“Oh! Don’t you come back more often? Don’t you have family here?”
“No.”
He didn’t seem to want to say more. Lydia lapsed into silence, letting her mouth rest while her eyes did all the work. At the top of the street, they passed into a storybook world of winding steps and charming little cafes under striped awnings, then they reached the summit of the hill and the fairytale continued along the street to the castle. Behind it, the twin spires of St Vitus’ Cathedral spiked the sky while a spacious piazza in front played host to throngs of people of all nationalities, on walking tours.
“It’s so lovely,” said Lydia.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Milan, and launched into a lengthy lecture on the history of Prague in general and the castle in particular. The lecture took them all the way around the castle, through the rooms where affairs of old Bohemian state were settled, past the window where the Defenestration of Prague precipitated the Thirty Years War and onwards to the cathedral steps.
“I like how the cathedral is dedicated to St Vitus,” remarked Lydia, eyeing the stained glass windows with awe. “I don’t know much abo
ut him, though, apart from that he has a dance. Which is really a disease.”
“He is our patron saint,” said Milan. “The dance came before the disease. Medieval people used to dance in front of his statue on his saint’s day.”
“But they don’t do it any more? You haven’t done it?”
“Religion wasn’t allowed when I was a boy. But I have played here, as a teenager. They used it as a concert hall.”
“Gosh, yes, I suppose you grew up under Communist rule. I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”
“You don’t have to,” said Milan curtly. “Be glad.”
“Were you religious?”
“My mother was.”
Milan’s mother. What would such a woman be like? Lydia wondered. The ‘was’ led her to suspect his mother might be dead, but the look on Milan’s face discouraged her from asking. They walked down the aisles, looking at the statuary and the ecclesiastical treasures.
“What a place to play,” she said timidly. “It must have sounded incredible.”
“The acoustic is good.” But Milan seemed a long way distant now, disconnected from her and from Evgeny, somewhere else inside his head.
Lydia was relieved when the three of them emerged back out into afternoon sunshine on the castle courtyards. Crossing the piazza, they noticed a band of musicians in black and white gypsy garb playing folk tunes. Milan led them over and pushed through the crowd until they stood at the front, listening to the violin and the tambourine until the song was over. The crowd clapped politely and Milan called out something in his native language, causing all heads to turn to him.
The fiddler held out his instrument in invitation and Milan stepped up to him and took the violin, launching immediately into a spectacular double-stopped version of a Slavonic Dance that had the audience whistling and cheering almost from the first note. Lydia watched him, mesmerised by the charisma he exuded when he played. His long white fingers held the strings in thrall while he bowed energetically, putting his shoulder into the moves, his hair falling over his nose only to be tossed back at the next bar. He swayed his hips, bent and unbent his spine, fire flashing from his eyes like the violin-playing devil in the Mephisto Waltz story. He seemed nothing less than a direct descendent of Paganini, and he backed up this impression by segueing into one of the Italian virtuoso’s Caprices as soon as the Slavonic Dance was over.
Not for the first time, Lydia found herself wondering why on earth Milan wasn’t a virtuoso soloist. He had everything it took, and more. There had to be a story behind his lurking in orchestral obscurity. But what was it?
By the time Milan lifted the bow from the last savage chord, a sizeable mob had gathered, whooping and whistling for more, but he bowed and handed the violin back to its owner, commanding the crowd in English to ‘Dance to the music’. Lydia’s heart flipped when he took her hand and pulled her into an energetic Bohemian peasant dance, which ended with the pair of them laughing into each other’s flushed faces, forgetful of anyone and everyone around them. Including Evgeny.
“Where is he?” asked Milan, looking around the crowd. “He was here.”
They elbowed their way through the admiring throng, the Czechs among which called out Milan’s name, until they spotted their missing cellist, fast asleep with his back to the castle wall, blocking the viewpoint for various disgruntled tourists.
“Oh dear,” sighed Lydia.
Milan simply rolled his eyes, yanked the incapable Evgeny to his feet and decanted him into the back of the nearest taxi with instructions to the driver to take him straight to the hotel, along with a bumper-sized tip.
“He’s not happy,” said Lydia, watching the yellow taxi roll over the cobbles and away.
“Neither am I,” said Milan. “Because I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
Over some kind of dumpling soup Milan had ordered for her, along with a small glass of excellent Czech beer, Lydia tried to broach the subject of Evgeny’s increasingly unmanageable jealousy, but her lover didn’t seem to want to think about it. He was too absorbed in being a citizen of Prague again, engaging the waiters in long conversations about politics and sport, judging by the few familiar names that came out of the flood of unrecognisable sounds. Lydia, locked out of the chat, watched the blue-uniformed soldiers march up to the castle for guard change.
Halfway through their meal, he turned back to Lydia and reached out to stroke a stray hair from her face.
“Am I neglecting you?” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that being back here…you know.”