Mozart's Sister (10 page)

I stopped a moment to check the address of the apothecary. A
little dog sniffed at my feet and I bent down to pet him. I wanted a
dog someday, someone to love me no matter what. The dog's owner
came near, a woman wearing an apron and cloth headdress. She
smiled at me and spoke, but I could not understand her words. "Ich
bin osterreichisch," I said. I am Austrian.

Her face went blank a moment; then she nodded, smiled, said a
long sentence I imagined to be something like "Have a lovely day,"
picked up the dog, and left me. I walked away with a spring to my
step, which was odd because I hadn't successfully conversed with
her. All we understood of each other was that we were not the same.
And yet ... we had shared a moment. We'd connected: two females
with a cute pup between us.

I wished the woman could come to our concert at the Palace
Musee when Prince Charles summoned us. I would have liked to
share my music with her as she had shared her dog with me. For
music was the true ambassador between people. It needed no common language. I was so blessed to be a part of music.

Sometimes people asked if I was nervous performing before
kings and queens. I didn't have time to be nervous. There were too
many things to do, too many things to think about. I was more
nervous for Papa to hear and approve than to worry about the opinion of any emperor or king. Papa was the one who held my future
in his hands. Of course, if the royalty did not approve, they would
not pay well ... but that brought me back to pleasing Papa.

Sometimes I wondered why I cared so much. He was just a
man. He would never do harm to me if he did disapprove. Yet it was
his harsh or disappointed words I feared. Words. Just words. Absurd.

Vest la vie.

It was a new French phrase I'd learned. I also knew how to say
hello, good-bye, thank you, please, and where is the water closet?
Nannerl Mozart: girl of the world.

I successfully completed the task at the apothecary (the apothecary spoke German), and I meandered back to the inn, feeling rejuvenated. Wolfie met me at the door carrying his ball-catcher toy.
"Look, Nannerl, I can do it fifteen times without missing." He proceeded to swing the ball on its string, catching it on the wooden
spindle. It was his new favorite toy, and his wild gyrations as he
attempted to catch the ball often made me want to rip it from his
hands.

But not today. For I'd been out in the world today. I'd been free.

"Very good, Wolfie. I'm proud of you."

He stopped playing and looked at me, obviously suspicious.

I took off my hat and cloak and hung them on the back of the
door. Mama was in bed trying to get over her headache. I handed
Papa the apothecary's powder.

"Your errand was uneventful?" he asked.

"Completely," I said. It was a lie. I made plans to repeat the
experience when we reached Paris in mid-November.

Walking alone in Paris. Could there be anything more exciting?

I imagined there was. But for now ... I was only a girl.

But almost a woman. Soon to be a woman.

Paris!

A city without a wall surrounding it. A city without fortified
gates. Beautiful vistas of parks, and chateaux dotting the greens. The
capital of all France. Papa said, "The city will be ours, children.
Ours!"

He made me believe it. It was the stuff of fairy tales and dreams.

We had a very special place to stay in Paris due to friends of
friends. My family knew Sallerl Joly, who was a servant in the
household of Count Arco, whose son-in-law, Count van Eyck, was
allowing us to stay at his townhouse at the Bavarian embassy. His
wife, Countess Maria Anna Felicitas, had been a friend of our family
for years and made us very welcome and even equipped our room
with a harpsichord-a much superior instrument to our portable
keyboard. It was such a luxury. Papa implied there was no cost
involved, though I wasn't brave enough to ask him outright if our
lodging was completely free. He was in a very good mood.... He
was also especially pleased with the Paris Petite Poste, a citywide
letter service that had deliveries four times a day. With its use we
could find out if our patrons were at home without wasting the
expense of a carriage ride.

But then, a hitch. Just five days after our arrival in Paris, Isabella,
the grown granddaughter of King Louis XV of France, the wife of
our Archduke Joseph, who would be the next emperor of Austria,
died of smallpox, soon after giving birth. A baby daughter also died.
The French court was thrown into mourning, and all entertainment
was suspended for a month. Papa grumbled about that, and the
expense of buying us mourning outfits.

But after a month, we were free to move forward-and Papa did
so, quite quickly. Just one day after the mourning ended-on
Christmas Eve-we were on our way to the palace of Versailles. It
was thirty-two kilometers west of Paris and had once been a simple
hunting lodge until the current king's grandfather had made it grander than grand. I'd heard stories about the gold and wealth.
Now I was going to see for myself.

Even at first sight, Versailles made the palace at Schonbrunn
seem small. We rode through golden gates into an immense courtyard surrounded on three sides by buildings that had their own
wings going off in different directions. And the people. Everywhere
people and animals. Some walking as if on a mission, and others
meandering as if their only job was to be seen.

"What are they all doing here, Papa?" I asked.

"Seeking favor," he said.

"Like us?"

He glanced in my direction as if I'd said something wrong. "We
have been invited. We have not come here on false hope, wanting
something for nothing, as have most of these. We have something
to give to the king and queen-your talent."

I sat straighter in the carriage. I had something to offer the king
and queen. I was somebody.

Wolfie jumped onto his knees and pointed out the window of
the carriage. "Look at that pig run!" He giggled, sat down, then
pushed a finger against his nose, making a snout. "A pig digging in
a wig." He oinked.

"Behave yourself," Mama said.

The carriage came to a halt. It was time to see our lodgingswe had secured a place to stay at the An Cormier. However, unlike
our room at the van Eycks', this lodging was not free.

Not free at all. We moved in and soon found everything to be
very expensive. Food was pricey, and we were very glad the December days were warm as summer, for every log of wood cost five sous.
In his next letter home, Papa even asked Herr Hagenauer to write
smaller and on lighter-weight paper, as the recipient of each letteras well as the sender-had to pay according to its weight and size
and shape.

Papa's first words about Versailles never left me as I moved
through the massive palace: most of the people here were seeking
favor from the king. Did they seek a title? Land? A pardon for a
family member? A job? Had some come because they'd been summoned for an indiscretion? Yet I imagined such negative matters were attended to more swiftly (and discreetly) than those of a more
positive nature. How tiring it would be to be a king and spend your
day granting audience to an endless line of people.

Yet I heard Papa tell Mama that the king was most concerned
with hunting and liaisons. He glanced at me when he said this, and
I pretended not to know what he meant, but I did. I'd heard such
talk before. Many rulers had mistresses, and this king was no better.
Papa implied Louis had more than one-and one particular mistress
was even treated like a queen. Madame Pompadour. She'd been at
Versailles for twenty years. I wished I could ask Mama about her,
but that was awkward. So ... I hoped to find a friend, one who
might know the gossip.

I shouldn't have wanted to know about such things.

But I did.

We were presented at court more than once. Walking from one
grand room to the next made my neck hurt from looking up at the
painted ceilings and the crystal chandeliers. There was one room
called the Hall of Mirrors that had seventeen (Wolfie and I counted
them) huge mirrors that matched the arched windows across the
room. There was so much gold in the statues and the candelabrassome taller than Papa-that it couldn't possibly be real, could it?
Surely the riches of heaven couldn't match this palace. Yet Papa did
a lot of shaking his head at the opulence. He said the bulk of
France's wealth was divided amongst a hundred persons. That didn't
sound very fair. If I were French, it would make me angry.

The extravagant appearance of the people who attended our
concerts competed with the architecture. The women's dresses were
made of yards and yards of silk and brocade and were very wide,
forcing the women to walk sideways through many of the doorways.
The dresses were edged with metal lace that glistened. There were
three or four layers of lace at the elbow, and matching silk shoes with
jeweled buckles. The men's fashions were just as lavish, with matching suits adorned by wide cuffs, vests heavy with trim, and shirts
ruffled at both the neck and wrist.

Then there were the wigs. Why everyone wanted to have gray
or white hair, I wasn't sure, but they did. Even Wolfie and I had
wigs that had to be powdered. I liked the lavender-scented powder,
but the whole process made quite a mess. Wolfie's and Papa's wigs
had rows of curls on the side, and the ponytail was contained in a
velvet bag tied with a bow. Some women had birds and flowers in
their wigs, or a funny little hat. My wig wasn't as tall as some, but it
did add to my height and forced me to hold my head erect. I wondered if the wig was wise. It made me look older, and the audiences
seemed to like that we were so young. I was torn between wanting
to look young to please them and wanting to look like a grown
woman to please myself. I was nearly a woman. I was twelve and a
half.

As for the outdoor clothes worn at Versailles? When the warm
December days turned, the courtiers wore fur-trimmed garments
with neckties of fur. Instead of flowers they put fur in their hair and
had fur armlets ... fur everywhere. But the most ridiculous sight
was a type of sword scabbard which was bound with fur-an excellent idea, so the sword wouldn't catch cold?

And yet, even amid all this elegance, the place smelled horrible.
There were not enough latrines, and I actually saw a stately man
relieving himself in the corner of a fine hall. They called us Germans
barbarians? And mixed with the horrid stench and the smell of nervous perspiration that was imbedded in the heavy clothes was the
heady smell of perfume. I had a little pocket sewn into my corset
for a sachet (I loved the smell of orange), but the perfumes in the
court were so strong I often found my eyes watering-though I
wasn't completely sure which odor was the culprit.

We played concerts before the king and queen and all their children. The queen, Marie Leszczinska, was Polish and spoke German
with us, even translating for the king. She was very fat, and Mama
heard a rumor that one time she consumed one hundred eighty
oysters with two quarts of beer in one sitting. She smiled a lot, and
Wolfie chattered with her for a long time. She passed delicious food
to us from her plate as we stood with the other courtiers behind the
king and queen's eating table.

The young princesses loved us and gave us many hugs and kisses, cooing at us in French we did not understand. Even the queen
embraced us. People paused in galleries and apartments to greet us,
and the English and the Russian ambassadors sought us out. Papa
said Wolfie bewitched almost everyone when he played the organ
in the chapel.

And the presents! Snuff boxes, writing cases, silver pens, and a
toothpick case of solid gold. What were we to do with all the snuff
boxes? And yet the gifts did make me feel special.

There was one very important difference in the women at Versailles compared to the Austrian women I knew: they wore paint on
their faces-as did some of the men. Lots and lots of face paint. Papa
said it made even a naturally beautiful woman unbearable to the eyes
of an honest German. I found it less detestable. I would have liked
to try it, but Papa would never have allowed it.