despise gossip."

Mania looked up from setting the forks. "What gossip?"

Papa removed his coat and hung it on the hook near the door.
"Beta Hubner has printed in his inane Diariiurrl that ..." He
retrieved a page from his coat pocket and read, "I believe it certain
that nobody in Europe is as famous as Herr Mozart with his two
children."

"That's very complimentary," Mama said.

Papa shook his head, cleared his throat, and continued. "Indeed,
after God, he has his children to thank for his fame and his great
wealth. The now completed journey is said to have cost them something near twenty thousand florins; I can easily believe it; but how
much money has he not presumably collected?" He turned the page
over. "It also says our Nannerl is `tolerably tall and almost marriageable already' but he worries over Wolfgang's small size." Papa wadded up the sheet and threw it into the fire. "I thought he was our
friend. For him to speculate about our children's growth ... and to
even take a guess regarding our expenses and income is reprehensible. For us to have to come home to this ... this ... drivel ..

"The children arc going to play for the archbishop next week,"
Mama said. "I've heard buzz regarding his pride in us."

Papa made two fists and held them close to his chin. "I am
stifled here. They don't understand what we've done. They don't
understand the importance of our work, our sacrifice in bringing
the world this extraordinary talent." He looked around the room.
His eyes skimmed past me, then landed back at Mama. "Where is
Wolfie?"

I did not hear my mother's reply. Wolfie. He'd asked for my
brother and only my brother.

I slipped from the room and hurried down the stairs to the
street. The bite of the December air took advantage of my being
without my cloak. But I could not go back for it. For anything.

I turned into an alley and walked until I was safely hidden in
shadows. Only then did I let the wall of the building guide me to
sitting. I tucked my dress around my legs and feet and leaned against
my thighs for warmth. The cold was appropriate. For I'd felt very
cold since returning to Salzburg. The warmth of our close family
travels was slipping away. Every day forced us to deal with others
beyond our small foursome.

And Papa was right in his subtle heralding of Wolfie as the talent. What did I have to show for our time away from Salzburg?
Thousands of notes played and heard by the ear, but immediately
gone as another note took its place? A glass case full of gifts from
important people who cared little for me as anything other than an oddity and a novelty? I had brought nothing substantial back to Salzburg except four extra inches in height-and width.

Marriageable age? How could people say such a thing? I was
one of the Miracle Children. And yet ... Herr Hubner had also
commented on Wolfie's small stature. It was true my brother had
not grown much during our absence, as if knowing that looking
older would hurt our cause. Had he willed himself to stay small and
childlike? Had I somehow made a mistake because I had dismissed
God's ability to stop time and keep me a child forever?

As I huddled against the cold I felt my breasts against my legs. I
was a woman now The novelty of two performing children, if not
gone, was waning.

And it was all my fault. No wonder Papa liked Wolfie best. My
brother, the eternal child.

And Nannerl, the girl of marriageable age.

It was over.

Smallpox and operas. I hoped to never again have anything to do
with either.

One wouldn't think that a disease and a musical creation had
anything in common, but they both loomed large. So much loomed
large....

After being home ten months, I was excited about our next
journey to Vienna-at first. Spending time in Salzburg had proven
tedious, and though I didn't want to come off as putting on airsdc haut en bas-in many ways it was a life too simple for my newly
developed tastes. How spoiled we had become on our travels. For
even beyond the places and people we'd met, there'd always been
something of interest to do. But at home, as one day folded into the
next, I felt in danger of being suffocated by the mediocrity of our
normal routine. If I wasn't careful, would I wake up one morning
and accept it all as my fate? Would I forget about my plans to be
more than just a wife, more than just a mother, more than just a
Salzburger?

So when Papa announced we were taking another concert
excursion to Vienna, I was thrilled-and relieved. And when he
spoke of his high hopes for our future, mentioning our destiny, I
knew he was speaking from my heart as well as his: "Providence
binds everything together in such a way that if we give ourselves up
to it with complete trust, we cannot miss our destiny." Such lofty words, implying we would once again find our place in the world
of music. I, Nannerl Mozart, would find my place.

The event that spurred the trip to Vienna was the wedding of
Empress Maria Theresa's daughter, the Archduchess Maria Josepha,
which was scheduled for October 14, 1767. We were not the only
musicians of Salzburg to travel in hopes of being asked to play for
the festivities that would take place over many weeks' time. Papa
mentioned at least three others. But, he assured us, we would be the
jewels in the royal crown.

However, once we reached Vienna in early September, protocol
stated we could not play elsewhere until we had played for the
empress. We were awaiting a summons from court when the first of
our disasters struck.

Smallpox.

It had all started four months earlier in late May, when the second wife of the new emperor, Joseph II, contracted the disease and
died, as had his first wife. Joseph was the new emperor because his
father, Emperor Francis, for whom we'd played years before, had
died while we were in France. Even Empress Maria Theresa succumbed to smallpox. She recovered, but in her recovery she only
made things worse....

The empress had a habit of visiting the tomb of her dear husband once a month. On one such visit in October, the soon-to-be
bride Maria Josepha accompanied her and immediately fell in with
the pox. Rumor had it that the air of the tomb was infected because
the body of the poor girl's sister-in-law was also present-in an
unsealed casket.

Then, horror of horrors, the betrothed, Maria Josepha-who
was just my age, only sixteen-died on the day after what should
have been her wedding! The entire city roiled with shock and sadness. How could God allow such a thing? Papa said it was God's
will, but if God is good, then how could He allow such a tragedy
to happen? It's hard for me to wrap my mind around such mysteries.

Papa also moaned about how unfair it was that so many had
come to Vienna with such high hopes of performing, only to be
silenced by this turn of events. "Why did she have to die now?"

If he wished to speak of the inequities of life, I think Papa should have thought of poor Maria Josepha....

But then the smallpox visited as. The son of the goldsmith with
whom we had been living fell ill-but not before infecting two of
his younger siblings. Papa went into a panic and sought new lodging. Yet he was unable to find any large enough for four, so two
days after Maria Josepha's death, he left Mama and me behind at the
goldsmith's and escaped with Wolfie to a safer part of town.

Left Mama and me behind in a house full of sickness.

Nine out of ten children who were dying in Vienna were dying
of the pox.

Yet he left us there.

The next day, I did not get out of bed, and Mama wondered if
I too had fallen in. But my sickness was not caused by disease.

When I didn't get up on the second day, she sat at my bedside,
feeling my forehead, asking if I wanted a doctor.

I shook my head and turned away from her.

"Then, what's wrong?" she asked.

Surely she knew .. .

She smoothed my hair behind an ear. "Nannerl?"

Like poison from a body being bled, I let my accusation seep
out. "Papa left us behind. He doesn't care if we live or die."

Mama removed her hand and sat back with a soft whooph of
breath.

I pushed myself to sitting against the pillows. "Why didn't he
take us with him to a safer place?"

Mama adjusted the coverlet under my arms. "He couldn't find
lodging for four. Only for two."

"We could have made room. We've stayed in cramped quarters
before. When something is life and death one makes do."

"When you were a child you had some pockmarks. We assume
you are immune.

"Assume?" My voice rose and I waited for a reprimand.

I didn't get one. Mama stood, then stroked my cheek with the
back of her hand. "He'll send for us soon." She left the room. Fled
the room. Escaped more questions.

It didn't matter. I didn't need to ask more. Papa's actions spoke
volumes. He'd made it clear whom he loved the most.

Papa finally sent for us, and we fled Vienna to Moravia. But
there was something missing in our reunion. Upon seeing Papa,
upon accepting his embrace, I held back enough for him to notice.
"Is something wrong, Nannerl?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said.

It was a lie. For something between us had broken, and I wasn't
sure it could ever be mended.

Then there, in Olmiitz, in a smoky, damp room, in spite of all
our precautions, Wolfie succumbed to the disease. His face grew red
with fever while his hands felt cold. After a fitful night they carried
him, wrapped in furs, to a better room. But his condition did not
improve. The fever rose and he became delirious.

I felt bad for my complaints about being left behind. Yet what
good had it done for Papa to move Wolfie when he'd still succumbed to the disease?