The Last Mazurka
Writer’s Digest 90th Annual Writing Competition Short Story Honourable Mention
Paris. August 4, 1848
“Slower on the left, Charlotte. Let the melody build, softly, slowly, gently. Yes, in small increments, moving up, then the right hand comes in…Charlotte, slower, please. This is not a Bach symphony.” Frederic slid beside her on the piano bench, shut his eyes and started playing. “It’s sad and soft, like silk. The trolling crotchets of the right hand rise gently, the transition rolling from one key to the next. Are you watching?” He played quietly for a few minutes, lost in his own melody. “The magic is between the notes. Now the left, let it climb, building, building—yes, yes,” the music was reaching a crescendo, and Frederic’s heart was beating faster. “When they come together—”. He coughed, and blood splattered across the music sheet.
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Charlotte eyes opened wide. She slid off the bench and hurried toward the door. “Thank you, Mr. Chopin,” she said, without turning.
“Practice your scales, Charlotte,” he tried to call, but started coughing again and couldn’t get the words out.
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She didn’t look back, slipping silently around Chopin’s butler as he walked into the room.
“Ludwika is here to see you, Mr. Chopin.”
Frederic watched Charlotte run down the hall, wondering if he would ever see her again. “Thank you, Aleksy, but…” His sister had arrived. He wanted to get up and see her, knew how far she had travelled—but he had become so tired. Too tired to walk to the sitting room. Too tired to talk. “Tell her I’ll just be a few minutes.” Chopin got up, shuffled to his bedroom and lay down. Just for a few minutes.
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He was woken by his sister.
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“Frederic! Wake up. Wake up!”
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“Ludwika?” His eyes opened and she was looking down at him. He lifted his arms to hug her, but she just stared. “So nice of you to come,” he said.
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“You are sleeping? Had you forgotten I was arriving today?”
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“I’m sorry, sorry. I didn’t know I had fallen asleep.”
“I’ve been waiting for over an hour.”
“Sorry. I’m not well.” He coughed.
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“Yet you are well enough to teach that little atrapa. I left my husband, my own children, shouting and crying, begging me to stay. I came all the way from Warsaw, spent thirty-two days in a broken-down old mail coach. And after I arrive you go to sleep?”
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“That palanta? Charlotte? Oh dear sister, no. No one could teach her.” Frederic feigned a smile, but Ludwika just kept staring, unsmiling. He turned away, rolled over in his bed and coughed again. “How was your trip?”
​
Ludwika started to tell him about the pain in her back, the dust in her lungs, the lack of sleep, the drunk soldier that tried to stick his tongue in her mouth— but she stopped. Perhaps he really was sick. Even under his white-powder makeup, she could see his skin had a thin damp sheen, was even paler than usual. She took a deep breath, forced her voice to be gentler.
​
“It is nice to see you, Frederic.”
“Thank you for coming. I miss you.”
“And I miss you.” She noticed his eyes were red and glassy. “But why are you still teaching? You know it is beneath you.”
“I enjoy teaching.”
“But why? Anyone can teach and you—you are Frederic Chopin. You should be performing in the Paris Conservatoire! In Vienna, Berlin, London!”
“I won’t. I will never perform in those concert halls again—they’re so big and noisy. All those people staring down at me, just a big sea of dumb faces licking their lips like goats chewing on hay. I detest them.” Frederic shivered, although he was covered in blankets.
Ludwika watched a bead of sweat roll down his forehead, noticed the blankets were wet. She slid her chair back.
“I play for my friends, right here, in Paris. In their private houses. Oh, they are such grand houses! And such beautiful people!” He shivered again, pulled the blanket up to his neck. “And do you know who I am teaching? That young woman was Charlotte Rothschild. Yes, the Rothschilds!”
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“That is no matter. You should be composing, playing in concert halls.” Her lips tightened into a frown, the spiders of middle age crawling around her mouth. “Yet you’re teaching ungrateful children to number their fingers.”
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Chopin was shaking now, freezing. “I am composing. I just finished Mazurka in G minor. It’s my most exquisite piece yet.” He hummed a few bars but coughed again and gave up. “They love me in Paris. Did you read Hillier in L’Echo?”
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“He said you were ‘like the light of a wonderful meteor, bewitching us all with unfathomable mystery.’ Ludwika curled her lip.
He pulled the sheet over his head. There was more coughing, and it took a few minutes before he got his voice back. “They pay me twenty gold francs a lesson to teach those ungrateful children.” His throat was drying up, and he struggled to speak. “I’m sorry, you came all this way, and— this is not what—I have something I have to tell you. A favour to ask,” Frederic said. He coughed again, and splatters of blood soaked through the sheet.
“What is it, Frederic? What is wrong?”
The sheet came down and he looked at her. He was crying. “I am dying. I have a month to live, maybe two.”
“No, no! Oh, Frederic, it can’t be. No, please tell me. No.” Assuming a look of shock and sadness, she leaned over to hug him, but it was a cautious, distant hug: barely touching. She didn’t want to catch anything, and the plague was everywhere these days. Ludwika slid her chair back further from the bed. “I’m heartbroken. What is it?”
“Consumption.”
They sat quietly, letting the moment alone. Both of them stared at the painting on his wall: an old landscape of Poland, from years ago, long before the troubles. Before the uprising, the resistance, the Russian invasion. It made them think of their life when they were children, happy in their little home, eating platefuls of sauerkraut and sausage, playing music with their mother.
“Do you remember?” he asked.
“Yes.”
She was Ludwika Chopin then. Young. Strong. Not pretty, perhaps. Frederic was always the pretty one. But she was a great musician. Everyone said so. Both of them were talented although she thought, completely rationally, that she was better than he was. It was she who had taught Frederic to play piano. Every night, going over scales on the piano for hours. She even taught him how to read and write. Always there for him. Always the good sister. That’s what they said. You’re such a good sister!
They underestimated her: she was more than that. She composed, she performed, she had written her own mazurka, the greatest folk song in all of Poland. Even Frederic had said so. Everyone in Warsaw knew it, everyone danced to it. “The Sky Dances” It was a happy song, about love and nature, not like those sad, forlorn melodies Chopin wrote. “The Funeral March?” Who wants to listen to that? Poland was depressing enough.
Yet. When they got together on Friday nights, at the Lewockas or the Kosinksas, it was the name of her brother on everyone’s lips. No one spoke of her accomplishments, her obvious genius. No one asked her to perform. It was Frederic. Always Frederic. “Will Frederic be playing?” they would ask her, as if she had never sat down at a piano. How elegant he is, they would say. A genius! A virtuoso! But they were all wrong. It was she, Ludwika Chopin, who was the genius.
He was the one their parents sent to Warsaw, to study under the famous Joseph Elsner. He was the one they sent to Vienna, then Paris. Not Ludwika. She was left behind. To get married, have children, like a proper woman. While The Great Frederic played in the grand halls of Paris, Ludwika was left behind to cook and wash dishes and do laundry for her husband, that barking barbarian, and a noisy pack of needy children.
“I want to ask you something. You see, Paris is my home,” he said. “But Poland is where my heart is — “
“Yes, of course Frederic.” Ludwika said, forcing a smile. “They love you in France, in Poland, they love you all over the world.”
More coughing and blood. “I will die here.” Ludwika started to interrupt, but he waved a hand and she stopped. “Paris loves me, of course. My body will be buried here. In the Pere Lachaise. That’s where everybody famous gets buried. Moliere is buried there! That’s where I belong—but my heart—my heart belongs in Poland. Can you?” he looked up at her, red eyes pleading. ‘Would you?”
“Can I what?”
“Please?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Frederic.” No. He wouldn’t.
“I’m asking you to – “
“To what?” No, please. He couldn’t.
“You know…”
“No! What?”
“Can you bring my heart to Poland?”
Oh God. He was. “I’m sorry, Frederic. What are you asking me?”
“When I die, I’ve asked the doctors to take out my heart and give it to you. And I want you to bring it to Poland. Please, please, please. Swear you’ll do it.”
Her eyes turned hard. Frederic knew that look. He had seen it many times. When he told her their parents were sending him to Paris. When he left her alone in Poland. When he told her about his life in France, while she washed dishes at home. He knew she had always considered herself the superior artist. He knew what she was thinking.
“How is your husband?” Frederic asked.
“An imbecile and a brute. Thank you for asking.”
“I want you to take my heart back to Poland. Please. I’m begging.” He turned over in his bed and began crying, pushing his face into the pillow. “My heart belongs in Poland!”
What a dupa. She might have killed him right then, if he wasn’t about to die anyway.
The German-Polish Border. October 23, 1848
“Your papers, please.”
The Heart woke out of its short revelry, interrupted by the sharp, guttural commands coming from outside. German. Ach. Instant headache. It was impossible to get any rest in this jar. After two weeks cramped up in this cognac-filled glass container, traveling in a rutted horse carriage, the constant bumping and grinding, Chopin’s Heart was exhausted, anxious, sick, and drunk.
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“Your name?”
What is it with Germans? Did every single word have a state-sponsored one syllable limit?
“Ludwika Jedrzejewicz.”
“Where you go?”
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My God, thought The Heart. Would somebody please teach these people how to speak properly?
“Poland.”
“What do you have with you?”
“A few dresses, some warm clothing.”
The Heart heard the tremble in Ludwika’s voice.
“I be right back.” The Heart heard the footsteps of the German clomping away.
“Ludwika?” The Heart asked.
“Be quiet!” she whispered. “We are at the German border. If they find out I have the heart of Frederic Chopin hidden under my cloak, I’ll be arrested. And you will be left to rot on some dirty laboratory shelf.”
“Why are they so stupid?”
“The Germans are not stupid. I’m the stupid one. For letting you talk me into this ridiculous adventure.”
“No wonder they love Wagner’s music so much. Big dumb thunder and imbecilic lightning. Boom, boom, boom.”
“Shut,” she commanded him.
“They can’t hear me. Only you can, Ludwika. Watch. Help me, help me!” he shouted as loudly as he could. “I’m being smuggled out of France by a crazy woman! She stuffed me in this jar and filled it with alcohol! Shoot her!” The guard at the window of the office didn’t look up. “See, no one else. Just you.”
“I wish they would shoot me.”
At that moment, the door to the border guard’s office swung open. He walked to the carriage.
“Your papers seem to be in order.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Wagner is an ignoramus!” Chopin’s Heart shouted.
“You may go.” The guard walked back to his office.
“Otto von Bismarck looks like a drunken walrus!” Chopin’s Heart shouted.
“Goodbye,” Ludwika called. The gates swung open and the carriage went through. The driver called out, the horses pulled, and they crossed into Poland.
“When we get to Warsaw, there should be a big parade for me,” The Heart said. “Can you organize that?”
“I have no time,” she answered. “I have a house to take care of. Children.”
“And can you invite the royal family?”
“No,” she answered.
“I can stay in your home. In the parlour, above the fireplace. We will have so much fun. You can play for me every night.”
“No, Frederic. I told you. I have no time.”
“Will you do that? Will you play my Mazurka in G minor first? And every night, before bed, you can play my nocturnes. I wrote the most brilliant nocturnes.”
“I can’t, Frederic.”
“But not too fast. You always play too fast.”
“I wish I had never done this.”
“When we get to Warsaw, can you take me to a performance of mine?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’d love that. Do you know what I hate?”
“I don’t.”
“Even more than Wagner?
“I do not know.”
“Children. I hate little children. Noisy, rude, sniffing children.”
Silence.
“If I’m going to stay in the parlor, you’ll have to do something with your children. They can’t stay with us. And your husband… I don’t think I want him with us, either, if I’m being honest. He’s a lawyer.”
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“He is my husband. They are my children.”
“I understand. But I am your brother. And do not forget, I am the greatest composer in the world.”
Silence.
“Will you?”
Silence.
“Do you remember that song you wrote, about the dancing and the wind and trees? Please don’t ever play that. I hated that song.”
Ludwika wondered: how do you kill someone that’s already dead? “Of course not.”
“Thanks. You’ve always been a good big sister.”
He meant it as a compliment, but it felt like someone sticking a hot dagger into her stomach.
“I wonder how many people will be at my parade,” The Heart wondered.
They passed through Szymbark, a community composed of a few run-down farmhouses and a graveyard. Warsaw was still four hundred kilometres away. Ten more days. Ten more days, thought Ludwika, until they reached Warsaw. But then – how many more? How long would she have to live with this? With that? With him?
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Gorlitz-Zgorzelec, Poland. November 13, 1848
“Welcome to our place of worship, Madam Chopin. We are honoured that you have chosen to visit our humble church.”
“The honour is all mine, Minister,” Ludwika said, her head bowing.
“You have come a long way.”
“Yes. From Paris.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
The Heart woke up. “Ludwika?”
“Yes,” Ludwika told the Minister. “I have a request.”
They were in a church in Gorlitz-Zgorzelec, a time-worn village with more goats than people. The church was a small, cold building built of stone and wood. A plaque outside claimed it had been built in the 11th century and that the body of some ancient, martyred missionary lay here. Every church in Poland, Ludwika thought, has an ancient, martyred missionary buried inside.
Ludwika told the Minister about her brother’s passing. His request to have his heart brought back to Gorlitz-Zgorzelec, and remain here. Forever. “It was my brother’s final request. Made from his deathbed.”
“Ludwika, what are you saying?” The Heart was wide awake now, the effects of spending twenty days in a cognac-filled jar slowly clearing. He had been technically drunk for almost three weeks, and he felt it.
“Of course,” The Minister said. “This would be a great honor.” He pressed his palms together. “An eternal blessing. But why this church? Why this small, barren town?”
“He played here as a child. Hide and seek, in the forest.” she lied. “It is here that Frederic truly considers home.”
The Minister knew that could not be true. But this was a place of worship, not an interrogation room. It was not his place to question his visitors. “I understand,” he nodded.
“Why are you doing this, Ludwika?” The Heart was beating so loudly it could barely hear itself scream. “I’ve never been here. I never wanted to come here. I can’t be stuck in this awful place!”
“We will take great care of your brother’s heart. Forever.”
“Ludwika!” The Heart shouted. “Why are you doing this?
“I was always there for you, Frederic,” she whispered. “Always. And now…”
“I’m sorry?” the Minister asked.
“My apologies,” Ludwika said. “I’m still heartbroken.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “Would it be possible for you to play at the ceremony?”
“I would be proud.”
The grand ceremony took place the next day. Hundreds of townspeople came to pay respects to the remains of Poland’s most famous composer, The Great Chopin. They all watched in somber silence as The Heart was entombed in the church’s crypt.
Ludwika sat down at the piano and played. But not Chopin’s “The Funeral March”, like everyone expected. She played a happy song. Her song, “The Sky Dance”, the best folk song in all of Poland. ‘When I dance, the sky dances with me/When I whistle, the wind whistles in the field’, she sang as loud as she could, her voice echoing off the church walls. Everyone in the pews was shocked and horrified. Their eyes bulged and their mouths hung open. The sky dances? The wind whistles? How could she sing this? It was so undignified for this grave occasion! How could she not know how inappropriate this was? What was wrong with her?
But once again everyone had underestimated her. While she sang, she looked up at the hostile crowd and smiled. There wasn’t anything wrong with her. Ludwika knew exactly how inappropriate it was.
The End