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The Amadeus Variations

By Kathy Webster

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Chapter 1
North Carolina
October 2019

Irritation threatened to overshadow her grief at losing Aunt Alzbeta, Anna decided. Life in the middle of the semester never permitted any breaks or down time, but here she was, being forced into a long weekend away from Chapel Hill. The dreary gloom of the day mirrored her mood. She usually enjoyed the 90-minute drive to Winston-Salem, but today even occasional bursts of autumn reds and ambers among the pines couldn’t lift the drab gray blanket wrapped around her soul.
The funeral at Home Moravian Church a month ago had only required a day away from her doctoral program in musicology. The old traditions had touched her more deeply than she thought they would. Her aunt mentioned her in her Lebenslauf–the ninety-year-old woman’s life story and testimony–telling how proud she was that Anna had carried on the family tradition of musicianship. The band, gathered for the funeral procession, made up in volume for what it lacked in skill, evidenced especially by the enthusiastic trombones. Her aunt’s favorite hymns, some like “Jesus Makes My Heart Rejoice” used by the church since the 1700s, rang out over God’s Acre. Many of her family talked about Alzbeta, how she had entered “the immediate presence of her Savior.” Anna believed it and gratefully took some of that peace back to school with her.
But now. Now she was expected to shoulder the responsibility of going through the old house to get it ready to rent or sell. Her parents were afraid of trusting anyone outside the family with the task. Aunt Alzbeta had no children of her own. Anna was her great niece, her brother’s granddaughter. The yellow, three-story house had been in the family for centuries, literally. Over two hundred years. Who knew what treasures or horrors lurked in the basement, the attic? Probably spiders, she thought with disgust. Succumbing to pressure from her mother, as usual, along with the promise of some sorely needed financial reward, she reluctantly agreed to spend the next few weekends rescuing family heirlooms. Her parents lived too far away to help, and the realtor was salivating at the prospect of one of the original Old Salem dwellings hitting the market. No one could wait for the semester break.
Turning her radio to 88.5, she caught the strains of Mozart’s “Gran Partita.” Probably the Mackerras recording, Anna thought, automatically analyzing the sounds of the woodwinds. That meant she was within thirty minutes of her aunt’s house, just at the point she could catch the classical station. The music triggered her familiar anxiety about a dissertation topic.
Her coursework was almost over. Just a seminar—Music in 15th-Century Florence—then preparation to defend her choice of research area. That is, if she could finally decide on one. The woodwind ensemble music of the classical period seemed promising. She could see herself wandering Vienna, losing herself in old libraries, unearthing some long-lost gem of a serenade by Stamitz or Triebensee. It would cost something, but there were grants, even big grants, like the Fulbright.
But a whole year away from Stephen would be hard. Her relationship with the high school band director who had shown up at UNC’s Dept. of Music this year promised more every day. Even though they were enrolled in the same graduate school, seeing him was quite a challenge. Between his full-time job, her teaching position, and their programs of study, they were lucky to grab a couple of dinners together in a week. How would it be if they lived in different countries? She could almost hear Aunt Alzbeta chiding her, “Kümmere Dich nicht um ungelegte Eier.” Don’t worry about eggs that haven’t been laid yet. And here she was, exit 193B.
It always felt like coming home. She had spent as long as a month at a time during humid summers in her aunt’s yellow house near the town square in Old Salem, even though her parents lived only a few miles away in Clemmons. Just as she graduated from high school, her father landed his holy grail of a job in New York City, and they moved. The timing was terrible, because she simultaneously gained entrance to her heart’s desire of a college, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, less than two miles from Aunt Alzebeta’s yellow house. As an undergraduate flute student at UNCSA she spared herself student loans by living with her through the school year.
She drove slowly, letting the peace of hundreds of years pull her in. She loved the imperfection of the old handmade brick buildings, leaning this way or that with the weight of centuries. Small squares of mostly dormant gardens broke the grass-covered, hilly back yards. Late maturing beet, broccoli and cabbage plants shone in the afternoon rain. Root cellars and hand water pumps sat behind antique homes. An old carriage sat forlornly beside a small side building, usurped by the car inside. Her little Prius shuddered over the uneven spots, cobblestones peeking through worn asphalt.
Aunt Alzebeta’s house stared forlornly into the rain, not yet accustomed to being alone. It had no front yard, but its eight worn, irregular stone front steps began directly at the sidewalk of crisscrossed bricks. A low white picket fence outlined the lot, part of it built upon a layered stone wall. The wooden frame was a faded ancient yellow, set off by the darkest green door and shutters. Trees twice as tall as the structure embraced the south side. One large branch spilled over the front, a shy covering over half the house’s face. Three-story brick chimneys flanked both north and south sides. The windows were smaller than those of a modern house and not all the same size. Less mechanical perfection in those days of building by hand in the newly settled “wilderness.”
Before stepping out into the rain, Anna found the oddly shaped key in her purse. She grabbed her overnight bag and navigated her way across the wet bricks to stone steps, swayback with years of traffic. The solid weathered green door, placed off center in the front of the house, groaned as she opened it. Above the door, three small panes of ancient glass let just enough light through their ripples and dimples to allow her to find the switch. She dropped her things by the door and took time to inhale the woody, lived-in smell of the place.
Antique furniture greeted her like long-lost friends as she moved slowly through the bottom story, switching on lights in each room. Straight ahead lay the kitchen. The refrigerator always seemed uncomfortable on the uneven wide floorboards of heart pine, beside the thick wooden counter. Appliances were modern intruders, set among handmade pine and wicker chairs and a hutch full of pewter. A small microwave, knowing it did not belong, tried to hide itself on a centuries-old kneading board. The whole back half of the house was open, the kitchen flowing into the dining room. An old white ceramic stove dominated the north wall, looming over a table with a blue and white cloth. A fireplace of handmade brick, which she had been told was from the south meadow, took up the wall behind it. A Dutch door sat between two windows on the eastern wall. Opening the top half of the door allowed Anna a view of the still-green grass bordered by last summer’s daylilies in the open backyard. No flowers now.
She turned left, back toward the front of the house, and entered the pale green sitting room. She liked the furniture, smaller and lighter than the big blocky things popular nowadays. A fireplace was painted the same green, just a slightly darker version. Two candles in pewter holders stood guard at either end of the mantle. Tears flowed a little as she remembered her aunt reading in the tiny dusty-rose armchair. They fell in earnest when she saw the music room and laid her hand on the ancient Bösendorfer piano. Those had been the best times of all. She sat on a worn burgundy settee and let the ache in her heart have its way.
Strange how giving in to the emotions she had clamped so tightly in place back at school felt like such a relief. Drained but peaceful, she rose from the settee, retrieved her bag, and climbed the stairs to the bedroom facing the street— “her” room. She even felt a little hungry.
A narrow four-poster bed with a lilac and green patterned quilt sat beneath simple white curtains pulled back with a green tie. She raised the modern pulldown shade a little for light, then tucked her bag beside a worn cherry dresser with sixteen drawers of varying sizes.
“I’ll go to the tavern,” she told the old stuffed rabbit leaning tipsily on the dresser, regarding her with one eye, the other lost years ago. The Salem Tavern, eternally proclaiming on every menu, napkin, social media site, and poster that “George Washington stayed here two nights in 1791,” priced its meals to rob tourists blind. But it had some decent pumpkin soup. After all, she needed something comforting today, she decided as she grabbed her purse and an umbrella from an old ceramic stand on the way out.
The next morning dawned crisp and clear, a sky the shade of blue that caused natives of the state to declare that God must be a Tarheel—otherwise, why would the sky be Carolina blue? She stepped out the back door in her robe, just to revel in it. The unique smell of bread baking in a wood-burning stove told her that Winkler’s Bakery, which had been around since 1800, was getting ready for the day. Her spirits rose as the old town pulled her in once more.
Anna, innately organized, let her inner cataloger take over as she gathered a notebook and pen and began to go through the rooms. She inventoried, making notes as she remembered comments her aunt had made, like “this chair was built by my great grandfather” or “these dishes came all the way from Boston, before 1820.” She marked things that she knew her mother would want to keep along with some she herself wanted. The rabbit made the list, along with the porcelain perfume and powder jars from her aunt’s bedroom, the quilts that had been made by various relatives, family portraits scattered on the walls, and a heavy mahogany silver chest, so full its lid could never be totally closed.
By late afternoon, most of the main house was inventoried. Anna decided to survey the attic. It and the basement would be the hardest parts of her task. She had better get an idea of just how bad it was going to be. There were a few windows up on that third floor, so she should have enough light to briefly size up tomorrow’s job. Skeptically eyeing the attic door, she shook her head. The way up didn’t deserve to be called stairs, more of a ladder really. Climbing up carefully, she pushed the door open and closed her eyes as dust rained down on her light brown hair, mute testimony to the years it must have remained undisturbed.
It wasn’t long before Anna realized that there were windows on only one side of the attic. By the dim light, she could make out boxes, piles of books and what looked like music, old lamps, clothes on some hooks on the wall, an ancient dress form, and some suitcases that had to be from the Roaring Twenties, if not before. She was going to head to Winn Dixie anyway, so she would see if they had battery lamps or extension cords so she could haul some light into the place. It looked like a full day’s job for tomorrow. Closing the attic hatch, she carefully made it down the narrow stairs to her room where she left her list and grabbed a light jacket. Making sure to turn out all the lights on her way, she exited to her waiting car.
Anna started driving south on Main Street and slammed on the brakes about a block from the house. Checking quickly, she verified there was no one behind her. She got out of the car to stare at the sight that caused her startled reaction. The wind had come up and the tall trees on the south side moved dramatically, uncovering a fuller view. There, toward the top, were two windows on the south side of the third floor of her aunt’s house. When she had entered the attic, she remembered distinctly that the only two windows letting in light were on the north side of the house. What the heck?
Curiosity taking hold, she went around the block quickly and parked in front again. This time, she took her cell phone with her as she scooted quickly up those ladder stairs and turned on the flashlight app. There were the two windows, definitely on the north wall. But there was a solid wall on the south side.
Trying to make sure, she stepped off the distance from the opening to the north wall. When she repeated the process toward the south, she proved to herself that side of the attic was about three or four feet shorter than the north side. And, she realized, though the house had two chimneys, north and south, visible from the outside, she saw only the bricks of the north chimney up here in the attic.
Pushing away some dusty boxes, she moved to stand before the mysterious wall and gently smoothed her hand over it.
“What’s behind you?” she whispered. It appeared to be solid, with no doorway or opening of any kind. She rapped on it, as if knocking for entrance. She had no idea what she was hearing. It was as useless as thumping on a watermelon for her. She grew up seeing people rap their knuckles on the melons but had no idea why they were doing it.
Maybe she’d better stop at the hardware store, too. Maybe pick up a saw or an ax. There was probably nothing, but she dearly wanted to know what lay behind that wall.

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