Pianist in the Dark (4 page)

Her hands were burning. She pulled them abruptly from his grasp.

“I will try to be a docile patient.”

He grabbed her wrist firmly.

“That is not enough. Docility is for idiots who like to be submissive. That is not what I am asking of you.”

She stood up, but her legs buckled under.

“What exactly do you want from me?”

He pulled on the cord to call for the maid.

“I want you to channel your energy, impatience, and fears into your cure. Have faith in the future. Have faith in me.”

Anna entered the room. He clicked his heels ceremoniously.

“We will begin tomorrow.”

S
HE SPENT THE NEXT DAY WAITING FOR HIM. SHE HAD
time to scout the premises. The fourteen steps of the door stoop; the path to the left that led to the dovecote, the one to the right that led to the bandstands. Between the paths, on the other side of the big fountain, was the stone stairway leading to the gazebo.

She had to turn left out of her room and walk down a long, wood-paneled hallway to a library that had been specially arranged for her. Then, seven steps forward and three to the left brought her to the piano.

She immediately loved how the sound enveloped her, how it contrasted with the stiffness of the keys. She was moved to learn from Anna that Mesmer himself had chosen the piano in anticipation of her stay.

After a long nap to make up for her restless night, she sat at the piano and took pleasure in lazily playing pieces from her repertoire in whatever order whim moved her. She started a concerto, then segued mid-adagio into an operatic aria, then began singing a
lied
. She had begun training her voice ever since she’d put her fingers to a keyboard, but she was reluctant to sing when not in the presence of a voice coach. At home she never did singing exercises in front of friends or family. Here she knew no one. Mesmer’s wife was expected in two days, and his other patients lived in a pavilion at the far end of the garden. She alone had the honor of staying under his roof.

She was singing to her heart’s content—red-cheeked and smiling, rocking her head and tapping her feet to the rhythm of one of the grand arias of Gluck’s
Alceste—
when Mesmer surprised her.

He waited in the doorway for her to finish, but she heard the door case creaking against his weight. She stopped at once.

“I let myself get carried away. What time is it? Is it already evening?”

Mesmer stood still, observing how nervous she became in his presence. He could sense the unrest under her pulsing eyelids.

In a few strides he was standing above her, holding her head in his hands.

“It is almost nightfall. Don’t move. Don’t let your eyes roll back into your head. Concentrate on a fixed point and force them to be still.”

Her breathing grew calmer as she tried to obey him, to no avail.

Mesmer slowly withdrew his hands from her face. She heard him open a bottle, then close it. She stood up, and suddenly her nostrils were invaded by a scent of musk. She sneezed. Her eyelids started to burn so badly that she could no longer breathe.

By the time the pain had diminished, then disappeared, her eyes were open and calm. She started breathing normally again, but her heart was racing.

“You have my eyes standing at attention!” she joked, not sounding very assured.

Without answering, he led her to a couch. He had her lie down and wedged her head amid the cushions so she couldn’t move it.

“Are you comfortable? Position yourself as if you were going to sleep.”

Once again the scent of musk wafted up along her body. She felt nothing other than a warm, fragrant wave above her limbs, which relaxed one by one, as if each bone were autonomous. A feather seemed to be exploring her skeleton, lingering over every joint. She felt incredibly light. The wave grew warmer and warmer, then burning hot. She let out a cry, brought her hands to her ears, and lost consciousness.

When she came to, she felt a weight on her eyelids and smelled the sweet fragrance of honey being spread on warm, buttered bread.

She turned in the direction of the smell.

“I’m preparing you something that tastes of childhood. You’ve earned it.”

He reached out and stroked her cheek.

“You’ll now be able to open your eyes.”

He removed the compresses from her eyelids. They had been soaked in a thick oil.

She grabbed onto his arm, sat up, and cautiously, as slowly as possible, ordered her brain to move her eyelashes and open the lids, which were painful and swollen. She screamed, as much out of surprise as out of fear.

“Shadows ... I see shadows passing in front of my eyes. It’s no longer pitch-black. It’s black but with holes in it and the holes are less black, and they make shadows! But my head! It’s like it is being banged with a hammer and the banging stops only when I close my eyes.”

“So keep them closed. I’ll blindfold you so you can keep them shut. The light is going to hurt you for a while.”

“The light? I have light in my eyes?”

A gentle smile that she could not discern appeared on Mesmer’s lips. Her candor and innocence provoked emotions in him that he wanted to keep hidden.

“Magnetism has pierced through the night of your gaze. You will slowly be able to make out shapes. What you call shadows are in fact the contours of the objects in your midst. Can you see my arm moving?”

She opened her eyes very slowly and perceived the shadow moving up and down. She grabbed onto it, like onto a life buoy.

She recognized the scent of musk and pressed her face against it.

“Are you really going to help me see again?”

“If that is what you want, we will make it happen.”

She hid her face in the hollow of his elbow.

“I’m scared.”

He took her face in his hands and brought it close to his own.

“You are beautiful. You have nothing to fear.”

He kissed her forehead, and she felt the quivering of his fingers against her temples. She was overwhelmed by the exquisite gentleness of his gestures.

He let go of her face abruptly, grabbed a piece of bread and placed it between her teeth. Suddenly famished, she gulped it down.

“Eat now and stop worrying. In your new life you will have to stop dissecting your every thought.”

“Why? Does seeing stop you from thinking?”

He let out a short, sad laugh.

“Sight can sometimes skew our judgments. What you have in front of your eyes can blind you.”

“In that case, what is the advantage of seeing?”

He thought it over before answering.

“Seeing is neither better nor worse. It is a way of discovering the reality of things and of people. You will develop your knowledge, learn to appreciate nature and to understand the human condition. Seeing can make you lucid.”

“And happy?” she insisted.

He did not answer. She heard him stand up and give a maid instructions for the night. She lay down and fell asleep immediately.

S
HE WOKE UP IN A STATE OF GREAT CONFUSION, HER
head held in place by a rough piece of cloth wrapped around her temples. She almost screamed. The thick blindfold reminded her of the cataplasms to which she had been confined as a child and which had left her with eczema for months. Then she remembered that Mesmer had mentioned protecting her eyes from the light, and she was instantly relieved. What had happened the night before was a miracle. The blackness had ceased being a homogeneous mass.

She wanted to open her eyes to try again, but the blindfold kept her eyelids tightly shut.

She called Anna, who appeared immediately by her side.

“Ah, you’re there?”

“The Professor said to help you when you woke up.”

“Tell him I will be ready in an hour.”

“He went to Vienna to meet Madame Mesmer. They will be back in a few days. In the meantime I’m supposed to tighten your blindfold every morning and ask you not to try to open your eyes until he returns. Would you like your breakfast?”

Maria Theresia felt wounded, almost betrayed. How could he begin the treatment and then disappear?

“How will the other patients manage?”

“There are two nurses in the pavilion who tend to them as I tend to you. You’re my only patient. I’ll go to the kitchen and get your meal.”

By habit, Maria Theresia counted Anna’s footsteps as she walked away. Twenty-seven. She was hot. She pushed away the comforter. How long was “a few days”? How many hours until she would see she shadows and smell the musk? She was in a hurry to start the treatment again. No. She was not going to lie to herself. She wanted to be back in his company. She was less in a rush to get better than she was eager to be with him. She shook her head to chase away these disturbing thoughts. The blindfold was uncomfortable. It tugged at her hair. How could she miss someone she barely knew? If he managed to cure her, she didn’t know how sight would affect her senses, but this impatience that took hold of her was something new.

She had learned from Nina that Madame Mesmer’s face was pretty but plump and that her figure had thickened in keeping with her age. Maria Theresia hated the fact that she remembered this gossip. “I’m no better than the servants.”

She spent the following days composing on the stiff piano keys a fugue that Anna described as “melancholic” and that she herself found dark, as if her tetchy mood had been translated into a disquieting, haunting tempo. She decided to call the piece “While Awaiting the Storm,” because the Vienna sky was heavy and oppressive. Maria Theresia leaned her head toward the open window in hope of detecting a refreshing breeze, but none came. The city was at a standstill, on its guard. Both she and Vienna seemed to be holding their breath.

He came back with a bouquet of violets. “The same color as your moods,” he said as he placed them on a pedestal table near the piano. He explained that he would remove her blindfold that evening. He preferred to wait for the sun to set, to avoid exposing her to bright light.

He started to set off to greet his other patients in the pavilion. She offered to accompany him, but he declined. His embarrassment surprised her.

“I won’t be a burden, and I won’t stare at anyone unbecomingly,” she said mockingly. His refusal had hurt her.

“Don’t underestimate yourself.”

Mesmer walked away from the piano. He started pacing around the room. His footsteps seemed to mirror the progression of his thoughts.

“I have four patients there—three of them are women. They’d be jealous seeing you at my side. It would endanger their recovery.”

Maria Theresia burst out laughing.

“Are they all so attached to you?”

His footsteps grew heavier, faster.

“Magnetism brings to pass a stage of intensity between the patient and the doctor. The relation I have with each of them is unique, and I want them to experience it as such.”

He stopped in his tracks, staring at her back-lit profile.

“They’re each about thirty years old. Your youth might disturb them.”

Maria Theresia slammed the piano lid shut.

“I understand. It is best they don’t cross paths with the newcomer in your harem.”

The silence in the room was suddenly heavy.

“This irony is beneath you. I will see you this evening.”

S
MARTING WITH TEARS, HER EYES WERE ON FIRE, BUT
she refrained from telling him so. Once he was gone, she huddled up at the leg of the baby grand, put her arms around her knees, and rocked back and forth, just as she did as a child when the pain was too great.

So this was love? This burning-up inside? Saying the opposite of what you mean? Having your heart race in his presence and feel faint once he is gone? It was Nina’s fault—Nina, who had described Mesmer as an exceptional creature; Nina, who had dwelt on his height, his intense gaze, his charisma, and the kindness of his features. Maria Theresia had been swayed by her chambermaid.

Now she is in a position to flesh out this impression of him. The heat he gives off when he approaches her; the gentleness of his hands when he clasps hers; the warmth of his breath, which, depending on the time of day, smells like coffee or mint; the volume of his voice which he can switch, as he pleases, from a booming, stentorian tone to one that is stern, cold, and unwavering, like the one he had just employed with her. But she’s also known a gentle tone, which contains his emotion behind rapid breathing, almost panting.

She has never thought of a man in these terms. She feels herself blushing. She would never have described her father in terms so precise. No man has ever awakened her senses in this fashion. Mesmer is the first. Because he speaks to her as a woman, not as a blind person. He ignores her blindness. He mentions it only when discussing her treatment. This is the difference. He doesn’t see her merely as Mozart’s friend or the Empress’s protégée; as a child prodigy spotted very early on, or a poor little rich girl plunged into darkness, or the daughter of a famous and well-connected father. Behind the social decorum and the handicap that’s been wedded to her name like a preordained condition, he is interested in the person she really is: a quick-witted girl with a hunger to learn and an anxious disposition, at once distrusting everyone and desirous of trust; a budding young woman trapped in a teenage body, waiting for love to satisfy her senses and bring her fulfillment. Yes, she can admit it to herself: She dreams of having Mesmer’s arms wrapped around her body, of taking shelter in that musculature, that massive manly strength.

Maria Theresia was more than in love. She had projected her every want onto Mesmer. Her need to admire, her thirst to confide, her craving to fulfill desires that she could barely comprehend. She wanted Mesmer to be a brother, a father, a friend, a confidant, a lover. She mixed together all her girlish fancies and womanly hopes and expected them all to be somehow completed by him, her doctor, her magician, her knight, her fearless savior. It sufficed simply to listen to the fugue she had composed in his house, and into which she had poured all her torments, to read her soul.