“That’s…an awful thing to say,” she wheezed. “You make him sound like—”
“I make him sound like what he is. If you can’t handle it, get lost.” Evgeny shrugged and bit into a strawberry.
“And what’s so special about you? If you don’t mind me asking.” Lydia fought to keep the tremor from her voice, temporarily winning the struggle.
Evgeny smiled.
“I know him better than you ever will. I know his land and I know its past. I know how it feels when your talent is the thing you depend upon to get you out of hell.”
“Hell? I thought Prague was supposed to be quite nice.” Lydia couldn’t resist a sarcastic laugh.
Evgeny banged his spoon on the table.
“You know nothing! You’ve lived your comfortable life with your bourgeois parents, enjoying every privilege the West can give you. You know nothing.”
Evgeny’s face had whitened with fury. He pushed his bowl aside and stalked off, leaving the coffee half drunk and Lydia’s mind bursting with questions.
She deliberately dawdled over her breakfast, wanting to speak to Milan about the encounter, so by the time he appeared in the room she was chewing slowly on her third piece of toast, draining the dregs of her fourth coffee. At least she might stand some chance of staying awake for rehearsals, she thought. Plus, all last night’s action had left her with an enormous hunger, so the extra breakfast wasn’t unwelcome.
“Milan,” she said urgently, drawing him over to her table with his cup of coffee and croissant. “Evgeny is being weird with me.”
He sat down, rolling his eyes a little. “Weird? How?”
“I think he wants me to finish things with you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He does! He said—”
“Lydia!” Milan’s tone was sharp and his lips thinned into a straight line. “I’m not a teacher for you to tell tales. I get enough of that from Evgeny.”
“So Evgeny tries to turn you against me?”
Milan sighed. “Perhaps this is all too much. Perhaps I need to take a break from it all.”
“You want to break it off?”
“Well?” He opened tired-looking eyes again, raising his eyebrows. “If you and Evgeny are going to squabble all the time, it’ll drain too much creative energy. I can’t have that. Neither can you. None of us can afford that level of distraction.”
“But I…that’s not what I want.”
“It’s not what I want either. Good. So you and Evgeny will play nicely, yes?”
“If he will, I will.”
“He will. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Maybe. Lydia, I thought we were happy. I thought everything was good.”
“It is! Honestly. This is the time of my life—look, here in Budapest, playing in a world class o
rchestra…and you. Having you in my life. I couldn’t ask for more.”
Milan smiled, a little weakly. “Neither could I, milácku. Neither could I.”
“He said…he said you’d been through hell.”