The Kingdom of Back(66)

Woferl and I exchanged a glance. What would haunt him at night without me there?

He looked down in silence at his dinner. Before my illness and what cracked us apart, he might have protested loudly. Now he twirled his fork against his dish and broke his fish into pieces. Somewhere deep in my thoughts, a figure watched him curiously with a tilted head.

Mama watched Papa closely, picking up something else under his temper. “There has been some news,” she finally said, “that has been unfair to you.”

At that, Papa’s shoulders sagged. “It is absurd,” he answered after a while. “I received no letters, no warning at all.”

“What has the archbishop done?”

“They have stopped my salary, Anna, due to my extended absence. Now that I am back, they have lowered my pay another fifty gulden.”

Mama stiffened at the revelation. “Fifty gulden,” she breathed. “And no reason for it?”

“Only that we have been away,” Papa replied, “which he knew about in advance. He will not agree to us leaving again.”

“And Herr Hagenauer?”

He rubbed the crease between his brows, as if it might come out if he did it hard enough, that it might solve his problems. “He has agreed to give us another month to catch up on our rent. No more.”

A lowered salary. Our unpaid rent. Papa’s complaints about my age. Soon my parents would need to start talking about the matter of my dowry, too, another expense to weigh down the family. I could look into my future and see my path laid out clearly before me. My father would approve of a man who I could be matched with. He would ask for my hand in marriage. I would marry, and like my mother, I would bear children to carry on my husband’s name, leave my family behind for his, and look on as Woferl headed off into the glittering world of operas and concerts and noblemen eager to commission him for his music.

The thought of my predestined future made me light-headed. I could not imagine life changing beyond what it currently was—could not picture a time when I wouldn’t be riding beside my brother in a carriage and playing before a court.

I thought of my father up late at his desk, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Would he linger there tonight, long after we’d all gone to bed?

“Perhaps you should have a talk with him,” Mama was saying. “The archbishop can be a reasonable man.”

“He is still skeptical of Woferl’s talents. He says that we have no reason to be running around the courts of Europe with what he deems a—a”—even the mere thought made Papa’s cheeks redden in anger—“a traveling circus.”

“What does he want?”

“Proof.” Papa’s face darkened even more. “As if he has not already heard Woferl perform, and Nannerl accompany. As if he has not already witnessed their miracles for himself! And he calls himself a man of God!”

“Leopold,” Mama said sharply.

Papa knew he had spoken too much, and his voice hushed immediately, his eyes darting once to the window, as if the archbishop could hear his insult all the way from the court. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have agreed to his request.”

“What kind of request?”

Papa looked to my brother. He seemed almost apologetic. “The archbishop wants to commission an oratorio from our Woferl.”

Mama studied her husband’s face carefully. “This is good news, isn’t it?” she asked, knowing it wasn’t.

“He wants it in a week,” Papa said.

A week. “It’s impossible,” I whispered out loud before I could catch myself. Impossible, even for Woferl.

Across the table, Woferl stared intently at Papa, the circles dark under my brother’s eyes, his face like a burning wick with the hope of pleasing our father. “I can do it,” he said in the silence. “Please. I already have the most wonderful harmony in mind.”

Mama didn’t answer or disagree. We all knew that there was no use in it. Papa had not even mentioned a payment from the archbishop for the oratorio. It meant that the payment would be Papa being allowed to keep his salary.

As if he’d heard my thought, our father turned now to look at me. In his eyes, I saw the same light as on the day when he’d returned with the finished, bound volume of my music, ready to deliver it to the Princess of Orange.

I didn’t know what came over me then. The spirit of Hyacinth stirring in my thoughts, perhaps, or the memory of what I had demanded from him. The recklessness of already having lost and knowing I could not lose more.

Anger that had been waiting in some corner of me, waiting for the right time to emerge.

I tilted my chin high, my eyes on my father’s, and held his gaze like a challenge. He raised an eyebrow in surprise, but I did not back down. What could he do to me now, anyway? I’d been through the worst already. My life was charted before me, and there was little I could do to stop it. What difference did it make now for me to push back?

So I did not lower my stare. With it, I said, You know what you want to ask of me. And if I help him, you will have to acknowledge my music, my true talent.

You will have to admit what you did.

My father looked away first. Mama tried to console him by putting her hands on his shoulders and whispering something close to his ear. He would have none of it. “I am retiring to our room,” he said. Before Mama could respond, he had brushed past her and hurried off in the direction of their bedchamber, his dinner forgotten.