The Kingdom of Back(70)
I looked down, unwilling to meet my mother’s gaze. I wondered if, decades from now, I would find myself in the same position, comforting my own daughter. Would I repeat this advice to her?
“You are stubborn too, Nannerl, like your father,” Mama went on. I could not help looking at her now, and when I did, she leaned forward and touched my cheek with her hand. “I know the little things you do to show your will.” She was telling me something without saying it outright, and although I couldn’t guess at exactly what she meant, I could sense the feeling of it hanging in the air.
Then she gave me a sad smile. “I know your compositions meant a great deal to you.”
I had not prepared myself to hear her speak directly to me about the bound volume of sonatas. Mama was our silent sentinel, always watching and sometimes disapproving, but she did not question our father’s decisions for us. This was the closest she’d ever come to acknowledging my work.
For the first time, I thought about what Mama must have been like at my age. What dreams did my mother have as a young girl? Had she imagined this life with my father, moving always along the sidelines of our lives? When she looked at the night sky, did she ever think of some land far away, where the trees grew upside down and the paths ended along a white-sand shore? When did she become the mother that I now knew?
Suddenly, I feared that I would cry in front of her. I slid out of my chair, then knelt on the rug and put my head in her lap. She brushed my hair with soothing strokes, humming as she went. I savored the sound of her musical voice. Herr Schachtner was right. My mother had a wonderful ear.
We stayed this way for a long while, bathed in the light shining through the music room’s windows.
Finally, the door to the music chamber opened and Papa came striding in. My mother and I looked up in unison, jointly shaken out of our quiet moment.
“The archbishop has given us his blessing,” he said. “We are going to Vienna.”
* * *
“Can we not wait until the following year? We’ve not been in Salzburg for long.”
My mother’s voice was hushed and hurried, tense tonight as she spoke with Papa in the dining room after Woferl and I had gone to bed. I stayed near my door and listened, peeking through a crack at the sliver of my parents seated at the table.
“Next year Woferl may be several inches taller,” Papa replied in his terse, gruff way.
“He’s so small as it is. No one will question that he is a young prodigy, even if he grows a little.”
“And what of Nannerl? She’s a young woman now.”
“Very young, still.”
My father sighed. “We can barely afford to keep Sebastian as it is,” he said, “and we must take the children before the courts while we can. I’ve already received an invitation from the empress.”
I saw the corner of Mama’s mouth twitch. “Is a celebration to happen in Vienna?” she said.
“The empress’s daughter Maria Josepha is to be married to King Ferdinand IV of Naples. They will hold a huge feast and have days of celebrations—all of the royal courts and our patrons are to be there. Think of it, Anna!” Papa’s eyes lit up. “We’ll earn ten years’ salary in a week.”
My mother’s voice lowered so that I could barely hear her. “It is not safe—”
Papa’s voice cut into her words. “Archduchesses do not marry daily.”
Their conversation ended there. I watched them sit in silence for a moment, their figures flickering in the candlelight. Finally, they rose and headed to their bedchamber. I watched them go until their door closed, then went back to my bed and crept underneath the covers.
When the flat at last became still, I sat awake in the dark and thought. In the adjacent room, I could hear Woferl stirring in his bed. Already, Papa had started arranging our trip, and before long, we would have our belongings packed once again into the carriage, be waving our farewells to Salzburg.
I shivered and pulled my blankets higher until they came up to my chin. It was not a coincidence, our trip to Vienna. I thought of the letter I had burned, the ink staining the paper until it blackened and disappeared against the coals.
Come to me in Vienna, and I shall take you to the ball.
What he would do there, I couldn’t guess. How he wanted my brother, I didn’t know. There were too many possibilities, and my mind whirled through each until I exhausted myself with fear. The part of myself I understood shrank away at the thoughts. The part of myself lost in the kingdom stirred and smiled.
All I knew for certain was this: we were headed to Vienna, just as Hyacinth had predicted. And he would be waiting for me there.
THE DEVIL’S DANCE
It had been years since my first performance in Vienna before Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. Now I barely recognized the city.
Banners hung from balconies in bright and festive colors, and fireworks lit the night sky. People streamed past our carriage with laughter and cheers. The air smelled of wine and of smoke from the fireworks, of bakeries busy putting out celebratory breads and cakes. Our driver shouted impatiently at the crowds that thronged before our carriage; as we lurched forward in increments, I kept my face turned to the commotion outside. People spilled into and out of the opera houses, dressed in their finest, and still others danced behind tall windows or simply out in the street.