By Brooke Hennen
To Michael Puchberg, merchant, of Vienna
December 1788
Honorable O.B.!
Dearest Best of Friend,
Times have changed my friend. When last I wrote I was down trodden and creeping towards death’s gate. Thanks to your grateful financial assistance I have been able to gain a new balance which allowed me to steady my mind on material matters.
As you may or may not know, my financial issues are in part caused by our country’s skirmishes with the Ottoman Empire. Joseph II’s decision to engage the Turks has brought near ruin down on Vienna’s musical scene. Two opera companies which had been mainstays for my work have closed. The only reason that I have been able to stay near Vienna is because of my position as Joseph II’s “chamber composer”. At times the money seems more like a noose around my neck as I think about traveling again, especially to Prague where The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni have been having spectacular performances!
One morning on my commute to Vienna from my new lodging in Alsergrund, I found myself in odd company. In one hand I softly grasped music sheets with an unfinished concerto scribbled on them in charcoal. I sat with my chin propped on the palm of my upturned hand, my elbow resting on the windowsill of the carriage. I stared through the portal at the sky which was overhung with wispy, sun stricken clouds that seemed to be thin enough that the sun light ripped through them as water passes through one’s own undergarments. A rain had fallen the previous night, and I could hear the wooden wheels of my ride sloshing through brown, soupy puddles. The carriage vaulted up and down while the wheels rose and fell through the sunken and rocky earth.
It was mid morning, and women set clothes on the lines outside their houses, or strung them across the alleyways. They called out to their boys to stay clear of the filthy road and swampish sections of grass left over from the night’s weather. I even saw one mother switching her boy wearing mud soaked trousers. The birds lit the air with their own concertos to the beat of axes striking trees into fire wood, that blessed pounding of the blade into the wood always fills my chest with energy, as if I was the one swinging the ax.
The carriage came to a halt. The door opened and sun light pressed in from all angles upon the dreary carriage interior. A nun, older than my grandmother, stepped into the carriage, after being given help by the driver. Her face was pale in all features, and I wondered what had happened to cause such a weathered look upon her countenance.
She was followed by a young girl. Her black hair was tangled from the top of her head down to where it stopped, just above her shoulders. She was no more than eight years old. Her skin was a darker complexion, so much that she made the nun appear to be nothing more than a ghost who was barely visible to the human eyes and I thought that if I turned away for too long, that she would disappear by the time I turned my gaze back to her from the window. The nun spoke to the girl in Turkish, which, of course, left me baffled at their discourse. I did catch the young girl’s name. It was Pamina.
The driver resumed his position at the front of the vehicle and took the reigns. As of late, I had been sullen, at moments unable to write any new pieces, let alone perform any. I had felt as the ghostly nun looked, as if my life was viable to be whisked away at any moment. Pamina stared blankly out the opposite window. She sat opposite the empty seat next to me. The nun was directly across from me. I made sure to look over one of her shoulders instead of into her eyes.
We all bobbed up and down as the horse pulled the carriage through the streets, until we came to an alarming halt. We sat idle for a few minutes before I leaned forward and peered out the window. We had stopped just before a sharp corner. A farmer’s wagon had overturned, his wheat soaking up the wet earth, and his wagon blocking the entire road as he calmed down his horse. Dogs ran out into the road and barked at the event, the sound of their voices rose and fell just as my resolve dissipated. I feared that I would get no work done today. I leaned back into the carriage, noticing that Pamina did the same. She had been watching the spectacle also. We were at a grueling impasse. The nun’s features did not change in the slightest. I folded my arms, my fingers crinkling my concerto. Pamina sat with one hand cupping the other, both of them resting in her lap.
I straightened the papers I was holding and looked them over. Pamina turned and offered a few words with a questioning glance to the nun. The woman shook her head, then turned her eyes towards the window. She stared blankly at it, as if her sight was merely hitting the empty space of the window, but not passing through it. I rubbed my forehead with my finger tips, and rolled my neck. I flipped over my concerto and drew two vertical lines, one parallel to the other that intersected two parallel horizontal ones. Yes, yes, I drew a tic tac toe board. Do you know that the scholars think that the Romans used to play the game? Is that not astounding?
I drew a circle in the top left hand corner of the board and without a word, held out the top sheet of paper to Pamina. She lifted her head and took the sheet. A smile wound its way onto her face. She took the charcoal and drew an X in the center box and passed it back to me. My next move was directly below my first. She then took the bottom left square to stop me. The nun’s brow rose. I made for the top right corner. Giggles came and went from Pamina. She blocked the top middle. I smiled. I took the bottom middle. I was not going to be beaten. I had first turn. I should have won. The game ended in a tie.
I am not one to give up a victory, but she stole one away from me in our second match! Her lips creased and the smile mocked me. I was beaten by an eight year old in tic tac toe. How humiliating. The next game was a tie. We both moved around in our seats as we looked the battle field over, accessing all our options. Pamina was still laughing when I whipped her in the fourth match.
The cart started to roll again, and I would never have lived down that carriage ride if I had not beaten the girl before one of us left the carriage. We tied the fifth game. The tips of our fingers were well on there way to blackness and my concerto was beginning to disappear underneath a cloud of smudged charcoal. I won the sixth game. I admit that I was frightened that if we kept playing that I would end up with the most losses to my record. After I beat her with only four turns that final game, I struck a line through the top row of circles and kept the sheet.
I flipped over the second page of my concerto and started forming rows and columns with dots. Eleven across and ten down from there. Pamina leaned across the carriage to see what I was working on, her eyes small slits searching to jump over the horizon of the page. Her care taker set her hand on the girl’s shoulder and pulled her back into her seat. A sneer escaped my mouth, both at her being chastised and at myself for being responsible. I filled in all the dots, laying down our battlefield. Every twenty dots or so the carriage would roll through a pot hole and I would smear a small dot into a tiny blob. I was relaxed. I took my time. I gain a greater sense of time. A new sense of anxiety was building out of the anticipation of our game. I started humming. It began with just a few new notes. The sounds just kept coming. The two gave me odd looks at first. They relaxed after a few movements. I was playing with a few of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star variations that I had written a few years ago.
I passed Pamina the concerto. She was overwhelmed by all the dots that I had drawn. It was going to be the biggest dots and boxes game that I had ever played. I kept humming. She chimed in after winning a few boxes. I marked my boxes with Ws while she stuck with Xs.
The game came down to those last ten moves where you have to play it perfectly. If you do not, your opponent gets a chain that wins them nearly all the boxes.
We were both leaned forward into the small isle. Beads of perspiration seeped across my forehead. The ride would have seemed to have taken forever if I had not been engulfed in such a playful past time. I drew a line. She drew a line. I won a box. She won a box. The driver whistled along too. I had it. I was going to win. Wait. No. I had miscounted. She was going to take it from me. I felt like an utter fool as she filled the grid with her Xs. She beat me sixty five to fifteen! We played a second game. She beat me twenty one to nine in that one.
I waved goodbye as I stepped out of the carriage. My mind was ablaze. I was renewed. The spark of the girl’s smile stayed with me as I sat down at my piano to practice. I wrote six full dances that day. My joy was over flowing. I will never forget her small hands that held the very sheets that I wrote one of the dances on or how her tiny nails scratched the charcoal occasionally. Pamina gave me a new life that day. I believe that I will find many others to follow it. Each day that I ride into town I pray that I may see her again, or another like her, but I do not believe that it will happen, but oh that it would. Just remembering those moments is enough for me when I set my finger tips down on the black and white keys. Pamina’s song carries on, and that my friend, is what I have needed most over these past months. She was my morning princess. I may not have finished any significant pieces until Christmas Eve, but those twelve minuets have served my spirit well.
Bah. What does it matter? I am sorry if you do not approve of my childish behavior and thoughts since that day. I pray that you have lost no respect for me as a brother because of my indulgences with the girl. I pray that you fare well. May the music go on!
Your most devoted friend and brother,
W.A. Mozart
P.S. When shall I play again at your house? I think that you will love the minuets that I mentioned above.
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