to the harpsichord, in which the level of the tone can’t vary.” Then he was closer; he had come from the room. He stood just behind her. “Play something and you’ll see,” he said. “Play something.”
The first chords filled her, and tears pricked at her eyes. She withdrew her hands after playing only a page of a piece from memory, and clasped them tightly in her lap among the folds of her gray skirt.
“Come!” he said, seating himself beside her and beginning to play. His large hands were slightly hairy, and here and there were small cuts from his work. “Now you see what the pedal can do,” he said. “Is it not a remarkable instrument? But perhaps not today for you.”
The shop bell tinkled, and another customer came in, shaking out his umbrella. Constanze stood up at once and walked to the window, where piles of music lay; she began to look through them. Trios; music for wind band, clavier, and fortepiano music. Outside the window, the rain streaked down, and people hurrying past were blurred. Some time passed.
Then he was at her side. “Here’s the music, mademoiselle; I found it for you. You lost your copy when moving? Keep this one safe.”
Johann Schantz touched her arm, but she did not turn. She knew at that moment there was another young woman inside her, and if she allowed her to burst free, then who would she be, what would she do, where would she belong? Who was she if not the dutiful daughter, her hands clasped over her apron; the one who picked up broken plates and brought scraps out for the refuse man? She knew who she was: good, sweet, obscure Constanze, who had not quite been able to keep her family together.
Then his youngest child ran into the shop and leapt into his father’s arms. She walked a few streets in the rain, protecting the music under her cloak. The fortepiano maker was a married man. How could she dream of him? What would her own beloved father have said?
Still, during the next days, she reviewed every moment that had passed between them since she had first seen Johann Schantz, of the times she had visited his shop to purchase music or to present another difficulty with the aging clavier. She thought of how when he himself had come to their house to mend the clavier, she could not go into the parlor when she heard his voice.
Two days after her visit to the shop she was standing by the table just inside the boardinghouse door, looking through the post, which contained its customary weekly letter from her maternal aunts, when she saw the letter addressed to the Weber sisters. At once her heart began to pound, and she took the letters with her to the kitchen.
“What do you have there?” Sophie asked as she rolled out dough. “I know. One of Mama’s schemes has worked out, and the Count’s Russian cousin has asked to marry you. You’re moving to Moscow.”
“No, it’s an invitation to a supper and dance with the Schantz family, in their rooms above the music shop. Alfonso’s going as well, and he can chaperone us.”
Sophie looked about for the bowl of preserved fruit to spread on the dough. “What are you hiding from me, Stanzi?” she said ruefully. “Never mind. You’ll tell me when I’m on my deathbed, dying of curiosity. Let me see. Josefa won’t go with us; she never does anymore. I suppose Mama will say we can go if cousin Alfonso’s there.”
They arrived late to the party after helping to serve supper at home. The upper room was quite full already, with more than a few dozen people, mostly musicians, some of whom the girls had known half their lives. A sideboard groaned with dark bottles of wine from Johann and Wenzel Schantz’s country vineyard, for the brothers’ family made fine Viennese wines in addition to fortepianos. There were also cheeses, sliced sausages, and bread.
Constanze kept her eyes on the floor or the table. She could sense the presence of the fortepiano maker, and hear his resonant, rich bass voice. This night she knew that his eyes followed her; she could feel them.
Sophie hurried off to speak to an old friend of their father’s, and Constanze found Alfonso and his handsome Italian peasant wife sitting on chairs in one of the bedrooms, which had been cleared as much as possible for the party. She could estimate by Alfonso’s ebullient voice