The Kingdom of Back(5)

The thought trailed through my mind in a circle. I saw myself seated at the bench again, this time with the Herr never turning away in distraction, my father looking on with pride, the web in the woods unbroken and perfect. I let the image linger so long that when I finally went to sleep, I could still see it imprinted behind my closed eyes.

I thought no one heard my secret prayer, not even God, who seemed to have little interest in the wants of small girls.

But someone was listening.



* * *





That night, I dreamed of a shore lit by twin moons, each bright as a diamond, both suspended low at the water’s edge. Their images were mirrored perfectly against a still ocean. The line of a dark forest curved along the horizon. The shore’s sand was very white, the seashells very blue, and through the curling sea foam walked a boy. He looked like a wild child, clad in nothing more than black bark and silver leaves, twigs entangled in his hair, a flash of pearly white teeth brightening his smile, and although he was too far away for me to make out his features, his eyes glowed, the blue of them reflected against his cheeks. The air around him rippled with a melody so perfect, so unlike anything I’d ever heard, that I woke with my hand outstretched before me, aching to grasp it.

That was the first time I ever saw the Kingdom of Back.





THE WAKING DREAM



I spent days sitting before the clavier after that first dream, trying in vain to find the perfect melody I’d heard. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to sound quite right.

“What is it that you keep playing over and over?” Woferl asked me whenever he came to watch me practice.

“Just something I heard in a dream,” I told him.

He looked thoughtfully at me, his eyes wide as if searching for the melody too. “But the notes are not the same, are they?” he said.

I still don’t know how he knew, except that he must have guessed by the frown on my face. “No, not the same,” I replied. “Because what I heard in my dream wasn’t real.”

Weeks passed, then months, and soon my memory of it blurred. My attempts turned scattered, the tune shifting until it became unrecognizable. Eventually, I let myself believe that maybe it hadn’t been such a perfect melody after all.

The seasons drifted from ice to rain to sun to wind. The hills that hemmed in Salzburg became white with snow, then green with new buds, then orange and gold, then white once more. My mother fixed my dresses as I grew. I began to hear murmured conversation between my parents at night, about how soon I would no longer be a child, about marriage and what prospects I had, how they would fill my dowry chest. Outside, the New Year’s rifles fired and the star singers visited our door, slapping their arms against the Christmas cold, their voices warm with good cheer. Here and there, I’d catch a snippet of music in the streets that would just barely touch the edges of my memory, reminding me of something from a faraway dream.

Papa continued my lessons as I aged, filling the notebook he had bought me with menuetts, and I continued to practice the pieces. No more guests came to listen to me. Most days I was glad for it. The clavier was my cocoon of a world, my haven. In here, I could listen to my secrets in peace. But at night I lay awake and replayed the music in my mind, my thoughts circling the wish I’d spoken from my heart.

In my dreams, I was haunted by the way my father leaned away from me after a lesson, the weight of his disappointment that I couldn’t grasp what he was offering me. I wondered what it might feel like to fade into the air one day. Whether my father would notice it. There was only so much time before I would leave childhood behind and he would stop teaching me entirely.

One morning, when Papa finished his lessons with me and I closed my notebook carefully, Woferl climbed onto the clavier bench beside me and reached his hands toward the keys. He had grown too, although perhaps not as much as a boy his age should. His eyes still looked enormous in the small, plump set of his face, and when he turned toward the music stand, I could see his long lashes against his cheeks, haloed in the light. He was a fragile child, both in body and health. It made me want to curl my arm protectively around his shoulders.

“Woferl,” I chided gently. “Papa does not want you to play yet.” My father said he was too young, his fingers too small and tender to press the keys properly. He did not want him to damage his hands. For now, selfishly, I was glad to keep music lessons something between only my father and me.

Woferl seemed to stare through my notebook, his eyes yearning for somewhere far away. His lashes turned up for a moment as he looked at me. “Please, Nannerl,” he said, scooting closer to me so that he pressed against my side. “Can’t you teach me a little? You are the best player in the world.”

He had been asking me this for weeks, climbing onto my bench after Papa had left for the day, and each time I had turned him away. But this morning, his expression was particularly coaxing, and my mood was light, my hands warm and sure against the keys.

I laughed at him. “Surely you don’t think I’m better than Papa,” I replied.

When I looked at him again, he seemed serious. “I promise I won’t tell.”

Whatever a promise meant to a small boy. Still, the sweetness of his face made me surrender.

“You are too far away,” I said at last. “Let’s move the bench closer, ja?”