“But for that brief period when she lent it to Aloysia, she wore it all her life, and, as I promised, I kept her secrets as long as she lived.”
“And she never had any lovers at all?”
“She did marry eventually; you know that. She married the bass Hofer, whom she had met in Prague. He moved to Vienna with her, where they both sang. They had a music shop for a time, a very nice one, and they were very close to Mozart. She and Mama made up, but they never did like each other very much. Did Hofer know about what was in the locket? I don’t know. She did love her husband with all her heart.”
“And you married as well. Your name is Haibel.”
Using my cane, I rose slowly. “I did marry, though the others thought I wouldn’t. I didn’t marry Johann Haibel until I was in my middle forties. Before then I stayed home, trying to keep Mama from madness and manipulation; I succeeded at the first but not the second. That was beyond me.”
I began to make my way across the room past my table and to the trunk near the bed. “I know your visit to Austria is coming to a close soon, my English friend, and I must say, I will miss you. I will miss telling you my stories, but to tell the truth, you did not need to come such a very long way to know the Weber sisters.”
My back ached unmercifully, and I put my hand on the small of it before bending over the trunk. I pulled away the shawl, which covered it, then had to use both hands to open the top. The smells of dust and old paper and wood rose to my nose.
Monsieur Novello joined me beside the trunk, holding up a lamp. “What is all this music?” he asked, looking down at the contents of the trunk, and then his voice grew softer. “I know. They’re his operas; they’re his operas in his own hand, the original scores. I know his handwriting from some of his other works, but I had no idea where the opera scores were. Forgive me, but I’m overcome. I can’t help it.”
He dropped to his knees and began to take out the heavy bundles, laying one after another on his knees. “All here,” he murmured. “Le Nozze di Figaro, Idomeneo ... and here, Abduction. Here’s the second aria for little Blondchen! And Zaide, which sadly he never finished.”
My English biographer sat with the scores all around him and wiped his eyes, turning his face so that no tears would fall to the pages. I lowered myself to a chair, and he reached out and grasped my hand hard. I felt his gold ring on my palm and the cuff of his English shirt as it brushed my wrist.
He murmured, “Here are all the operas....”
“Here are all of them, monsieur. Constanze had them, and then they came to me.”
He loosed my hand but held his in the air so that I would understand he couldn’t speak for emotion; in that moment I was so glad he had traveled from England to find me. For some time there was no sound but that of his uneven breathing and the creaking of a carriage passing in the street. Then he wiped his face once more and began to turn the pages.
I said, “Monsieur Novello, when you first came to speak with me, you told me how real you found the women in Mozart’s operas, and asked if I and my sisters were any influence on their creation. With all modesty, I think I may reply that we were a fair influence indeed. Indeed we were, monsieur.”
This congenial biographer moved the lamp closer, and continued to turn the pages of the scores with their many lines for instrumentation. “Yes, we’re all there,” I said. “All of us, you see—Aloysia, Constanze, Josefa, and me—all our moods, our sensuality, our youth. Whatever score you take up—Giovanni, Così Fan Tutte—you’ll find something of us. We’re the playful girls, the lonely countesses, the abandoned women. I see myself in the chambermaid disguised as a notary, though alas! I never did sing, never could sing at all.”
I shook my head. “I wish I had. Constanze sang some of his roles in concert later in her life; her voice was good, but she lacked the boldness needed. Josefa, as I told you, was the fiery, brilliant Queen of