the middle of them her thoughts wandered to Mozart and then to the large, echoing halls of the boardinghouse, and the sound of her mother’s humming rising from the kitchen. Then she wept, shoulders shaking under the feather quilt. She recalled herself stricken by diphtheria at five years old, trying to swim to consciousness, gasping for air, how the room bent and rocked, how the pictures on the wall and the windows seemed to be all crooked, how the sheer white curtains of the bed seemed to sway.... There was her mother by her bedside with her prayer book or her knitting. There she was, leaning over Constanze, her hand on her daughter’s hot forehead, murmuring, “Stanzi, Stanzi,” with the greatest love in the world.
Then again healthy and fed full of meat and dumplings, cradled in that great lap, stories whispered in her ears. Old tales of hidden princesses in a tower deep in the woods, stories of the way the world was, of how to make apple cake, of what it meant to grow up, warnings to beware of men, beware of lying, beware of trusting too much. This warm, bakery-smelling presence, this source of lullabies, cuddling her in their oldest quilt, which they kept on the kitchen chair, its floral cover long faded, a feather or two escaping. Sweet, darling Mother ... What do you do with someone who is everything to you and yet has so angered you? Caecilia Weber was not crazed. She always distorted things when agitated; she told wild untruths and later repented them, especially when she drank too much, which she did these days.
Constanze recalled her mother’s voice as she had summoned them from their beds on Sunday mornings for so many years: Maria Aloysia, Maria Josefa, Maria Constanze, Maria Sophia ... where are you? Later on Sundays the four sisters might build in the kitchen tents from torn sheets, hiding beneath them near the fire. They were princesses, they were queens, they were virgins in peril and righteous warriors; in whispers those holy late afternoons between dinner and their late small supper, the girls were everything to one another, while from behind their parents’ closed bedchamber door sometimes came sighs. Why had it gone away? Aloysia married; Josefa off in a strange city; Sophie swallowed up by God too soon, before half the conversations were done. Constanze had been unable to hold them together, even with her great love.
She hid her face in the pillows. She wanted her Thursday evenings again, to make it all right for all of them. Now her mother, with her furious, distorted words, had driven her staggering into this great, commodious house as a refugee. Yes, it was the truth. They had all staggered away; her mother had driven them away one by one. Then why did Constanze love her still? Why did she sometimes feel as if she were her mother, heavy body groaning as she walked from room to room, made too old too soon by life? Constanze alone could run to her and kiss her hands and cry, “It’s all right, truly,” and make her laugh again. Somehow the two of them must make up for all the rest who had been lost. The two of them must fill the empty rooms, hold within them the shadows of those who had gone. Her name was Constanze, faithful to the end. They would be two old fat women together, groaning, barring the door against life’s sorrows.
Then she slept, dreaming she was a sickly child again with her mother and father sitting on her bed, kissing her cheeks. She felt her father’s stubble, his sharp chin against her cheek as he fell asleep beside her, holding her hand.
Stanzi?
She sat up in bed. Was her mother calling?
But it was only the rain.
She woke aching all over; even the soft wool nightdress felt hot. She did not know where she was at first, and then looked about the room, now bathed in sunlight. Someone had come and opened the curtains, just as someone must have pinched out the candles last night. On the table next to the bed was a tray containing a pot of fragrant coffee and a plate of newly baked rolls, and from below came the sound of the fortepiano, pouring out the most astonishing variations.
The Baroness swept across the room. “Mozart has been below for some time, and has eaten several rolls with cheese and coffee. He won’t sit still for wanting to see