Mozart's Sister: A Novel Read online

  Herr Mozart, however, appeared confident that to be in such luxury made even him royal. Holding his son tightly by the hand, he proceeded with an air of satisfaction: “It was high time for a change of scene, after that rabble in the Paris streets. Don’t you agree, my dear?”

  Frau Mozart’s mouth had been wide open, in amazement and fascination, for at least twenty minutes; her throat was dry, and she couldn’t answer.

  “Superflua divitum, necessaria sunt pauperum! Can you translate this axiom, Wolfgang?”

  “The excesses of the rich are necessary for the poor,” the boy answered, trying to free his hand from that of his father, who would not let go.

  “Excellent, my angel. Unfortunately, this concept has at times been wrongly interpreted, to the point of leading certain depraved characters to appropriate for themselves the goods of others. Imagine, the Shah of Persia, a splendid country even farther away than England, was overthrown by a crazed mob, and his palace razed!”

  Wolfgang managed to wriggle free and join his sister, who was trying to warm herself at the fire in one of the hearths, so close to the flame that she was in danger of burning her clothes; he grabbed her hand, which was softer than his father’s and now warmer as well, and with her entered the room where they were to perform.

  The harpsichord was practically invisible in that visual orgy, even though it was skillfully painted, gilded, and lacquered. It wasn’t in a prominent position but, rather, half hidden among sofas, tables loaded with delicacies, powdered ladies and their courtiers—who seemed to have assembled there for anything but to listen to music. They chattered on and on, incomprehensibly, in their language that had so many vowels, concealing the smiles of their painted lips behind fans of feathers and fur, and nothing could make them stop talking: neither the ahems of Leopold Mozart, nor the redoubled intensity of the four-hand piece that he ordered his children to play, nor the one they played with a cloth laid over the keyboard. And then, suddenly, a noblewoman entered through the archway and an apprehensive silence fell.

  She was escorted by two imposing gentlemen beside whom she would have disappeared except for the obvious force of her personality; she must have been forty, and she bore the traces of a former beauty. The oval of her face, crowned by a jeweled diadem, was broken by luminous gray eyes, but too much rouge made her look like an old doll. A page rapidly approached Leopold and whispered to him to make the children stop playing; but the lady, with a majestic gesture, let him understand that she desired the contrary. She settled herself on a chair and sat there, proudly alone, with an air of appreciating the concert.

  “Who is she?” Leopold whispered into the page’s ear.

  The answer had a tone of scandal: “Monsieur, c’est la Marquise de Pompadour!”

  The name had no effect on the two children, nor did the sudden general interest in their performance excite them, for they were aware of its falseness. But Anna Maria gazed at the king’s favorite with the scorn that is reserved for prostitutes, and when the applause broke out she felt a flare of rage as her husband headed straight for that witch and performed a spectacular genuflection.

  “What you have seen is nothing!” Leopold exclaimed, spinning around and addressing the entire room. “The spectacle that you will witness in a few moments will leave you stunned. Would one of you, charming ladies, be so kind as to provide a melody?”

  In response came a silence of unexpected embarrassment, punctuated by some murmurs and twittering laughter.

  “Courage, ladies! I don’t ask much—just hum a tune, however simple, even a nursery song. Incredible as it may seem, my little Wolfgang will instantaneously compose a fugue on that theme!”

  The laughter increased, assuming a tone of mockery. Leopold turned to Madame de Pompadour with a smile that was intended to be appealing: “Marquise, won’t you set an example for the court? It would be an indescribable honor for me.”

  She gave him a chilling glance, and the two gentlemen likewise stared at him with threatening scowls. He, undaunted, continued, though his voice was slightly less firm. “All right! I myself will break the ice. Here, let’s see: in Augsburg, when I was a child, this lullaby was popular.”

  At that point the laughter grew very loud, and even the Marquise’s lips parted in a silent sneer, revealing two rows of perfect teeth. Leopold stopped, finally speechless; he realized that all eyes were on the harpsichord, and what he saw when he turned to look filled him with humiliation: Wolfgang, with his head in Nannerl’s lap, was sound asleep.

  Madame de Pompadour, if she hadn’t been Pompadour, would have bent double with laughter. Instead she proceeded calmly out of the room, with that spectral laugh cracking her face, followed by a good half of the audience. Just as it had arisen, the interest in the family of musicians evaporated. Only a few ladies dared to approach the little sleeper and caress his golden curls; Anna Maria couldn’t repress a tender smile, but a furious look from the head of the family made her instantly think better of it.

  “Take him to bed immediately!” Leopold growled at his daughter, and, with his wife on his arm, left the room.

  XII.

  If to get around within Versailles the nobles were borne in those chairs they called chaises à porteur, there was obviously a practical reason: the music room must have been at least a couple of miles from the entrance. Nannerl had to shake her brother and exhort him to walk on his own legs, for she would never have been able to carry him all that way; then, to get to the pensione Cormier, she had to ask for a ride in a carriage, because it was raining. The result was that, once they had reached the room, Wolfgang was as lively as a cricket. When she put the bed warmer between the covers, he was hiding under the bed; when she tried to put his nightclothes on, he evaded her with a silvery laugh, inciting her to follow him. “Let’s have a trial! Let’s say I stole a deer and you’re the queen and you want to send me to prison!”

  “Perfect,” Nannerl said mockingly. “Dirty little thief, go to jail. Now get in bed.”

  “No, not like that! Let’s have a real trial! You have to sit on the throne.”

  And he tried to push her toward a chaise longue, but she resisted. “That’s enough, Wolfgang—if you don’t stop it I’m going to go away and leave you.”

  “And I’ll tell Papa you left me alone.”

  “If you try, I’ll slap you!”

  “And I’ll tell Papa you hit me!”

  She sat down and with a sigh of resignation recited: “The object of contention…”

  “No, first you have to say the motto.”

  “Here forever happy are we.”

  “No, you don’t understand. Real trials are carried out in Latin.”

  Nannerl looked at him with sudden bitterness. That rascal knew perfectly well that she had been forbidden to study the language.

  “Hic habitat felicitas,” he pronounced, staring at her with an insolent little smile. “Come on, stupid, repeat.”

  She felt a tremendous desire to punch him, but with a heroic effort she restrained herself and was silent.

  “Hic habitat felicitas, nihil intret mali. What in the world does it mean? Who knows? You don’t know. You don’t know because you have a head as round as a ball and completely empty!” And he pranced around in front of her until Nannerl angrily jumped up, extending her arms in a shove that she didn’t intend to be violent but was. The child fell hard on the floor and hit his head.

  He didn’t cry. He looked at her with immense surprise, while she, terrified, knelt on the floor: “Wolfgang! Wolfgang! Did you hurt yourself?”

  He said no, rubbing the sore place on his forehead. Everything vanished in an instant: excitement, the wish to play, the attempt to provoke his sister. She shed copious tears of guilt, and this left him even more bewildered. Then he stood up mechanically and insisted on getting into his nightclothes without any help from her; by himself he removed the heavy bed warmer, got into bed, and an instant before falling asleep gave her a warm smile of understanding.

/>   Their parents found them like that, he in a deep sleep, she curled up beside him watching, with reddened eyes.

  The night walk had made no dent in Leopold’s bad mood. With a gloomy face he went into the adjoining room, sat down on the bed, and began to untie his shoes. Meanwhile Anna Maria whispered to Nannerl, “What happened? Did you quarrel?”

  She didn’t answer. She was listening with growing anger to the sounds her father made: a rustling of garments hung on the clothes rack, an indistinct muttering of disappointment for who knows what foolish reason, until she went to him and burst out: “Tomorrow Wolfgang won’t play! Do you understand?”

  “What’s wrong with you? Be quiet or you’ll wake him! Holy shit!” Anna Maria said, joining her.

  “He’s exhausted! He’s not himself! He’s always tired and sick, he’s lost weight, he’s not growing, and he has two black pouches under his eyes worse than yours. You can’t make us perform like trained dogs every night. Wolfgang should go to bed early!”

  Leopold, impassive, slowly continued to undress. He was now half naked, but he didn’t care if his daughter saw him in that state; it was a way of communicating to her that her presence had for him the same value as that of a night table or a bedside rug.

  “I will tell you one time only, Nannerl, and I will not repeat it,” he replied in a low voice. “When you have your own children, you can bring them up as you see fit; for the moment it is I, I alone, who will make decisions for Wolfgang. He endures fatigue very well. Maybe it’s you who are weak, and your thoughtless actions are the proof.”

  Furious, Nannerl pushed to the floor the rack on which her father had so carefully hung his clothes and returned to her brother, slamming the door behind her.

  Anna Maria picked up the clothes and timidly added, “Leopold, perhaps the child is not completely wrong. She and Wolfgang both are rather irritable; maybe they are overtired.”

  “Nannerl is thirteen now—it is an ungrateful age,” he opined, and turned out the light.

  XIII.

  Finally they were going to see the king of France! Lords and ladies swarmed like maddened bees in a huge room, at the center of which was a table so long that the ends vanished into the horizon, and so loaded with precious things as to make one fear it would collapse. Exquisitely painted porcelain plates were beautifully laid out on a tablecloth of white cotton tulle with lace insets, along with tall chalices engraved with the royal coat of arms, forks and knives with carved handles, carefully folded white napkins, carafes and bottles of the finest crystal, elaborate floral displays, and silver trays overflowing with fruit and brioches and cheeses. Towering candelabra with clusters of candles created that dim light that makes the face of every woman more beautiful.

  Louis XV dined with the court one day a year: the first. The rest of the time, the inhabitants of Versailles had no right to look at the divine one while he ate like every other mortal. The Grand Couvert of the first of the year was a genuine occasion, a sort of prophecy foretold, and to Leopold’s immense satisfaction, the Mozart family had been invited. And they would have the privilege of sitting beside the king and queen!

  The babble of the guests who had assembled to obtain a place at the table echoed frenetically; as in the treacherous musical game, there were never enough chairs, and those who arrived late would miss their chance. The Mozarts would never dream of arriving late! Suddenly the pages closed the doors; only one tall, richly painted door remained open. In the silence, the women inspected their hairdos in the mirrors, and the gentlemen, the buttoning of their waistcoats, and finally, with the self-satisfied indolence of a peacock making the rounds, and flanked by imposing Swiss Guards, Louis XV appeared beside Marie Leszczynska.

  Nannerl was disconcerted: the queen was a little old lady. She had white hair and gnarled, spotted hands, and a dress draped with cream-colored veils and with insets of white fur that made her resemble an overcooked meringue; she wore a sort of nightcap, also topped by a billowing veil, that was tied at her neck by a shiny ribbon. She descended wearily from the chaise à porteur and reached her place at the table, while the valets who held up her train were in reality arranged to hold her up if her legs should give way; finally, trembling, she sat down, heaving a sigh of relief.

  It was obvious how much younger the king was. And seeing the wife, Leopold thought with secret lewdness that one could understand why he had spent his life looking for distractions. Marie was as hunched as Louis was proudly erect; he radiated the immodest and negligent air of one who can permit himself anything.

  After the royal couple, the other diners were allowed to take their places, and Anna Maria, with Nannerl, sat beside the king, while at the other end of the table Leopold and Wolfgang were next to the queen. In a religious silence, the valets served the first course: potage à la Regence, a very fine purée of greens seasoned with a mixture of spices and dotted with choice early vegetables: the visual composition of intense earth colors and delicate pastel tints, not to mention the incomparable odor, made the guests salivate in an embarrassing and almost audible way. No one would have dared to start until the first delicious mouthful had reached the royal stomach. Extremely slowly, Louis XV tasted the potage, put down his spoon, wiped his lips with the napkin, then nodded his head in a sign of approval; relieved, the others imitated him, and a quiet tinkling of dishes and a subdued exchange of words replaced the reverent silence.

  Wolfgang and Nannerl had been carefully trained: never address the royal couple, never! Unless you were directly spoken to, and in that case you were to respond with a low voice and bent head. Never serve yourself with your own hands, never chew with your mouth open, never drink before having wiped your lips with the napkin, never clean your fingers on the tablecloth, never pick your teeth with a knife or, worse than worse, your nails. Rigid as marionettes, the two children tasted the divine meal, which Nannerl found delicious and Wolfgang revolting, though he made an effort to hide it.

  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.