Saving Mozart Read online

  Since the day before yesterday, I’ve been glued to the wireless set in the covered yard. Hitler hasn’t died. Maybe he doesn’t like Italian coffee?

  With all my love, my dear son. I miss you.

  Monday 25 March 1940

  Back in a private room!

  My tenant’s husband has duly paid his rent arrears. I’m sure he’s told everyone what he saw at the Brenner Pass. Dr. Müller is waiting on me hand and foot. And so are the nurses. The man who held the Führer’s cap! Which also attracts some sidelong glances from the patients.

  As a mark of gratitude, Hans has bought me a new phonograph and a few records. Including Don Giovanni conducted by Bruno Walter and the unforgettable Tristan und Isolde recorded live at the Metropolitan four or five years ago, brilliantly sung by Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior. Music has come back. It has been restored to me, in a way.

  My new room is bright and very clean. It does smell too strongly of antiseptic, though.

  Tuesday 26 March 1940

  I have the impression I never left here. Try as I might to conjure up images of the little station, the soldiers, the Führer, the Duce, it’s as if I’d never set foot on the Brenner Pass. I still have my press card as evidence. And the washed-out badge. On the other hand, it’s only now that I feel the fatigue of that expedition. The tonic pills are no longer any help. I’m exhausted.

  After the noon meal, I went to the chapel. I met the custodian on my way there. He spat on the ground as I passed.

  It’s up to Salzburg to redeem Mozart. Since it’s Salzburg that has betrayed him. The next Festspiele is our last chance. Not to save our souls, it’s too late for that, but his. And that of the whole of music. Music must be played, not executed.

  I know that neither the custodian’s son, nor mine, nor perhaps Sapperstein would have hesitated. But I wasn’t ready. This return performance of mine was too abrupt.

  I’ve been living for too long on the margin, cooped up behind hospital walls. Marked with P for Patient on my rump. Like a head of cattle. It’s the healthy people, the normal people, the SS out there on the streets and in the offices and on the landings, who put me in quarantine, who locked me in this enclosure, out of the way. And, being sick, I let them. As if to prove them right.

  At first, it was hard, very hard. It still is. An endless apprenticeship, hand to hand combat. For I’m constantly fighting the disease, not submitting to it. The problem is that it has no face, no name. Not even the name Tuberculosis. Even though that’s what I live with, day after day. That’s what I fight. Without helmet or rifle. It’s a serious enemy. Not a tinpot dictator.

  Hitler has a name. And a face. Let the healthy serve him his cup of coffee! Not me. Why should I do their dirty work for them? We sick people have enough to do. All alone to face the great nameless, faceless misfortune. Abandoned by everyone.

  We are already ghosts.

  Thursday 28 March 1940

  Dr. Müller came to my room to examine me. He was very polite. I think he’s a little afraid of me. He hesitated for a long time before asking me why I was praying so much in the chapel. Was it a trap?

  According to him, the latest test results are none too encouraging. They’re what he calls complications. My lungs took a nasty blow out there on the Brenner Pass. I told him I’d had the feeling things were wrong, that the disease had gotten a bit worse, and that’s why I was praying. He seemed to believe me.

  It’s true that things aren’t so good. I looked at myself in the mirror, for a long time. I’d forgotten how pale and thin I am. Like everyone here.

  Should I pray, then? I don’t know how.

  Friday 29 March 1940

  Three months to the Festspiele. It might as well be three centuries.

  Hans sent me an article about Anton Webern. He enclosed a score of his latest composition, a cantata for soprano. The music is too technical, too experimental for me. It reminds me of Schoenberg.

  I think more and more about my sister and what could have happened to her. It’s because it’s Friday night, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath. My brother-in-law always respected the tradition, the family meal, the lighting of the candles, the blessing of the bread and the wine. My sister used to laugh about it. Enough to make my father turn in his grave. He was so eager to free us of the burden of religion.

  It’s dark in the chapel. I’m going to bed.

  Monday 1 April 1940

  Yesterday morning, excrement left outside my door. It was Sunday. No cleaning woman to clear it up. Today, I complained to the doctor. He’s promised to investigate.

  Tuesday 2 April 1940

  Received rent. My tenant’s husband has left again to work in Poland, driving freight trains carrying building material for a big complex near Cracow. A major project.

  Custodian dismissed. So it was him.

  Thursday 4 April 1940

  New treatment. Very tired. Breathing difficult.

  Strangely, I’ve stopped thinking about suicide. And about sparing myself further suffering. And yet I’m more and more afraid of death. I can feel it very close, waiting. It mustn’t strike before the opening of the Festspiele and thwart my plans. It mustn’t stop me taking my revenge.

  And, if I succeed, finding a way to get this diary to Dieter. Because I want him to know. I want everyone to know.

  What exactly does Dieter need to know? Why bother him with this story? The story of how I wasted away. And of a failed assassination attempt. None of the others here are writing their memoirs. What happens to them is of no interest to anyone, and they know it.

  Maybe it’s best if Dieter doesn’t know anything about all this? If he never finds out what happened to us, my sister Gertrude, her husband, her children, me. Isn’t it better for him to remember the good old days, when everything was going well? What we really were, before this decline.

  Friday 5 April 1940

  Cod has again vanished from the menu. And potatoes are rationed. Three per plate. Two if they’re big.

  The new custodian started work today. He’s an invalided ex-soldier. Very young. He has burn scars on his face and one arm has been amputated. A lot more horrible to look at than we consumptives. I asked him to go out and buy me some saveloy or a sausage on the black market. He didn’t dare refuse. He knows what happened to his predecessor. Because of me.

  He’s a country boy, a big strapping fellow from the mountains. Not exactly sharp-witted but pleasant. Jolly even, in spite of circumstances. Nobody else smiles here.

  Tuesday 9 April 1940

  The black market pork must have been adulterated. Three days of stomach pains, writhing on my bed like an eel. Or is it just that my stomach isn’t used to it anymore?

  Thursday 11 April 1940

  Visit from Hans. He’s busy with the preparations for the Festspiele. He still needs a helping hand with the editorial aspect. The new cultural officers are worse than the old ones. They were just ignorant brutes. These ones think they’re refined. With their black gloves and their clean-shaven faces.

  The next festival is shaping up to be a soldiers’ cabaret. Hans is irritable. He doesn’t look well. He too is reliant on the black market for his food. The grocery stores are empty. You need coupons.

  I agreed to help. Not for Hans. But to save Mozart, in spite of everything.

  Thursday 18 April 1940

  Yesterday evening, speech by Goebbels on the radio, for Hitler’s birthday. Our Führer is fifty-one. Goebbels voice throbbed. He sounded like an actress in a melodrama. Our old wireless set shook on the little table in the canteen.

  Today, we are fighting, keeping our noses to the wheel, that is all. No one complains and no one asks why.

  Our people must confront the burdens and difficulties of war. We all resolutely await the Führer’s order. When he calls, we will be there.

  Friday 19 April 1940

  I’ve worked a lot for the Festspiele this week. Kept my nose to the wheel, as Goebbels says. I even forgot all about my chest pains. The jo
b exhausts me and sustains me at the same time. It forces me to keep going. Hans’s Nazis think I’m making this effort for them, or for fear of them, when in fact it’s a matter of survival. I’m clinging on, otherwise I’d slip off and die.

  It’s only a reprieve, a remission. I’m well aware of that. My fate is being decided hour by hour. The injections are useless. I’m just a specimen for Dr. Müller. A case. For years, he’s been keeping a register in which he notes down how long each patient lasts. Hundreds of patients have passed through the sanitarium. Perhaps thousands. Each one is on the list: date of arrival, name, registration number, date of death. Or of recovery.

  Dr. Müller would have preferred to work in a research facility, with microscopes and test tubes and glass slides. To have a brilliant career. Discover a serum. I’m more and more convinced that he’s experimenting on us. The thing that confirms me in my suspicions is how bad the statistics are here.

  Monday 22 April 1940

  The name of the new custodian is Stefan. Yesterday, I went to see him in his lodge and we played a game of chess. He’s not bad for someone who plays instinctively and doesn’t know any of the classic attacks. It reminded me of the good times I had with Günter. I realize now that there was a kind of friendship between us. At the time.

  Stefan was wounded in the heavy winter fighting. He’s recovered quite quickly. He’s from the mountains, strong, accustomed to a hard life. He’s not sorry that he fought. I can see he misses the army. Not out of patriotism, no. He liked the atmosphere. And the food, he says. Which makes him laugh because he once spent three days in a trench without any supplies. Not even water. When he was really starving and finally attempted to get away, he realized there was nobody about. His unit had left him there, in the middle of the field. As for his wound, he owes it to a shell that fell short, a German shell. Which also makes him laugh.

  I’m surprised at my own sociability. With a country boy, to boot. His youth, his laughter, his very roughness, warm my heart. They don’t threaten my solitude. They relax me. Like a cigarette or a good glass of wine. I haven’t drunk wine for a very long time. I’ve forgotten the taste.

  I remember a waterside tavern where I loved to go in spring.

  Wednesday 24 April 1940

  The doctor has analyzed my last chest X-ray. He looked puzzled. I can see he’s a bit surprised at how well I’m holding out. You can imagine how surprised I am! But I think I know why. Vaguely.

  Saving Mozart? That’s doubtless just an excuse. Killing Hitler? That’s all over. What, then? One last bow before the curtain falls? For a single spectator? You, Dieter, my child? Or whoever else finds this diary? Not at all.

  I’m not leaving a message for posterity. Or confiding secrets. No, it’s something quite different. A song, perhaps. Or an arioso? Something to be listened to, in any case.

  Moderato cantabile. In D minor. Or C major, it doesn’t matter, a score is worthless until it’s been played. And mine will be played at the Festspiele. That’s all I live for. That moment. Not for writing.

  Saturday 27 April 1940

  We’ve been left without any care for two days. The staff was kept out in the yard by police inspectors all of yesterday. Part of their investigation, Stefan told me. He wasn’t interrogated because the crime in question dates from before he came to the sanitarium. The crime in question?

  Stefan ran to tell everyone, at the request of the inspectors: the patients are forbidden to leave their rooms until further orders.

  Monday 29 April 1940

  The search came as a surprise on Saturday, in the middle of the night. It lasted for hours. I hid my notebook on the window sill, jammed under the shutter.

  Two men came in without knocking. It must have been three or four in the morning. They banged on the walls, tore out the skirting boards, took my phonograph apart. I stood in a corner. Barefoot. In my pajamas. I didn’t dare move. Or even look at them.

  They didn’t find anything. They told me to stay in my room and I would be summoned later, if necessary. I kept standing there in the corner of the room until dawn.

  The vial! Where had I put the vial with the poison? I couldn’t remember. Had it been found and analyzed?

  Yesterday, Sunday, the comings and goings continued. We weren’t given anything to eat or drink. I considered running away. Impossible. Especially in my condition. Where would I have gone anyway? I waited for hours. Staring at the door. Listening out for every sound. Why didn’t they come?

  This morning, Stefan told us the investigation was over and we could go down to the canteen. Everyone was anxious to know what had happened. The manager came in, followed by the staff. He informed us that Dr. Müller had been arrested after the previous custodian had informed on him. For drug trafficking. Müller had been selling our medicines to a gang of crooks. On the black market. We were being treated with aspirin, in tablet or powdered form, and with paracetamol diluted in water for the injections. Hence the statistics.

  In the medicine cabinet, there was nothing but improvised mixtures. Sugar, flour, fruit syrup, dyes. Even turpentine. Nothing that could cure us. Or kill Hitler.

  Thursday 2 May 1940

  Received rent. The manager took most of it. To treat us with aspirin? He told me how difficult it is to balance the books, as if that were any concern of mine. Dr. Müller’s felony has given the sanitarium a bad reputation. The few well-to-do patients have left without settling their bills. They’re threatening legal action. Neither the ministry nor the municipality wants to keep subsidizing this outpost for the dying. Because of the war effort. Consequently, the management is finding it hard to raise the funds to supply the sanitarium with medicines and is being forced to dismiss a large number of staff. Starting this month, the patients will have to do their own cleaning and wash their own dirty linen with soap. Food will be rationed and limited to only what is strictly necessary. In these conditions, impossible to find a new doctor. Not even a student. Nobody wants anything to do with this wretched place. Or us. I can perfectly well understand that.

  Yesterday, the Japanese cancelled the Olympic Games that were due to be held in Tokyo. The sportsmen are disappointed. Fortunately, the Festspiele will still take place.

  Tuesday 7 May 1940

  Unbearable atmosphere. What a shambles! Everywhere filth is piling up. I shut myself up in my room, which I keep clean and tidy. I’ve put the skirting boards torn out by the policemen under my bed and I’ve repaired the phonograph. I listen to my three remaining records all day long. The patients hang about in the corridors, on the stairs, in the courtyard. Even those from the third floor, who’ve stopped washing. I pretend there isn’t that constant coming and going on the other side of the door, that shuffling of slippers on the tiles. Where are they all going?

  Finally left my room this afternoon. A game of chess with Stefan, in his lodge. I won as usual. He keeps smiling in spite of everything. I envy him. He’s convinced it’ll all be sorted out sooner or later and we’ll get back to normal. We drank schnapps. Real rotgut. It was good.

  Thursday 9 May 1940

  Hans came to see how I was. The festival’s getting closer. Articles and programs have to be corrected before leaving for the printer. I have to make a few changes. My notes for the opening of the Kultursommer are lacking in enthusiasm, apparently. And I’ve used too many technical terms in introducing the works.

  The choice of the various compositions leaves me somewhat skeptical. I can’t detect any connecting thread, any particular theme, in this symphonic medley. Who chooses the pieces to be played? Goebbels himself? Hans has no idea. All he knows is that “it’s been decided at a high level.”

  The event is intended to demonstrate a sense of renewal, the determination of the Reich to produce works of art that are healthy, vigorous, free of the moods and depression in which today’s decadent creators wallow. A wild, imposing lyricism holds sway under the batons of Böhm, Furtwängler, and Lehár. A kind of heightened, and very Teutonic, romanticism.

>   Curiously, Karajan won’t appear at the Festspiele. A big concert in Berlin, Hans told me. Karajan is Hitler’s protégé, after all. Not the protégé of the Austrian gauleiters.

  Hans had the good grace not to mention the deterioration of the sanitarium. Or mine. But, once our conversation was over, I could see how happy he was to be getting back to the outside world.

  Saturday 11 May 1940

  Very proud of myself. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was stifling. I shaved and dressed and went out for a stroll. This year, spring is radiant. It was hard to walk but I managed to get to the center of town. To mingle with the crowd, to stroll on the streets, to look in the shop windows, to sip a lemonade at a kiosk. It was ecstasy!

  I didn’t meet any of my old acquaintances, which was fine by me. The strangers I passed were extras. They were part of the decor, just like the trees, the sparrows, the benches. A moving tableau, almost unreal. Soldiers rolling cigarettes and whistling at the girls. Children playing hopscotch. The tinkling of bicycle bells. A bricklayer at work. An old gentleman raising his hat to me in greeting, old style. A big dog dozing in a doorway. I considered going all the way home and saying hello to my tenant, who’s pregnant. And then I saw a Star of David whitewashed on a shop, with the word Juden in the middle, and decided to turn back.

  Tuesday 14 May 1940

  A solution has been found. Part of the sanitarium will be turned into a convalescent home for soldiers. The hospitals are overflowing with wounded. Once they’ve been treated, those without families or anywhere to go will be transferred here until they’re well enough to leave. An army doctor is expected soon.