Mozart's Sister: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

music has to be played in particular moments, in particular places, and in a particular way? Their notes ran, improvised and anarchic, wild and noisy, from one door to the other; they pursued, caught up, became entangled, and let go; they flew out the window, paused on the king’s throne, blew over the hats of passersby, mixed with the rumble of a rushing carriage. Suddenly Nannerl left the kitchen and headed toward her brother; sight intensified their communication, and while their mother, pricking her finger, cursed, brother and sister sang and shouted more and more joyfully. Nannerl was still holding a potato, whose peel hung down to the floor; Wolfgang was bowing away like a gypsy. Then they exchanged objects and she found herself with the violin in hand and he the potato; and, meanwhile, the orgy of sound reached new heights. Their mother was yelling that in those conditions it was impossible for her to sew and she couldn’t understand them in the least, but they paid no attention and went on with their wild music, until Anna Maria broke off a thread too energetically and Wolfgang’s shorts split, leaving him with his bottom out.
    At that moment, Leopold Mozart appeared in the doorway and the following sight presented itself to his horrified eyes: a wife desperate before a ripped garment, a daughter in an apron holding a violin, a son with his buttocks bared and a potato in his hand.
    The sound of the door slamming interrupted the stream of sound like the blow of an ax and for a very long minute they all held their breath. Leopold stared at the three of them, flustered, as his eyes seemed to turn from blue to pitch black; then, with measured steps, he approached his daughter.
    “Nannerl, this is the last time you touch a violin,” he said. “Give it to me.” And he held out his hand, palm up.
    Her hands did not obey. They had turned rigid, becoming one with the sound box.
    “The violin is not an instrument for girls. You are not to play it ever again. Do you understand me, Nannerl?”
    The little girl’s heart disappeared. In its place was a void, stillness, silence. Leopold seized the instrument and disappeared into the music room.
     
    VII.
     
    The great day has dawned! At the door of 9 Getreidegasse, impatient hooves pawed the ground, strong hooves that would consume the miles, and Joseph Bullinger pulled his coat tightly around him and looked up in annoyance at the third-floor window: How long could it take?
    Hard to say. Anna Maria was pursuing Wolfgang, trying to dress him, and Nannerl was following Anna Maria and trying to dress herself. Open trunks and boxes of music were underfoot, and a servant was hurriedly packing a portable harpsichord. Leopold grabbed his son by the collar, handed him to his mother, and descended the stairs with the harpsichord on his back, shouting at her to hurry. She called down that more than this she could not manage. She asked her son to stand on an enormous trunk overflowing with clothes, to help her close it, but it was still slightly open, so Wolfgang jumped on it. That did the trick, though his mother almost lost an index finger. Panting, Leopold reappeared and pushed the trunk to the door. The din woke even the neighbor, who slept like a rock, and raising his hands to Heaven, he cried, “Praise the Lord, that family of lunatics is leaving!”
    Nannerl packed music in a small trunk and carried it down the stairs, then went back up and got another, and then yet another; Wolfgang, wanting to do no less, seized a large box, but his father tore it from him, crying, “Be careful, my angel, please!” Anna Maria made sure that the shutters were closed in every room, rearranged the cloths that covered the furniture, then shifted them, then put them back as they had been; she gave the apartment a last melancholy glance—who could say when she would see her things again—closed the door, and went down the stairs.
    The boy darted in and out of the carriage, lay on the seats,