The Kingdom of Back(42)

I didn’t dare compose music during this time. Papa was watching us very closely, staying beside us during our clavier lessons late into the night. So I had to indulge myself by watching Woferl write instead.

He had gotten it into his mind recently to compose a symphony; and while he loved our father, he stubbornly told Papa one evening that he preferred to write his music alone, free from his watchful gaze. Papa had raised an eyebrow at him. But he did not linger near the clavier the next night when Woferl began to write, and instead went downstairs with Mama and Sebastian.

Only I was allowed to watch Woferl as he composed.

“Do you hear the violins in your head, separately from the others, and then the cellos and basses?” I asked him.

He glanced at me, but his attention stayed focused on his music. “Sometimes,” he said. “But I also hear them at the same time, as if in four different lines. Each sounds very different.” He shook his head. “Remind me to give the horns something worthwhile to do.”

I watched him write down another measure. “This is not meant for horns,” I said. The piece was light, full of playful footsteps and dancing scales. I had to giggle. “You are cruel. The violins will have a hard time keeping up with you.”

Woferl shook his head. He was serious, wholly absorbed in his music. “That’s because Hyacinth is running away from them, and they cannot catch him.” He reached over and pointed to a measure. “You see? He is sprinting through the forest, up a hill, higher and higher, and then when he reaches the top, he slides all the way down. He likes to lead them deep into the forest, so that they cannot find their way out, and then to reward himself, he naps in one of the trees.” His finger guided me across the lines of music, so that I could hear the scenes he explained.

I smiled, but the mention of Hyacinth unsettled me. Woferl hadn’t forgotten about him. Again, I wondered whether the princeling had been appearing to my brother in his dreams too. Why else would Woferl be thinking of Hyacinth so much that he was writing him into his music? The envy that came with the thought was like a poison in my mind.

“You are a tease,” I said.

Woferl dipped his quill into the inkwell again and scribbled faster, so that large droplets of ink splattered on the page and he had to wipe it away with the ball of his fist. The ink smeared across the page, like a child’s painting. “You are a tease, Nannerl. You write music, and then you hide it away.”

My brother’s words hovered in the air, hung there as if the starfishers from the Kingdom of Back had caught them in their hooks. Suddenly, I felt as if we were not truly alone in the room. A slight movement by the window caught my attention, but vanished when I turned to look directly at it. It had seemed like a ghost of a familiar face, a sharp smile and a pair of bright eyes.

“I tease only you,” I said to Woferl, nudging him once. “Because only you know it exists.”

When Woferl laughed, it was someone else, the sound of wind through reeds.



* * *





    It was not until we arrived in Frankfurt that I began to understand what my monthly courses and longer dresses truly meant.

Our first performance in the city happened on the Liebfrauenberg.

Woferl and I did not play the entire time at this performance. The local orchestra performed first, for some time, and then a young woman sung an aria. Woferl played, expectedly, more than I did. I accompanied his violin concerto on the clavier, and performed two other pieces with the orchestra. But for the most part I remained quiet on the sidelines next to my father, looking out into the crowd, and this is when I caught sight of a boy.

There were many young children there, restless and tugging at the coattails of their parents, and adults, but there were few in between—and he was in between. My eyes skimmed right past him the first time and returned to Woferl, who played on the clavier with a cloth tied over his eyes.

I looked at the boy the second time because Papa had announced to the crowd that they could test Woferl’s talents for themselves. He challenged the people to sound out a note, any note at all, and see Woferl name it correctly on the clavier. The shouts came fast and furious. I watched my brother take them with a smile, sometimes even with a roll of his eyes, which always seemed to get a laugh from the audience.

The boy joined in this game too, and that was why I looked at him. He would call out a note, and my brother would name it correctly without a moment’s hesitation. But the boy glanced at me whenever he spoke. I found this curious, even humorous—and did the same, looking in his direction each time I recognized his voice. He wore a faded blue justaucorps, with bright brass buttons that winked in the light, and a simple white wig that came down into a tail behind his neck. He was very pale, like my brother. His brows appeared raised each time I looked at him, as if he were perpetually surprised.

I found myself unable to linger on his face. Every time I did, the flush would rise on my cheeks, and I would glance away.

I lost sight of him after the performance had ended and the audience had started to disperse, some of them gathering near the orchestra to speak to us. Papa greeted each person with a smile and a handshake. They would take my hand and bow or curtsy to me. The largest crowds clustered around Woferl, of course, and he continued to perform for them in his own way, climbing up onto the clavier’s bench and singing a tune for them, and then laughing when they cheered and clapped. Each bit of attention he coaxed from the audience made him desperate for more, and his antics grew as his audience demanded them, until he had everyone roaring with applause.