Marrying Mozart (3 page)

In the kitchen she coaxed a fire and put the heavy iron on the grate to heat. Outside the small window she could see the milk wagon. Little Sophie was to run down and make sure they had fresh milk for the day; if Sophie didn’t, Josefa wouldn’t for certain. Nothing woke her Sophie, the sloth. Well, they would have dry bread and no milk; it was not her concern. And it was the turn of Aloysia, who thought herself above such things, to trudge down to the common cistern to empty the chamber pots for the refuse collector.

Beyond the church spires, the sky was growing light.

Josefa spat on the iron to test its readiness, sprinkled the shirt with water from a bowl, and began to iron fiercely, the muscles in her firm arm working. What a life, she thought. Always having to pretend you have money when you don’t; isn’t that the way it is? How to bring them from their precarious existence where they were always late with the rent? It had concerned her the past few years since she had begun to understand that none of her darling father’s musical endeavors had yet lifted them from the edge of poverty.

She pressed the iron’s nose firmly into the rough linen of the sleeve where it was set into the body, beginning to hum an aria from one of Piccinni’s popular operas, and then to sing more fully, her rich tones ringing through the small rooms.

From the half-open door of the bedroom came Aloysia’s more silvery voice. “Oh shut up, shut up, shut up. I need sleep.”

“You
need sleep! You took up more than half of the bed last night; you always do. You’re always squeezing me out, and this morning there wasn’t any room, and I couldn’t move you, you lump, you cow.”

“No decent person should have to sleep with you, Josefa, the way you toss and turn and shout things in your dreams! I want a bed of my own.”

“Well, you’ll never have one. You’ll be married soon enough to some brute who’ll
never
let you sleep.”

Josefa put down the iron and ran to the bedroom door, where now both Aloysia and Constanze had raised their heads from their pillows, and were looking bewildered at their angry eldest sister. Sitting up, arms half covering her naked little breast where her gown had slipped away, the delicate Aloysia declared, “I’d rather sleep with Constanze; let’s change. She’ll come to me; you sleep with Sophie.”

The iron sizzled, and Josefa rushed back, but it was only the cloth of the board. She began to iron again while Aloysia entered the kitchen and opened the cupboard for bread, her feet bare and her hair tumbled down her back. By this time only Sophie was still in bed, for she was seldom disturbed by anything.

Aloysia began to grind the coffee beans.

“I know something you don‘t,” she said airily. “We’re singing this evening. Father told me last night after the guests left. We’re singing at the Countess’s, two duets and then a solo each. Constanze must let me have her lace.”

“Are you sure we’re engaged to sing?” asked Josefa, at once practical. “How much will they pay us?”

“The saints alone know. If they think you’re pretty, maybe they’ll give extra. Don’t let any of the men feel you. Mama says they will try for sure in those places, so you must be careful, for you don’t want to be damaged.”

The remainder of the household began to stir. Fridolin came out with moderately hairy legs showing under his shirt and said he was so weary he could die. The last up was Maria Caecilia, the bed creaking as she rose to her hasty breakfast. At seven the pupil, an impoverished lawyer in a threadbare coat, arrived, and as the sound of his excruciating mistakes echoed through the fifth-story rooms, the four sisters disappeared to their bedchamber to discuss what the eldest two could wear that night.

 

Somewhat before the hour of nine, fourteen-year-old Constanze, having lent her lace and pearl pin, leaned out the parlor window to watch her father and older sisters rattle down the dark street in a hired carriage. The excitement rose from the dust of the wheels and floated up and through her. It was her sisters’ third time to sing before good Mannheim society; on the last occasion a kind butler had sent them home with napkins full of sweet cakes and oranges, and Aloysia and Josefa had sat up by candlelight until past two describing the chandeliers, the livery of footmen, the rich wide gowns of the women, and all the faces staring stupidly at them.

Constanze looked about the room, which smelled of burned candles.

Papa had given them all lessons. As early as she could recall, he had lined them up by the clavier according to age, his sharp, stubbly chin nodding, the worn white lacing of his shirt trembling, his fragile veined left hand conducting the air while his right hand played the ivory keys, which were tuned regularly and almost always in perfect pitch. They sang in Italian, the language in which almost all fashionable songs were written. When Fridolin was drunk, however, he sang bawdy songs in German, gathered her squealing to his lap, and told her she was his cabbage, his dumpling.

She remembered standing there all little and chubby, barely reaching the clavier, while her two older sisters, still little girls themselves, pushed and shoved each other under the portrait of the Virgin and Child near high dusty windows that overlooked the street. Sophie was then only a mewling infant; but Josefa had put forth her voice boldly, and Aloysia sang like a lark. Aloysia never had to work at singing, whereas Constanze always struggled. Her notes came tentatively as she gazed from under her lashes at her beloved Papa. She didn’t want to sing; she wanted to please him.

Recently, Josefa and Aloysia had sung without her.

Something rustled, and she heard bare feet on the squeaking floorboards. Turning, she could see Sophie, who at nearly twelve was still quite shapeless, heading toward her across the room past the many chairs and piles of music. The edges of the girl’s nose were red, and her eyes watery, but her face bore the same freckled, unperturbed look she had worn since the age of two. Even now as always Constanze could hear the homey click of Sophie’s wood rosary beads, which the girl kept in her pocket. Sophie was devout. She had at least ten saints to whom she lisped prayers in a litany at bedtime, lulling the others to sleep; she had the hierarchy of saints and angels and cherubim in her head, and could draw you a picture (the figures blurred and clumsy) on the back of a discarded sheet of music of the throne of God if you wanted to know exactly what it looked like.

She was also nearsighted; yesterday, returning from the candle and soap shop, she had mistook a tall nun for a priest, curtseying and murmuring, “Good day, Father,” to the suppressed laughter of her three older sisters. Plans to purchase her spectacles had been discussed.

“Are you waiting up?” she whispered to Constanze. “The bed’s cold without you.” She slid her arm around her sister. “I’m glad I don’t have to go sing; I sound like a sick frog. But you don’t mind not going, Stanzi?”

“No, I don’t like strange people staring at me.”

They huddled closer, peering down at the dark street, Sophie rubbing her bare feet against each other for warmth, for the fire had long gone out.

Sophie said, “It’s so cold for October! I heard Papa say it’s going to be a snowy winter; I love snow falling. It makes me feel safe to be here when it falls. The butcher told Aloysia we’d have our first snow long before Christmas.”

“He’s always telling her things as he wraps the sausages. He can’t keep his eyes from her. I think I saw her reading a note this morning on the scrap paper; maybe it was from him.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t a love note,” said Sophie. “Perhaps it was a list of the dresses she’d like; she’s always making those. She looks in shop windows and writes them down.”

“No, I’m certain it was a love note, but we don’t have to worry. Aly won’t marry a butcher: never. She just likes to flirt.” Constanze peered out into the night at a single horse trotting by. “You know Mama doesn’t want us to marry anyone in trade and live a plain life, as she puts it, with only one good dress for church and that not trimmed. She wants us to marry as high as we can, or at least she hopes Aly will. She hopes she’ll marry someone who is at least asked to dine in the Elector’s palace, maybe even a baron. I heard her and Father in the kitchen earlier today, speaking about it the way they do. She says such a marriage could be made even if the girl has no dowry, if she has charm and beauty.”

Sophie propped her elbows on the windowsill, her face serious. “Yes, and she was also quarreling with Papa earlier about Aloysia and Josefa’s going out to sing at all. She says it cheapens a woman to sing in public. You know, of course, what Papa answered! Serious and sad, looking off as he does when he’s crossing her. He said that it’s only until our fortunes increase, that they are safe as holy sisters and no man dares come within ten feet of them!”

Constanze stroked the long window draperies reflectively. As long as she could remember, she had lived in a house full of girls who loved to chatter and bicker. Her mother held opinions about everything, whether she knew that subject or not; and her father’s philosophical friends weekly settled the world’s problems over a few bottles of wine, shouting and waving their hands. In the midst of all this she seldom offered an opinion but to Sophie, who had been placed in her arms smelling of milk when she was but a day old, and to whom, even then, she told everything.

Now they snuggled close, rubbing their feet together. Constanze knew every angle of Sophie’s little body, having slept with her since the age of five. They shared secrets; she never told her mother about the mangy neighborhood cats and dogs Sophie fed, hiding food in her apron and slipping down the stairs.

Staring out into the street, along which only an old sentry walked, swinging his lantern, she said thoughtfully, “I suppose Aloysia might end up marrying a prince; she’s so beautiful. Even Uncle Thorwart, who’s been in and out of the best houses, says it.”

“Beauty’s a temporal gift,” replied Sophie, “whereas the real treasures are of the soul.”

“Beauty’s more useful in the world. I wish I had it, and I know Josefa does.”

“Josefa’s soul is beautiful.” Sophie raised her freckled face, her nearsighted expression making her look as if she had a clear insight into life. An old soul, her paternal grandmother had once called her.

Constanze sighed. “You’re right, but our Josy stands inches over almost every man, and she doesn’t keep quiet; she blurts things out. She loves books, not people, and she breaks all the nice things she has. The fan she holds when she sings tonight will be in splinters because she’ll twist it and twist it during the hard parts of the songs. I hope not, because Cousin Alfonso’s wife gave it to Aloysia last New Year’s. There will be a fight again, and they’ll be at each other’s throats. I hate that, and it kills Papa.”

“Mama’s family were farmers before they became very prosperous, and she says Josefa takes after them,” Sophie replied, “and that she wishes Josefa had stopped growing but of course she couldn’t help that. How can anyone help growing?” The two girls rubbed feet again. “Mama could have been a lady if she hadn’t fallen in love with Papa; she says that every time they quarrel. They still had their family fortune then before most of it was lost. But you
do
have beauty, Stanzi; your eyes are beautiful, and your face has a lovely heart shape.”

“No man ever died of love for a woman’s eyes.”

“Well, then, your soul’s beautiful just like Josefa’s, and that’s worth having.”

“How would you know? You’re not twelve yet; you’ve hardly been in the world! You can hardly know what’s worth having and what’s not.”

“I see things. I know things. I sit in a corner making dumplings and observe. I’ve observed you all forever.”

Constanze smiled suddenly, her dark eyes soft; it was a sweet, reflective young smile. In the dark parlor surrounded by the closed clavier, the piles of music, and the many books, she felt very comfortable. The heavy book on the lives of great dead composers was sliding off the others and any moment might fall to the floor. It’s best that Aloysia and Josefa keep singing, she thought. Perhaps then we’ll have more money so Mama won’t worry as much and then we’ll have hot creamy chocolate every single morning. But why do they want things to be another way? Aren’t we happy the way we are now when we gather about the table and all talk at once about music pupils, mother’s family’s silver before they lost it, court gossip, and what’s new at the small theater? Or the way we are on Thursdays, when all the people I love best come up the stairs? Don’t they know that the only important thing is that all of us remain together forever? Papa holds us together, and Mama, and I will, as well. This is my place. I’ll hold us together by my love.

Her hand tightened on the windowsill; she breathed deeply once and held on as if she suddenly understood the depth of the promise she had just made.

But the next moment she was a child again, looking up at her mother who had just appeared at the parlor door in her huge white nightdress. “Why are you up? Come to bed, my little fleas,” Maria Caecilia said.

“We couldn’t sleep! Just a time longer. We want to wait up for them.”

Their mother’s contralto was benevolent. “Drape your quilt around you then. Stanzi, I will never forget how ill you were when you were a little girl. Every time you cough I shudder.” The voice dropped to the low warning she used to tell one of her fearful stories. “My dearest friend as a girl always stood by windows. My saintly friend Therese. It was when our family still had our best silver. And she caught a consumption, and died young.”

“I thought you said she recovered.”

“Nothing could save her. You are lucky to be so healthy, whereas my sisters, my poor sisters!” She sighed. Constanze squirmed a little, hoping that the story would not be related once again this evening. It was hard to pay attention to stories that had interested you in the first telling, but grew unbearably dull after time.

But their mother demurred. “Fetch your quilts.” She yawned, and her voice trailed back at them as she moved heavily down the hall. “Ah, why do they always stay away so long when they sing? But perhaps if the Blessed Virgin wills it, someone will notice their beauty this evening.”