“Oh, her spoon, of course!” Aloysia cried. “Does she think we are children to threaten with a spoon? I earned fifteen silver florins last night and pay for the bread on the table, and she thinks I’m no more than a child!” And she rushed off without a glance at Josefa, who, with an angry shrug, marched off to retrieve the table linen from the hall floor.
Now alone for the moment, Sophie stood by the window, untying her apron and looking down at the approaching evening. Her heart still beat fast from the quarrel. Few carriages passed. Squinting hard, she saw the shapes of what looked like two men walking toward the street door of their house; it was all she could make out with her nearsightedness, but when they opened the front door below, she cried, “Someone’s come early; Stanzi, help me!”
From the kitchen her mother called out threats, prayers, and directions. The gingerbread was not ready. Constanze hurried out with her dress half fastened, her fingers lacing as fast as they could, and began to light the candles. Aloysia emerged fully dressed. I have never belonged in this family, she thought severely, suppressing her last sob.
Still, she felt simultaneously the old pride that had brought them all through much. They were the daughters of the musician Fridolin Weber, from a family of Webers. It was Thursday, and, as her father once told her, tickling her and rubbing his unshaven face against hers, on this night in this house, no one is unhappy. So she moved closer to her sisters, and they all stood as one, hands touching, smelling of clean brushed clothes perfumed with lavender, hair drawn plainly back for two younger girls, still curled for Aloysia, and pushed under a cap for Josefa, who had stayed too late at the book shop and had not had time to fuss.
Constanze in her plain dark dress looked at the door.
Sophie unlatched it.
Leutgeb strode forward to kiss the hands of the girls; by his side was the smaller Mozart, large, kind eyes looking about at all of them. In his bass voice, Leutgeb boomed, “We’re too early, but perhaps we’ll be forgiven when you see the nice cakes and wine we have for you.”
Sophie rushed forward to look at the basket placed on the table. “Oh, chocolate cake with cherries,” she cried, jumping up and down a little. “And sweet wine ... Father loves sweet wine.” Her freckled face brimmed with gratitude as she squinted at both musicians.
From her parents’ bedchamber, she heard her father curse in the name of Saint Elizabeth as he dropped something on the floor. He would bend, groaning, to pick it up, his back curving. Her mother was still in the kitchen banging pots, wiping off dishes.
Mozart held a narrow paper portfolio in both his arms. “I’ve brought something as well,” he said.
“What, more cakes?” asked Sophie.
“No, not cakes. A challenge. I am come to set a challenge for Mademoiselle Aloysia.”
“What? What?” cried the girls all at once, clamoring about him, but he shook his head. Suddenly he was not shy at all; instead, his face was full of mischief. “But you’ll have to wait a time until all the guests come.”
Within the half hour the room was crowded, a pupil of their father’s had arrived, and a church musician, then a few members of a horn band, followed by dear Heinemann and Alfonso with violin and cello, as always, by their sides. The younger girls ran back to find extra wineglasses and plates, and the cake was set among the music, the glazed cherries nestled among the chocolate thick as fine velvet. Sophie gazed at all with relief as the guests consumed the cake and her father grew visibly merrier. And at last there was their parents’ oldest friend, honest Uncle Thorwart, whom they had known from childhood; this heavy man who panted from the stairs winked at them. He had brought from the best chocolatier in town a painted wood box of chocolates, likely filled with sweet nuts, drops of blackberry liqueur, and marzipan, whose sugared-almond taste lingered for hours on the tongue. It was a generous box of at least four layers. If the guests mostly addressed themselves to their mother’s gingerbread with cream and the several additional bottles of wine that remained, there would be enough chocolate to enjoy in secret later on.
Thorwart, meticulously dressed, placed his ringed hand over his heart. “Those stairs! My breath! Girls, come kiss your