A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

Beethoven’s Maid Writes a Letter to Her Mother

302 A Face to Meet the Faces Beethoven’s Maid Writes a Letter to Her Mother Angela Narciso Torres His doctors have ordered fresh air and quiet, far from Vienna’s crowded streets. Barely a week since he arrived and already the Master has broken three plates. Yesterday he hurled a saucer because the coffee was thin. Thirty-two beans! he boomed as blue Delft flew. Picking violets for his tray, I saw him at the window, head cocked as one listening, ear pressed to a wall. The pianoforte roused me before dawn, crashing like the herd of Lipizzaners at the fair, then soft and pleading as Papi’s face the day I left. When I brought his breakfast, he wore a dressing gown, quill in his hair. Music papered the floor. Mama, at half-a-gulden a week, who knows when I’ll see you again? But this morning he paid me twice my due. When I refused, he raised both hands, saying, I have no time to think of sums. Mornings he walks by the creek, papers tucked in his arm. He notices neither heat nor cold—wears linen in any weather. Today at noon, beneath the cracked elm I found him, blue fingers drumming his knees, pages scattered like doves. Nothing stirred. That’s when he gripped my arm, demanding, Do you hear? Tell me, Anna—is that quail? Mama, I lied. ...