The Kingdom of Back(53)

I turned to him. “Are you happy? Do you dream of traveling to a different place in the world?”

Johann leaned toward me until his lips touched my cheek. “We do the best we can.” Then he looked past the ivy wall and pointed toward the stars. “If I see you again, and if you see me,” he said, “let’s run away and marry on a white shore. Let’s go to Greece, to Asia and the Americas, where you can perform for any audience you desire. They will love you so. You never need to hide away your music again. Will you come with me, if you see me again? Will you promise me that?”

And all I could say was yes, my heart aching with desire for this world that was mine. I woke with the word still dancing on my tongue.

My hand was clutching my pendant tightly. For a long moment, I lay awake, letting my fingers run against the glass surface. Then I sighed against my pillow, glanced at where Woferl was breathing evenly in his sleep, and rolled over to hold the pendant up to the moonlight.

Something seemed different about it.

I squinted, frowning now, and held it closer. Then a silent cry escaped from me. I dropped the pendant into my lap.

I wanted to shake Woferl awake, but all I could do was stare down at this charm that I had remembered to be a smooth, transparent blue.

Its surface had cracked into a thousand slivers.





HYACINTH’S REVENGE



Several days later, Papa became gravely ill.

At first, he complained of chills, a weary back, and a sore throat, something he waved away as a passing irritation. The next day, he had doubled over on his bed with his hands clutched over his stomach, and Mama and Sebastian had to send for a doctor. Fever settled over him in a heated cloud.

Woferl and I continued our clavier lessons alone, as quietly as we could. I kept my thoughts to myself and did not dare to share them with my brother. My shattered pendant stayed in the bottom of my dresser.

Woferl never mentioned my moment with Johann. My father never found out.

He blamed his illness on the English weather, the fog, and the rain. Without his making arrangements and setting up meetings, several more of our performances were canceled. We were forced to dig into the money we’d earned in Germany. This only deepened Papa’s frustration, which in turn seemed to worsen his state.

I found myself lingering outside my parents’ bedchamber, watching my mother wringing out a towel to place on my father’s head. I would stare at his pale, sickly face and silently will him back to health. My brother, still reluctant to talk to me, would quietly ask me how Papa was doing. I never knew what to say. Our practice sessions felt strange without his shadow towering beside us.

After several weeks of little progress and performance cancellations, Mama finally moved us to the English countryside outside of London, to a small Georgian house on Ebury Row, so that Papa could recover in peace. The house was plain but spacious, and when we first arrived there I looked out of the carriage window to admire the pastures and estates.

On our first day, Mama requested our clavier be pushed to a corner and covered with a sheet of cloth. We were not to play while our father stayed ill.

This did not stop Woferl from composing music. I saw him working at night, jotting down measures into the music notebook that Papa had given him after our Frankfurt tour.

One afternoon, I found Woferl hunched over his writing desk overlooking the garden and approached him. He did not speak, but his eyes darted up at me, and I noticed the shift of his little body as he turned himself unconsciously toward me.

“May I see what you’ve written?” I offered.

Woferl did not look up. His hand continued to scribble a fluid line of notes on the page. “After I’ve finished,” he said at last. “I am nearly done with my symphony.”

It was a response. My heart lifted slightly at that. He had not spoken to me like this since the incident at the chateau. Perhaps Papa’s illness has finally softened the grudge between us.

I waited. When Woferl finished his page and turned to a new sheet, I tried again. “Tomorrow I am going to explore around the house, and walk in the garden. Will you come with me?”

Woferl said nothing. I looked over his shoulder this time, so that I could see the measures he wrote out. The symphony was light and fluid, with the same liveliness I remembered from its first pages, which I had seen some time ago. I read my way silently down the page, picturing the harmony in my mind. My eyes settled on the last measure Woferl had written down.

It was a chord, three notes played together with no separations. “That does not belong,” I said automatically, without thinking.

Woferl frowned. I saw his eyes jump to the same chord, even though I had not pointed anything out.

“You’re right,” he replied. “It doesn’t quite fit.”

His agreement surprised me. I reached over, put my finger down on the paper, and drew three invisible notes. It was the same chord, separated out so that each note came after the other. “This would be better,” I said quietly.

Woferl looked at the paper for a long moment. He dipped his quill back into its inkwell, and then crossed out the old chord and replaced it with mine. I watched him carefully as he wrote, expecting to hear an edge in his voice should he choose to speak to me again.

But when he looked at me again, there was a small smile lingering on his lips, his satisfaction at a good measure of music.

“It is better,” he echoed.