Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell

“Tomorrow?”
    She shook her head. “Tomorrow I’m singing for the Thun und Hohensteins.”
    “Then I’ll join you.”
    She flushed. Mozart would be at the Thun-Hohensteins’, and she had never heard him play. “It’s a private salon, Mr. Fisher.”
    “I’ll be your guest. I can play my fiddle. I’ve played for the empress of Russia, I’m good enough for Thun-Hohenstein, whoever he is.”
    He was annoyed. She pressed a hand to his arm and gave him atender, beseeching look. “Another day, Mr. Fisher. The day after next. I shall be all yours, the day after next.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “But not tomorrow.”
    “Not tomorrow.”
    “You’re ashamed to be seen with me.”
    She swallowed and said, “My dear Mr. Fisher, nothing could be further from the truth.”
    The next evening, at the salon hosted by the Countess Thun, a woman whose beauty, taste, and elegance would have inspired poets of any age, Anna arrived alone. She had been invited there to sing, but it was as much a social occasion as a professional engagement, and she had been looking forward to it for a long time, even amid her personal turmoil. Mozart was already there when she arrived. He greeted her and then was pulled to another corner of the room. Anna was glad. She would not have known what to say to him. She looked forward to seeing him play because then she would be able to stare frankly. She had forgotten about his eyes and his paleness and slightness, forgotten the variety of his expressions, how they crossed so easily from cheerfulness to concentration. And then it was time for her to sing.
    Aglow in her daffodil gown, the countess, an expert player, accompanied Anna in arias from Paisiello’s wildly popular adaptation of Beaumarchais’s play
The Barber of Seville
. Anna, somewhat to her chagrin, was conscious of trying to please and impress Mozart above all the rest. She
thought
he was attentive. She thought he must be pleased. And in these idle musings she forgot, for a moment, John Fisher’s breath. The room was large and had a pleasant acoustic. The countess played as well as any concert artist and the piano was a beautiful Stein.
    After she sang, Anna returned to her seat in the gathering and with a shaking hand accepted a glass of sherry. Count Thun, the countess’s lucky mate, beamed at his wife, who moved so gracefully among her guests, every gesture simplicity, no more than it shouldbe and no less, her face open and kind, accepting the compliments of her listeners and remarking in low, lilting French (she spoke in French almost as well as German) how blessed they were to have a singer like Mademoiselle Storace among them. One could not help but recollect, seeing Anna and this gracious lady together, how the pert Rosina of
The Barber of Seville
became the melancholy, neglected Countess Almaviva of the second Beaumarchais play,
The Marriage of Figaro
. The Countess Thun, however, had no such impediments. There was not a better heart in all of Vienna, nor one more beloved, and thank God for her love of music.
    Mozart arranged himself before the pianoforte and waited while the guests settled and seated themselves. He wore a red frock coat trimmed with gold thread. A froth of lace cascaded from his throat. He had brought no music. He would play a sonata from memory and then improvise for a time on any theme given to him.
    The room seemed to grow smaller around him, the light in all corners to flicker and dim. He played almost without appearing to move, sitting at the piano with a quality of straightness born more from attention and relaxation than from any excitement or anxiety.
    Anna had seen many virtuosi play. Wolfgang Mozart surpassed them all. He exhaled, and so many breathing notes unfurled from his unhesitating hands. He played as she had always wished to sing—how she imagined she might sing if she were not so excitable and striving, but selfless and assured, bound to music alone. His expression hardly altered. He looked