Now they were shrieking, and only their mother’s sharp call from down the hall made them stifle their laughter; but tears ran down their cheeks, and they careened into the pile of books, which finally tumbled onto the floor. Poking each other, they marched with contorted faces to fetch their quilts. When they could stop laughing but for a hiccup now and then, they knelt by the window, still not daring to look at each other, and shared a cup of cold, grainy coffee between them. The street wavered before Constanze’s eyes, and she lost track of how many times the sentry passed.
Hours later they were awoken as the two older sisters burst into the room and opened the wicker basket they carried. Fruits and little creamy chocolates rolled across the top of the music table by the ink pot, and their father happily cried, “A triumph, a triumph!”
High among the roofs, chimneys, and church spires of Mannheim that very same evening, Wolfgang Mozart, the Webers’ guest from the night before, sat in the smaller of the two garret rooms he and his mother had rented, writing the closing rondeau of a flute concerto. Chewing his lip, he hunched forward, the edges of his fingers inky, humming, now and then tapping his feet. He was so utterly engrossed, he knew nothing but the rapid dancing of the solo flute that flowed out from his mind through his fingers. The solitary candle sloped from the draft. Quickly his pen moved up and down the lines of music, filling in all the instrumental parts. Though the room was cool, he was hot as he worked, and had thrown off his coat. His old shirt was open down his delicate neck.
“Wolfgang,” came the murmur from the other room. “Wolferl?”
He grasped the pen, the small black marks on the page rushing forth, ink seeping onto his fingertips and into the crevices of his nails. His mother’s voice called again. “Wolfgang, do you hear? Are you still working on that Dutchman’s commission?”
He flung the words over his shoulder: “I’m well into the last movement. ”
His mother coughed; and then, “You won’t make the flute part too difficult, will you, dear? He is an amateur, remember, and he does have pride.”
Mozart glanced down at the plethora of rapid notes. “Oh, he’ll manage to breathe somewhere,” he muttered, and for a moment he wondered where and how.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t catch a chill,” Frau Mozart called.
The rapid movement that had been inside his head was now slowly fading; it had flowed from his mind and now lay in cramped, rapid penmanship on the music staves before him. How many hours had he worked? He never remembered. If only I could finish it all tonight, he thought. The whole commission, second quartet, both concerti. If only my hand and eyes weren’t tired. He slumped slightly, one hand on the side of the newly dried ink markings, listening to the sound of late carriages and merrymakers rising up from the street.
After a time he drank some ale and began to gather the music pages. In the rooms below a girl was laughing. He recognized the strange quiet inside himself that always came after working for some hours.
In the next room, also by one candle, Frau Mozart sat up in bed with a portable desk across her knees; she looked up from her writing, her small eyes blinking. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, lips moving in relief, and returned to her letter home to Salzburg.
Dear Husband,
Last evening we went on your recommendation to that music copyist. Listen. Weber is a good man but hasn’t two pennies, and I can’t trust his wife; she is interested only in her own opportunities. The two older girls sing not badly. Our evening there was not unpleasant, but I suppose there must be more important people in Mannheim to know than this. There was certainly no one there last night to further our son’s career. Strangely, here as in Augsburg, everyone seems to have forgotten the prodigy he was, how all of Europe clustered about him. It is as if that never happened.
I wish you had come with us and did not have to remain in your wretched work for the Archbishop.
Wolferl worked several hours tonight on the Dutchman’s commission, after two days of complaining how he dislikes writing for flute, particularly when it will be destroyed by the playing of an amateur like DeJean. However, three days ago he