Mozart's Last Aria (7 page)

I couldn’t do it. Wolfgang would be ashamed of me.

“Madame de Mozart?”

I looked up. Baron van Swieten extended his hand. A long spray of white lace fell from his cuff, but the hand was thick and black hair ran along the backs of his fingers.

A delicate tug from that strong hand, and I arose. He led me to the piano, the tapping of his cane on the floor the only sound in the room.

I sat before the piano and watched him step to his seat in the front row.

As the soloist, I was to double as the conductor. But I found I couldn’t lift my hands. A few of the musicians cleared their throats. Someone in the audience snickered.

The baron snapped his fingers to get the attention of the violas and cellos. Like me, the musicians saw the command in his face. He twisted his wrist to count the beats and conducted the orchestra into the march at the opening of the Allegro.

I stared at the hands in my lap. The keyboard seemed so far away from them. When I looked up at the baron, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and a shaking in my jaw. He smiled and nodded encouragement, then he gestured for the woodwinds to answer the theme.

We approached the moment for me to play. I raised my hands and brought them through the brief scales with which the piano enters the concerto. By the time I neared the conclusion of the opening movement, I sensed a new strength in my fingers and through my shoulders. I improvised an intricate, exhilarating cadenza. My body felt weightless, drifting above the floor and the stool, connected to nothing but the keyboard.

I took in a long breath and lifted my head toward the baron. He led the orchestra into the serene second movement.

The music soothed me. Every note spoke to me like the voice of my brother when we had been children rattling from town to town in the coach my father bought for our longest tours. Wolfgang’s smile beamed from the keyboard and his laughter reached out of the body of the piano.

In the final movement, I grew exhilarated by the speed of the arpeggios and scales. The joyous theme carried me to a sense of such complete triumph and life that I barely heard the applause.

Baron van Swieten gestured for me to stand.

I bounced on my toes with excitement. Constanze wept against her sister’s shoulder.

In a strong baritone, the baron called, “Brava.” He rose, and the crowd followed him.

I laughed when I caught his eye. My delight was pure and childish. But it was because of the music, not the applause.

He stepped forward and raised the silver head of his cane to quiet the crowd.

“Our dear Maestro Mozart has departed from us,” he said. “He left the astonishing power of his music, whose secrets we amateurs might only guess at. But he understood, as until this moment we did not, that someone remained who might reveal those mysteries to us.” He reached for my hand. “Thank you, Madame de Mozart, for restoring to us the great spirit of your lost brother.”

I lifted my lower teeth over my upper lip and grinned. It wasn’t the most sophisticated of gestures, but after all no one knew as well as I how lost my brother’s spirit had appeared to be—nor how strongly it had returned to me.

As the audience applauded again, I vowed that I’d repay Wolfgang for this moment, no matter the cost to my soul or my body. I had rejoined him in his music. Once more we were together.

Chapter 9

B
aron van Swieten concentrated on his cane, as though its tip clicked out a message in an obscure code on the floorboards. The muscles of his face were tight. I saw he struggled to overcome a strong emotion, but his voice revealed it. “It was as though Wolfgang performed for us here this evening.”

“You flatter me, sir.”

He rubbed his finger beneath his nose. “Oh, I’m really not given to flattery.”

“It’s something I’ve never learned, either. So you’ll believe me when I say that Wolfgang wrote of you very often and most fondly.”

“Less of me, I imagine, than of the concerts he gave among my friends. I host small musical gatherings each Sunday afternoon in the great hall of the Imperial Library. We used to sing around the piano, and Wolfgang would play and sing and correct our harmonies all at once. It’s as if a beloved son has been taken from me.” Swieten’s eyes lifted from the floor and brightened. “Will you join us tomorrow for our little musical salon? You’d honor us.”

Perhaps, in Swieten’s library, I’d find others who had been close to Wolfgang. They might know more about the mysterious Grotto, or at least assuage my doubts about his death. “I should be delighted. I hope my playing won’t disappoint you and your guests.”

“After hearing you this evening, I’m sure it shan’t.”

“The audience was most distinguished. It was a lovely evening of music all around.”

Swieten glanced at the aristocrats and merchants promenading about the hall. “These people are stinking and corrupt. Their unwashed bodies reek beneath this tide of cologne on the air. But you’re right, the music was lovely.”

Though I wished only to relish the thrill of my success, I was sensitive to his evident preoccupation. “Something is amiss, my lord?”

“Let’s say I have some troublesome duties at the palace. In addition to the library, I head the emperor’s censorship office. But I find that I don’t believe in censorship. I would have everyone free to say and write just what they wish.” His smile was bitter. “I’m forever at war with those in the emperor’s service who’d ban all but the Bible.”

Lichnowsky came to Swieten’s shoulder with Stadler and Constanze.

My sister-in-law took my hand. “You played so beautifully,” she said.

“The concerto was divine, Madame de Mozart,” Lichnowsky said. “Wolfgang was so much ahead of his time, almost not of this world, an angel. One might say he was too much for us. That’s why he died—to enter a heaven fit for him.”

Swieten rapped the floor with his cane. “Nonsense, my prince. Wolfgang was of this time more than any of us. He represented its new ideas of enlightenment and freedom and equality, of scientific and intellectual inquiry. You’ll find all these things in his songs and in the themes of his operas. If there are some who’d prevent the course of progress, it’s they who truly drove him to his death.” He looked about as though he might find such people nearby and wished to confront them. He radiated a potency that was at odds with the lace and embroidery of his costume.

“But Wolfgang’s ideas can’t be killed off,” he continued. “He never allowed his fears to silence his art.”

I caught a glance between Lichnowsky and Stadler that carried a warning. I wondered about Swieten’s last words. What had Wolfgang had to fear?

“So Maestro Mozart was free of fear? If so, it was a fault.” A smooth, cultured voice behind us. “ ‘Fear should sit as the guardian of the soul, forcing it to wisdom.’ ”

Our group turned toward a gentleman in a green coat who smiled at Baron van Swieten, twirling the curl of his periwig above his ear.

“But Aeschylus goes on to add that mercy should take precedence over harsh judgment,” Swieten said. “Your classical learning is faulty, sir.”

“If only I might ruminate all my days in your Imperial Library, I’d correct this fault. Alas, my duties are of a more practical nature.”

Swieten squared his jaw, but was silent.

The newcomer opened a gold box, tapped some snuff onto his knuckle, and sniffed it into each nostril. “I overheard the prince calling Mozart an angel. Perhaps our departed maestro has, indeed, become a myth. After all, he’s now in the realms beyond earthly power.” He lowered his voice. “Even if none of
us
has yet escaped it.”

Lichnowsky took a step backward. His eyes registered fear. “An angel? I meant it as a figure of speech. I—”

“There’s too much unthinking speech nowadays and not enough reverence for the way things are.” The gentleman bowed to me. “Madame de Mozart.”

His manner made me hostile and pedantic. “I ought to correct you, sir. I’m Madame Berchtold von Sonnenburg, to be precise,” I said.

“Oh, I’m aware of that.” His expression was devout and insouciant, like a priest before a cowering sinner, pleased by the knowledge that secrets could never be hidden from him.

Under that gaze, I felt a quiver of disquiet, as though by mentioning my husband’s name I had implicated him in some conspiracy as yet unknown to me.

Swieten grimaced. “Madame de Mozart, may I introduce to you the Count von Pergen, our Imperial Minister of Police.”

I curtsied.

“I didn’t take you for a music lover, sir,” Swieten said.

Pergen toyed again with the curl of his wig. “I’m a great devotee of Maestro Salieri. Even when the court composer conducts the music of someone else. I must commend you, Herr Stadler, on the choice of music.”

Stadler straightened like a guilty boy before a stern schoolmaster. “Thank you, your Honor.”

“You didn’t include any of Maestro Mozart’s more tactless compositions.”

“Tactless?” I said.

“The count refers to
The Marriage of Figaro
,” Swieten said. “He disapproves of the opera because it portrays a servant triumphing over his master, I assume.”

“No doubt your brother was deceived by the Italian reprobate who wrote the text of that opera,” Pergen said. “A Jew, no less.”

“A convert to Christianity,” Swieten said.

“I fear the conversion never really took hold. But the fellow is gone. Let’s hope we hear no more of this seditious work.”

Now it was my turn to be tactless. “I thought
Figaro
was an exquisite opera.”

Pergen snorted a scornful little laugh. “Dear lady, if a poison tasted vile, it would be harmless—no one would ever swallow it. The poisoner gives it the flavor of fruit or sugar to seduce us to our doom. Your brother’s beautiful music was the seduction, and
Figaro
’s outrageous philosophy was the poison. One might say the same of Freemasonry, for example.” He glanced around our group.

Lichnowsky and Stadler cast their eyes down. Swieten sighed.

“Young men are drawn into Masonry with promises of equality and other fine ideas,” Pergen said. “Only then, when they have given their mortal oath to be brothers, do they learn that they must pursue an agenda that undermines our state.”

I thought of Wolfgang’s letter. “Can the Masons really be so dangerous?”

“The Revolution in America was led by a cabal of Masons. You’ve heard the names Washington, Jefferson, Franklin? All committed to the overthrow of the natural order of government and monarchy. All Freemasons. They’re condemned by His Holiness the Pope.”

“But Wolfgang was just—”

Pergen raised an eyebrow. “Continue.”

“Just a musician.” I felt feeble before him. “I can’t imagine Wolfgang engaging in subversion.”

“Maestro Mozart had his first great success some years ago with
The Abduction from the Seraglio
. You recall the opera?”

“Naturally.”

“Its theme of reconciliation between the nations and races is to be applauded. Unless one understands that it may have been the work of a member of the Illuminati.”

“Come now,” Swieten said.

“Who?” I asked.

Swieten scoffed again, but Pergen spoke to him with an archness that silenced him. “Baron, you can explain the Illuminati’s purpose so much better than I.”

Swieten shifted on his feet, like a man I had seen once at a prizefight in the village fair, balancing to take another blow but knowing he might not stand it.

“Please,” Pergen said, “do explain to the lady.”

“It’s a secret society founded in Bavaria. Its aim is to end religious and national prejudices.” Swieten recovered himself and turned to Pergen. “Hatreds fostered by priests and government ministers.”

“You may call them religious animosities and national enmities. I call them simply religion and nations, which ought never to be overthrown,” Pergen said.

Constanze took a small step toward the count. “Wolfgang wasn’t opposed to religion, and he loved his emperor.”

“He named the leading character in that dangerous Illuminist opera Konstanze, did he not?” Pergen said. “Don’t think I’m fooled by the alteration of an initial letter, madame.”

Constanze gasped and rocked on her heels.

“You go too far, sir. You can’t suspect the maestro’s wife,” Swieten said. “The Illuminati are men, as are all Masons.”

Pergen shrugged. “At least Maestro Mozart’s little Masonic compositions weren’t a part of tonight’s fare. I much prefer the music he wrote when under the influence of a natural fear.”

Wolfgang’s fears again. “What inspired such dread emotions in him, my lord?” I said.

“Death and final judgment. I was in St. Michael’s Church a few days ago for Maestro Mozart’s memorial service.”

Swieten supported Constanze by the elbow. She seemed faint. “We performed Wolfgang’s Requiem Mass there,” he told me. “He had been writing it at the very moment of his death.”

“A wonderful composition. It was inspired by the awesome majesty of God,” Pergen said. “This was greater music than the petty bickering of spiteful servants in a despicable operatic farce.”

“Were you at the church to hear the music, or were you visiting your dead?” Swieten drew himself to his full height and flared his nostrils.

“It’s true that the Pergen family tomb is set into the floor in the aisle of St. Michael’s.” Pergen took another pinch of snuff. “But I’ve no need to visit them. The dead are always with us.”

“Indeed.” Swieten’s grimace was sarcastic and impatient.

“I see them walking among us even now. Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between a living man and a ghost.” Pergen reached out to stroke the embroidery of Swieten’s silver coat. “Until I touch him.”

Constanze’s knees gave out and she collapsed onto Swieten’s arm. During the fuss to revive her, Pergen made a deep bow to me. He stepped back with his left leg, flourished his hand, and folded himself low over his right knee. His extended leg seemed to curve inward in its silk stocking, giving him the look of a flunky in a satirical cartoon.

He sauntered away at a measured pace.

We descended the stairs of the Academy and waited by the brazier as the carriages pulled up to take people into the night. Swieten climbed into his coach with a tip of his hat to me. Lichnowsky was so pale after his encounter with the police minister that he appeared to shine in the interior of his carriage like a thin slice of the moon. Stadler left without a word.

Vienna had seemed to be weeping for my brother’s death. But there was self-pity and terror in the mourning of his friends. It was as though they expected something just as dreadful to happen to them. I had intended to go in the morning to Wolfgang’s grave, but the conversations in the concert hall convinced me to delay. Before I went to pay my last respects, I needed to be sure of what had happened to him. In our lives, we had become silent to each other. At his graveside, I would allow that there be no more secrets between us.

Constanze stared into the dark side streets as we returned from the Academy. The police minister’s suspicions terrified the poor woman. I restrained my enthusiasm for our performances. It was no time for celebration.

Still, my joy in the music I had played that night overpowered even Pergen’s intimidations. I was thrilled to have performed Wolfgang’s compositions before such a distinguished audience, to have felt the presence of the brother I had thought so lost to me.

I bade Constanze good night and watched her carriage rattle toward Kärntner Street. I breathed deeply of the silence in Flour Market Square and perched at the edge of the pool around the Fountain of Providence. Dangling my fingertips in the freezing water at the feet of the goddess, I hummed the melody of Wolfgang’s concerto and wondered about the private life of the Baron van Swieten.