by S. K. Waller

When I was born, the first words spoken were,

"Frau Mozart, you have just given birth to a little spinster Archduchess!"

Looking back, I suppose the midwife was right. I sit here, alone, in my tenement home in Salzburg, nearing what I believe to be the end of my life. I am almost entirely blind, receive few visitors, and have no real family to speak of. I would not have anyone feel sorrow on my account, however, for I have lived a most remarkable existence one that no other is privileged to claim. I have shared discourse with the great minds of my Age. I have been flirted with by the most handsome, titled gentlemen in the highest courts of the world. I have seen many countries and cities. I have sat beside true, angelic genius housed within the small form of a child, and I have enjoyed an education usually reserved for the very wealthy. Not bad for a plain-faced girl from Salzburg, a small town in the Austrian Alps.

I have always been very fond of my hometown; life here is slow for the most part. Apart from my worldly travels, I have lived a fairly easy existence, free from too much common worry or strain. By this I mean that I have never had to worry about the next meal, wood in the winter, or proper clothes. My days have been spent leisurely, except for my morning music pupils. I never lacked friends, for I have always been very popular. Perhaps I am enough like my mother to enjoy spending my afternoons over games of Faro and Snap with my friends.

When I was much younger, my well-meaning friend, Katherl warned me that if I did not learn to be more flirtatious and less intellectual, I would never land a husband. But the truth is that I never felt a great urgency to ensnare myself in marriage. Of course, I wanted to marry -- eventually -- but that confining estate always lay safely in the future. To be frank, I was always terrified of childbirth and I avoided whatever might lead me to that agonizing act.

"Why can I not live like a man," I used to think, "and have children without all the fuss?"

Of course, the Church had the answer for that: I was a woman, the source of all sin and suffering and I must make penance. But this explanation made less sense to me than the question did in the first place, and I hid my resentment and fear deep inside myself.

"Why should men escape so cleanly and freely?" I wondered. "Are they not the ones who so aggressively and wantonly seek temptation? And do they not tempt and seduce most openly?" The guilt always seemed unfairly placed to me, but I dared not say anything aloud concerning these heretical musings.

My first memory is of being placed on a blanket in the courtyard of our apartment house in the Getreidegasse. My mother always told her friends that she could sit me anywhere and there I would stay, unlike my little brother, who would have been out and onto the street before she could turn around. I was not a gypsy like he was, nor as curious about the world outside. I was quite content to play with my favorite doll in the warm afternoon sun, in the safety of our little world.

I suppose I was over-indulged at first, being the only surviving child, but I was never spoilt -- I simply was not that kind of girl. I helped my mother in every way I could and I enjoyed nothing more than being near her, receiving her praise and her characteristic pats on my cheeks when my stitches were even, or when I had laid the table correctly.

I thought my mother was beautiful. She had skin like fresh cream and roses; white, taut and perfect without one wrinkle or blemish, and her cheeks and lips always glowed a healthy, deep pink. In fact, she and my father were for a long time considered the most handsome couple in Salzburg, and they dressed and groomed themselves with the utmost care. Later, as she began to age, my mother lost some of her beauty, but it was replaced by a pleasing look of warmth, concern and an indefatigable optimism. She always remained a child somehow, and I think this was part of her beauty as well. Sometimes, after I had grown into adolescence, I wondered just who was the elder of the two of us as I often found myself in the role of her confidante.

My father, whom I was most like, was more serious than my mother, but he possessed a fine, droll sense of humor which I understood perfectly. He intimidated me something I never really got over but he was an affectionate man and was easily moved to tears because he felt things so profoundly. I thought him very handsome and my first childhood crush was on him.

"Someday Nannerl," he would say as I held my baby brother in my arms, "you will marry and have children of your own, and leave your poor old Papa."

"But I will marry you, Papa!"

He threw his head back in laughter.

"Ach, but your Mama would be very jealous."

Of course, there were times when I truly detested him, for he could be quite pernicious when one of his headaches induced melancholia fell over him -- and the entire household. It enveloped him like a terrible black cloud and it was the family's responsibility to soft-pedal everything. For my part, I retreated as mush as possible until it passed, usually in three days. These headaches were a lifelong plague to my unfortunate father, and witnessing the depths to which they sent him, I forgave his occasional stinging words of unkindness. It was not his fault and there was nothing he could do to gain relief. He suffered through these "Black Sieges" as quietly as he could manage, spending entire days locked in his darkened study, the windows thrown open wide -- even in winter -- for not only did he agonize through massive head pain and crippling depression, but also through an irrational terror of closed spaces. My brother and I were always affected by his spells, and we would grow increasingly nervous and jumpy as the days wore on. Wolfgang lost himself in his music and I in my friends, seeking refuge in the less stressful confines of their merry salons.

You know so much about my brother already, I am a little hesitant to write of him in any certain depth, but I know that it is inevitable. My life was influenced by him from the day he arrived. All of my seriousness was brutally challenged when Wolfgang was born. Throughout his brief life he was a constant source of both profound aggravation and ecstatic joy to me; he was both a plague and a delight, and almost always simultaneously.

My mother had two babies between myself and Wolfgang, neither of whom survived their first year. I longed for a little brother or sister, but I could not bear to witness my mother's pain and grief. I clearly remember the night Wolfgang was born, though. It seemed to me to be the worst birth I had witnessed my poor mother enduring, but I didn't grow fearful until Thresl, our maid, came in the door with a priest. This terrified me and I ran around the salon screaming, may hands over my ears. She gathered me into her embrace, trying vainly to console me while the priest disappeared into the bedroom. The small apartment resounded with gut-wrenching screams and mournful, ghastly wails -- small wonder I was ever after terrified of childbirth!

When the tiny, sickly little boy was finally shown to me, I hatefully thought, "If you survive, I hope you know and appreciate what you have put my Mama through!"

As the days and weeks passed, however, I found myself growing very fond of the little usurper. I felt he was special somehow, as if his horrendous birth had been a sign that he was destined to be here, against insurmountable odds. I delighted in taking care of him and, as my mother regained her health and strength (though never fully, I'm afraid), the little Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart wormed his way firmly into my heart.

Fastidious and tidy, and desiring a certain order in life, I was always convinced that there were two ways of doing anything: the right way and the wrong way and, of course, the right way was my way. As he grew up, my brother did everything "with one butt cheek", as it were (to borrow one of his colorful sayings), my brother possessed lackadaisical habits that drove me mad. I felt as if I were forever picking things up after him. Even at the harpsichord I was not able to simply sit and down to practice. There was his music strewn all over the top of the instrument, graphite shavings on the keys, beverage glasses, half-eaten plates of food, rotting fruit stems, and tiny scraps of paper upon which were his hastily scribbled notes to himself, sometimes never having anything in the world to do with music. More often than not, these were notes to girlfriends, and before I could comfortably play, I had to tidy all this up and put it away, and thoroughly clean and polish the harpsichord of the many stains upon its surface.

"Nannerl," he would say, rushing in, munching on an apple. "Where is that note I made this morning?"

"Which one?" I would reply, interrupting my work.

"That one you know I drew a man with a big nose on it. It was to Fräulein von Mölk."

"I put all of those scraps over in the top bureau drawer."

"Why would you do that? I left it here so that I'd know where it is."

He could be so aggravating! But then, after he'd found the bit of paper, he'd come to me, his face beaming, and he'd kiss me on the cheek and say, "Thank you, dearest sister. Ach! What an angel you are to me! Do you love me? I know it's not easy, but do you love me?" My heart would melt then as his eyes twinkled. How could I not love this haphazard, dreamy-eyed, forgetful genius? How could I not warm to his tenderness and his unconditional love, even when he could be so perturbing?

Yes, Wolferl. I love you. I will always love you.

This sweet, evocative little character study was written by S. K. Waller, part-time Mozart portrayer and author of a reincarnation novel, "Night Music".