Half Life

by Jillian Cantor

  He begins to call out the names of the students one by one, and when he says Marie, then terribly mispronounces my last name—Sokol—ow—ska—I don’t respond at first, not realizing he’s talking to me. A man behind me taps me on the shoulder. All eyes are upon me now, and my cheeks redden with embarrassment. Of course, everyone else knows whose name the professor is calling. Looking around, I am, as Bronia had predicted, the only woman in the room.

  “Oui, présente,” I call out quickly, feeling the hotness from my face creep to my neck as I raise my hand. Professor Appel checks me off and moves on, calling out the names of the remaining men.

  Someone whispers loud enough for me to hear: Who is that foreign woman with the beautiful hair? Foreign woman? Beautiful hair?

  Another man says: A pretty little thing like her in the physics course? Is she lost?

  There are snickers, but Professor ignores them, continuing to call the roll.

  So I am allowed in, unlike in Poland, and yet, none of these men will take me seriously? Pretty little thing. Is that all anyone will see me as here?

  My embarrassment is quickly replaced by annoyance. Bronia told me this would happen, and I’m determined now not to let it bother me, ruin my first morning of classes. I stare straight ahead, eyes eagerly trained on Professor Appel in his elegant tails, pretending there is nothing else, no one else, in this room but his voice.

  Anyway, I am not here to make friends. I am here to learn, to be the best in physics. I will show them all.

  Marya

  Loksow, Poland, 1893

  My Flying University of Loksow did indeed start small, as I had promised Kazimierz it would. It was, at first, just me and one other woman, Agata, who worked with me, cooking and cleaning for the Kaminskis. Our little university met each Wednesday night at one of our apartments, and we took turns teaching one another things we knew. Agata’s father had been a doctor before he died when she was a teenager, and she knew many things about the ways and structures of the body, while I shared with her the chemistry I had been taught at Flying University back in Warsaw. After only a few months, Agata had a friend, Emilia, who wanted to join us, and soon Emilia had a friend, too, and then another, and then by the following year, there were six of us.

  Leokadia Jewniewicz was the seventh to join our school, having found us through her cousin, Joanna, and Leokadia was also the only one of us artistically inclined. She was a pianist, already performing private concerts throughout the city, and when she first came to our Wednesday night meeting, at my apartment—which really wasn’t even big enough to fit six people, much less seven—I could tell that she was different from the rest of us. And not just because of the music. Her red dress looked brand new, made with a rich, expensive fabric. And her fingers were so pretty and clean, her nails clear and shiny.

  “I don’t mean to sound rude,” Agata said, her tone sounding perfectly rude. I liked Agata for her bluntness. She spoke this way at work, too, even with Pani Kaminska, and sometimes I was in awe of her sheer ability to speak her mind and not get fired. “But why are you here?” she said to Leokadia now. It wasn’t Leokadia’s presence that had particularly thrown any of us, but more the deep red chiffon of her dress, the perfect smooth line it made around her ample waist. We were all struggling to survive in ways she clearly was not. If you had money, why wouldn’t you leave Poland for a real university?

  Leokadia opened her eyes wide in response, but did not answer at first. Her irises were a bright blue, the color of the robin eggs in the nest outside our apartment window, and somehow their color alone softened her, made her seem younger and more delicate than the rest of us.

  “Every woman is welcome,” I chided Agata with a stern look, though I wasn’t sure yet whether Leokadia deserved my defense or not. “As long as she can contribute knowledge and keep our secret.”

  “I can,” Leokadia said quickly, shooting me what appeared to be a grateful smile. She had a heart-shaped face, and when she smiled, she revealed tiny, pearl teeth, with the smallest of gaps between the top two. “And I will,” she added. I stared at her, wanting her to go on, explain herself. “I can teach you all about music, piano lessons for anyone who wants to learn. And my father is a mathematician. He does not approve of women getting a higher education and has forbidden me from getting one, but he’s away teaching in Russia and I’ve been teaching myself maths, sneaking his books.” That explained why she hadn’t sought out an education outside of Poland. Her father. “I don’t know anything at all about science or literature.” Leokadia was still talking. “And I wish I did . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she stared at us all. No one said anything for a moment.

  “She plays piano quite beautifully,” her cousin, Joanna, finally said, her voice teetering with reluctance. Perhaps she worried now she had made a mistake bringing Leokadia here to begin with. Joanna’s pale cheeks flushed scarlet, and I felt all the women turn their eyes to me. I was the one who’d started our Flying University, and they still saw it as mine.

  But the truth of it was, it wasn’t mine. It was ours. Flying University was for every woman who wanted to learn and couldn’t. It didn’t matter now in Poland whether you were a rich woman or a poor woman, whether you dressed in rags or silk, whether you had enough to eat or you didn’t—none of us were allowed to attend university here, and why would we deny Leokadia the knowledge we so hungered for ourselves?

  “I would very much like your piano lessons, Leokadia,” I finally said, though I had never before desired to play or learn anything about music. To me music was babka and science was kielbasa. You could live without sweets, but you could not live without sustenance.

  Leokadia smiled wider this time. “I would love to teach you, Marya. And please, call me Kadi.”

  “Welcome, Kadi,” I said, and five other voices followed suit, murmuring the same.

  There were not enough seats for seven people in my small apartment, and barely even enough floor space, but I pushed our tiny table up all the way to the coal stove, and then there was just enough room for us all to sit on the bare wood floor in between the table and our bed.

  The June air was heavy, stifling, and even with the window cracked, and it being nighttime, it was much too hot for so many people, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, from under my bun, and I fanned myself with the paper Emilia had made for us all, to teach us Latin, which she had learned as a child from her older brother.

  But we all sat together, repeating Latin words after her into the simmering growing darkness, speaking softly, so as not to alert the neighbors, or the patrons below in the bakery. And there, just like that, sweaty and crowded among women, it was the happiest I’d felt all week.

  JUST AS EMILIA WAS TEACHING US THE LAST PHRASE ON HER paper—omnium rerum principia parva sunt (the beginnings of all things are small)—the apartment door swung open. All seven of us reacted the same, a collective jump, shoulders bumping, knees banging together. Then I looked up, let out a sigh. It was only Kaz coming home, not the Russian police coming to arrest us. Of course it was Kaz. “This is my husband,” I told the other women. “Don’t worry. We’re fine.”

  I knew he would be home by eight, and I had planned we would be finished by then, all the women already gone home. But our fascination with Kadi meant we’d started a bit later than we’d intended and I’d lost track of the time. Kaz knew what I’d been doing all along, but only in the abstract, in theory. Now, for the first time, he was face to face with my little university.

  He quickly shut the door, stepped to the side, which was the only space for him left, save for our bed, which sat on the other side of the room and would require climbing through the whole seven of us to get to. His eyes caught mine, and for a second I thought he might laugh. The ridiculousness—an entire group of women, taking up all the floor space in his apartment, all of us sweating and whispering Latin to one another in the almost darkness. But then he frowned instead.

  I stood up quickly
, accidentally bumping Agata’s shoulder with my knee. “Thank you, Emilia. Let’s end for tonight.”

  Kadi stood up next. “This was so wonderful,” she gushed. “Thank you for letting me join in, Marya. Next week you’ll come to my home. There’s more room, and there’s a piano. I’ll teach.”

  Everyone else’s eyes turned to her now, including my husband’s. But mine were only on him. It was too dark in here for me to really understand the look on his face, or what he was thinking as he took in her red silk dress, her pretty blond hair, her invitation to teach piano, of all things. Kadi was everything he’d had once, in his other life: wealth and privilege and destiny. And for a few seconds, I felt something strange bubbling up inside of me, a flicker of doubt.

  All the women whispered goodbyes and left, one at a time. Agata left last, and as soon as she shut the door behind her, Kaz came to me. Two strides, and then his arms were around me.

  He put his finger to my face, traced the lines of my lips ever so gently, until my doubt and my worry turned into a half smile. Steady. “I love you so much, Marya,” he said. “What would I do if anything ever happened to you, kochanie?”

  My dear sweet devoted husband. “Nothing will happen,” I promised him.

  “But there were too many women here tonight. It’s dangerous for you all to meet like this. What if you are caught? Arrested?”

  “It was only seven,” I said. “Our apartment is just so small, it felt like more. And who’s to say we were not here . . . baking together?”

  “But you weren’t,” he snapped, the crease of his frown growing deeper. He sighed, then pulled me tightly against him. He kissed the top of my head. “You are everything to me,” he said into my hair. “Everything.”

  Everything. I felt a crushing weight in my chest, and for a moment, it was hard to breathe.

  I still had my family: Papa and Hela were only a short train ride away in Warsaw and I visited with them every few months, and Bronia was still writing me letters from Paris, though more infrequently now, since my niece, Helena (who Bronia wrote they’d nicknamed “Lou”) had been born. As far as I knew, he hadn’t talked to his parents nor any of his siblings since we’d been married two years earlier. I had my friends in Flying University now, too. But what did Kazimierz have in Loksow? His work, the insufferable young boys he taught, and . . . the inability to further his own education, to light his mind the way he needed.

  If only he were able to take up his own studies again, I would no longer be his everything, his only thing. Maths would consume his mind, I knew it would, and I would be able to breathe a little easier and focus on my own studies. That gave me an idea: tomorrow morning I would write Papa and ask if he would send the money he was still saving for me for the Sorbonne so Kaz could use it for his education. Paris now felt like a world away. The only real way for me to get there would be for Kaz to finish his education first, and be sought after enough in his field to secure a job in Paris so we could afford to move there and both be fulfilled.

  I liked this new plan of mine, and I knew Papa would want to help. I exhaled and reached my hand up to Kazimierz’s face, ran my fingers against his beard. “Come to bed, my love,” I said. “You worry too much. Everything will be all right tomorrow, you’ll see.”

  Kazimierz leaned in closer again and kissed me, and then all else fell away: concern, regret, suffocation. For at least this night, he was my everything too.

  Marie

  Paris, 1894

  My mind has been filled with my studies at the Sorbonne, focused on passing my exams at the top of my class, putting all the other students, the men, to shame, while also having enough money to move to my own room closer to school, and to stay alive, warm, and fed. So I have not thought about Kazimierz Zorawski in years, until the letter arrives from Hela from Warsaw, with a newspaper clipping inside:

  Julius and Kazimiera Zorawski proudly announce the marriage of their eldest son, Kazimierz Zorawski, to Leokadia Jewniewicz, esteemed concert pianist and daughter of prominent mathematician Hipolit Jewniewicz. Zorawski is completing his doctorate in mathematics at Jagiellonian University . . .

  I put the clipping down, not wanting to read any further, my face already turning hot at the words about his fiancée, Leokadia: proudly, esteemed, prominent. All the things his parents never would’ve said about me, and probably still wouldn’t, even now. Never mind that I passed first in my class in my physics examination, or that I was awarded the prestigious Alexandrovitch Scholarship last year that had come with a generous and much needed 600 rubles. But my world is bigger now than the Zorawskis. I do not regret the choice I made to come to Paris, even if it is still a constant struggle to prove myself as a woman. I have opportunity here nonetheless and my freedom to learn, and that is everything. I put the clipping back inside of Hela’s envelope, then hide it all inside a chemistry textbook, on the shelf in my lab.

  I’ve already stayed much too long in the lab, and I am running late for a meeting with Professor Kowalski and his wife.

  AS I WALK ALONG THE STREETS OF THE LATIN QUARTER TO the Kowalskis’ hotel, I try to put the newspaper clipping out of my mind. I have other things to worry about. I was recently tasked with doing a study by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry, researching the magnetic properties of different kinds of steel. And the possible outcomes, the idea of testing, day in and day out, in the lab, an experiment all my own, has been endlessly thrilling. But there isn’t enough room in Monsieur Lippman’s lab for all the equipment I will need to properly test the different steels, and I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to complete the study.

  I’d confided this much to Monsieur Kowalski last night, after I’d attended his lecture. I know him, and his new wife, from back in Poland. They’re in Paris right now, both on their honeymoon and for him to give lectures. “Just come to tea tomorrow,” Monsieur Kowalski had said when I told him about my concerns last night. “I have an idea for you to fix your lab problem.”

  Monsieur Kowalski is a prominent physicist in Poland, and it would’ve been too rude to turn him down. Though I also don’t know what he can truly do to help, given that he’s based in Poland, and I must stay in Paris for the time being, at least until I complete this study and my examinations. I have been dreading the idea of socializing with him and his wife today, though, as I anticipate so much stilted conversation, so much effort, and it is why I stayed so long in the lab to begin with, why I attended to all my unopened mail before leaving. Oh, Hela. Why did she even send that clipping to me?

  I climb the stairs up to their suite now and knock on the door. Madame Kowalska answers with a bright smile. She has blond hair, pulled tightly back into a bun, and a pretty face like a cherub. Her cheeks glow pink—perhaps customary for a new bride on her honeymoon, and for the briefest moment, I wonder if this is what Leokadia looks like now too?

  “Marya, come in.” It’s strange to hear someone call me Marya again, other than my sister. In Bronia’s voice it sounds like a pet name, a reminder of our childhood, but in Madame Kowalska’s voice, whom I barely know, it sounds all wrong.

  “I’ve been going by Marie,” I correct gently.

  “Oh yes, of course. That’s right. Marie.” She shakes her head. “You are very French now, I suppose?”

  Perhaps she means to make a compliment, but it comes out sounding like an insult. I want to tell Madame that France is a place for me to learn, that I am still a Pole, just like her, and that I would never abandon our native country altogether, whether I’ve grown used to my adopted French name or not. But before I can say any of that, I notice a stranger, a man, standing across the room at the window. He leans his elbows on the window ledge, staring, as if entranced by the street below. He’s quite tall, and well dressed—his suit looks made of much newer cloth than anything I own, and it fits his lean frame nicely.

  “Sugar in your tea?” Madame asks me.

  “No, thank you,” I say, and when the man hears my voice, he turns, looks at
me. His eyes are bright blue, and he immediately smiles, the corners of his mouth turning up just above his beard, making him seem younger than the few gray hairs in his beard might imply.

  He walks over, picks up my hand and kisses it, the rough hair of his beard scratching just enough on the back of my hand to make me feel oddly delighted. It is the first time a man’s lips have grazed my hand since Kazimierz, and how strange it is to recognize now that it gives me a little thrill. “Pierre Curie,” he says.

  He’s another scientist. We’ve never met before, but I recognize his name, having heard it come up in conversation in the lab once or twice. “Yes, I’ve heard of you, Monsieur Curie,” I say.

  “Pierre, please.”

  “Pierre . . . You are studying crystallography?” He nods, and his eyes light up, with curiosity, or excitement for his work. “Marie Sklodowska,” I say. “I am working with magnetic fields.”

  “Ah, you have made introductions to each other before I got the chance.” Monsieur Kowalski walks in from the other room. “Here he is, Marie, the solution to your problem.”

  “Solution?” I am genuinely puzzled. I don’t need another scientist’s help, particularly not one who doesn’t even specialize in what I’m preparing to research. And I’m certainly not about to hand my study over to a man. Am I going to have to spend the entire evening explaining myself, justifying my capabilities? The very idea of it is exhausting, and I wonder if I can leave now without appearing rude.

  But Madame Kowalska has just poured everyone tea and invites us to sit around the table. I have no choice but to take my place, and thank her for her hospitality. She’s not a scientist, and she appears vaguely bored already, stifling a yawn. I take a seat across the table from Pierre, accept my cup of tea and take a sip. I feel Pierre’s eyes on me, and I look away, stare into my tea.