“An old lady.” A tourist with an American accent supplied the information. “I saw what happened from the tram. She was walking along the street when some drunk staggered right into her, pushed her in front of us. I feel for the driver—there was no way he could have stopped in time.”
Lydia followed the tourist’s gaze to where a man stood, shivering and weeping, by the bank of ambulances. Milan was over there already, waving his hands in the air, demanding information that didn’t seem to be forthcoming.
The tourist pointed over to the riverside, where another flurry of emergency activity seemed to be taking place.
“The drunk tried to get away—ended up falling in the river. They’re trying to get him out now.”
“Oh, my God. What a disaster.” Lydia hurried over to Milan, but he flapped his hand at her, now shouting at the police officers who guarded the scene. Seeing the pointlessness of trying to reason with him, she let her footsteps draw her over to the riverside.
A paramedic was trying to resuscitate a man, pumping water from his lungs. The man wasn’t conscious, and Lydia sensed that the rescue was too late and he had drowned.
Moving closer, she felt a shroud of horror cover her from head to toe and she had to stop for a moment, jaw wide open, heart convulsing.
It was Evgeny.
She heard herself scream his name, as if from the sky above instead of her own mouth. Some of the bystanders looked sharply at her, including a police officer who hurried over and said some Czech words she couldn’t understand.
“Evgeny,” she said again, wringing her hands helplessly, unable to speak anything other than his name.
“No Czech?” asked the officer.
Lydia shook her head.
“He is… I know him…”
She spun around, looking for Milan, but he had disappeared. Maybe he had been arrested for yelling at that cop. Just when she needed him most, more than ever, he was gone.
The policeman took a gentle tack with Lydia, putting his hand on her arm and walking slowly forward, needing her to identify the drowned man.
She knelt over his blue-skinned, stunned-looking corpse and wept for what seemed like hours.
She made no effort to protest or look for Milan when they put her in the ambulance with Evgeny and took her to the hospital. She answered all their questions in monosyllables, giving Evgeny’s full name and such details as she knew of his next of kin.
All around her, hospital personnel rushed and dashed, patients moaned and screamed, but it all seemed to be happening a long way away, outside her. All that was real was the fact that young, beautiful Evgeny was dead, because of her. Not to mention the unfortunate woman he had killed. What a price to pay for love. It was too much. Much too much.
The nurses gave her plastic coffee and sympathy in some kind of relatives’ room where she sat staring, unable to move or think, through the window at the night.
The opening of the door tore her eyes from the clouds. Mary-Ann stood there, pale and red-eyed.
“Oh, Lyd,” she said. “Oh, Lyd.”
They held each other for a long time, then Mary-Ann pulled slowly away, took Lydia’s hand and looked into her eyes with sober urgency.
“You need to go to Milan.”
For a moment, Lydia couldn’t make the connection, thinking that Mary-Ann meant the Italian city. It was only when she spoke again, urging her to go and find him in the Emergency Room, that she understood.
“He’s here?”
“He needs you.”
“He knows about Evgeny?”
“He needs you. I’ll take you to him.”
Corridors, gurneys, unreadable signs—all loomed around Lydia like objects in a nightmare as Mary-Ann tried to find her way back to wherever it was she had seen Milan. It took a long time, and when they finally set foot in the Emergency ward he wasn’t there.
“I’ll go outside and try to phone him,” Lydia suggested, leaving Mary-Ann to go and ask questions about what was to be done with Evgeny’s body.