it was a sweet, reflective young smile. In the dark parlor surrounded by the closed clavier, the piles of music, and the many books, she felt very comfortable. The heavy book on the lives of great dead composers was sliding off the others and any moment might fall to the floor. It’s best that Aloysia and Josefa keep singing, she thought. Perhaps then we’ll have more money so Mama won’t worry as much and then we’ll have hot creamy chocolate every single morning. But why do they want things to be another way? Aren’t we happy the way we are now when we gather about the table and all talk at once about music pupils, mother’s family’s silver before they lost it, court gossip, and what’s new at the small theater? Or the way we are on Thursdays, when all the people I love best come up the stairs? Don’t they know that the only important thing is that all of us remain together forever? Papa holds us together, and Mama, and I will, as well. This is my place. I’ll hold us together by my love.
Her hand tightened on the windowsill; she breathed deeply once and held on as if she suddenly understood the depth of the promise she had just made.
But the next moment she was a child again, looking up at her mother who had just appeared at the parlor door in her huge white nightdress. “Why are you up? Come to bed, my little fleas,” Maria Caecilia said.
“We couldn’t sleep! Just a time longer. We want to wait up for them.”
Their mother’s contralto was benevolent. “Drape your quilt around you then. Stanzi, I will never forget how ill you were when you were a little girl. Every time you cough I shudder.” The voice dropped to the low warning she used to tell one of her fearful stories. “My dearest friend as a girl always stood by windows. My saintly friend Therese. It was when our family still had our best silver. And she caught a consumption, and died young.”
“I thought you said she recovered.”
“Nothing could save her. You are lucky to be so healthy, whereas my sisters, my poor sisters!” She sighed. Constanze squirmed a little, hoping that the story would not be related once again this evening. It was hard to pay attention to stories that had interested you in the first telling, but grew unbearably dull after time.
But their mother demurred. “Fetch your quilts.” She yawned, and her voice trailed back at them as she moved heavily down the hall. “Ah, why do they always stay away so long when they sing? But perhaps if the Blessed Virgin wills it, someone will notice their beauty this evening.”
As their mother departed, Sophie stared down at the floor, the corner of her mouth beginning to twitch. “Our aunts,” she whispered. “I forgot to tell you before! A letter came today. They’re coming for Christmas.”
Constanze covered her own mouth with both hands. “Oh Sophie, when have they not come for Christmas? The ridiculous old things huffing up the stairs panting, ‘Blessed Saint Elizabeth!’ ‘Blessed Virgin Mary!’ ‘Blessed Saint Joseph!’ ”
They began to giggle, flinging themselves on the sofa and stuffing their faces against the pillows to smother the sound. Their mother’s sisters were old, had always been old; when the world was created they were old. There was Elizabeth with her contradictory stories, who kept holy relics in her purse and pressed them against her nieces’ foreheads. And Gretchen, who was simpleminded, though no one admitted it; they claimed it was merely bad memory brought on by some obscure sorrow. Both ate a great deal and were so fat that they did indeed have increasing difficulty in climbing the stairs, taking longer each year. Constanze had kept a record for the last three Christmastides.
Now from the depths of the pillow cushion Constanze gasped, “Oh what will they bring us this time! Dresses six years too small for us, moth-eaten shawls that stink of mildew! And they think bathing’s unhealthy so they never do it! Thank God we never have to go to their house.”
Sophie raised her shiny face and whispered, “No, they always come here; it’s been years since we went to Zell, where Mama and Papa lived and where they met. But it’s not nice to laugh at others. I’ll have to tell it in confession. I try not to, but you know, they’re ... so ...”