Half Life

by Jillian Cantor

  “Open it,” I shout at him. “I need to see him.” He shakes his head again, and then I go to open it myself. But the box is heavier than it looks. The lid too much for me to lift on my own. “I am not leaving until you help me open this box and I see him.” My chest heaves from the effort, and my words are part scream, part like a cry from a feral animal. And maybe I have frightened him because he finally relents, opens the lid to the box.

  And there he is. Papa. I don’t think I’ve quite believed he is gone until I see him lying there, gray and listless. A bit of blood trickles from his nose, and nausea erupts from my stomach to my chest. I heave, but I’ve eaten nothing for days. There is nothing left in me.

  “Papa,” I say. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I abandoned Poland. I abandoned you.”

  I do not stop apologizing until Bronia comes in from outside, until she pulls me away. “He is gone,” she says matter-of-factly. “There is nothing you can say or do. He’s gone.”

  Marya

  Poland, 1902–1903

  I stayed two months in Warsaw after Papa died, living in his house, getting his affairs in order. Kaz came for Papa’s funeral, then quickly returned to Loksow with Leokadia, who had to get back to play a concert. And Hela, too, rushed back to Paris just a few days after we buried Papa, as she was preparing to begin work on her doctoral thesis and urgently had to secure space for a lab, which was apparently in high demand. Not to mention she’d received daily letters from Jacques while she was in Warsaw, the content of each making her blush.

  But I wanted to know more about this lab she desired, about the experiments she hoped to conduct there, wanted to hold Hela close and absorb all she had learned and experienced in France without me. When I asked, she shrugged, told me it wasn’t very interesting at all. “Mineralogy,” she’d clarified. Which, in truth, didn’t sound all that interesting. But still, I imagined my sister-twin inside her laboratory in France, examining rocks with Jacques, and it made me feel hot with wanting, or jealousy.

  After she left, Bronia told me Hela was lovesick. Hela looked well-fed to me, her color was rosy: she appeared the healthiest and most vibrant I’d ever seen her. Bronia, though, looked very tired, and I didn’t think it would be good for her to rush back to Paris the way Hela had. “I could really use your help sorting through Papa’s things,” I told her. And always my sister-mother, she couldn’t resist being needed.

  “I miss Poland,” she said, running her finger wistfully across Papa’s credenza, which I’d dusted and polished in hopes of selling it before we left. “Paris is . . . becoming too much. It’s not home. I’m ready to come back for good, Marya.”

  I nodded, but I thought of the school my niece, Lou, attended in Paris, a real school, where she was getting a real well-rounded education, not a girls’ gymnasium like in Poland. “What about Lou’s education?” I asked. My younger nephew, Jakub, would be fine, but he would grow up to be a man, and it wouldn’t matter as much for him where: Poland or Paris. A man could be a man anywhere.

  “We’d go to Austrian Poland, of course,” Bronia said. “And we could afford a private tutor for the children.” I knew about their dream of opening their very own sanatorium in the peaceful environs of the mountains. But before now I’d envisioned it more like my dream of one day moving to Paris, somewhere hazy, far off. Hearing her speaking of it with such clarity made me understand how much she wanted it, right now.

  “Hela would be fine without you in Paris,” I reassured her. “And selfishly, I would enjoy having you closer if you do move back.” Jakub was now five, and I’d only met him twice. I’d only seen Lou a handful more times. It would be a wonderful thing to be closer to my niece and nephew, for me and for Kaz, who longed for children of our own still.

  Bronia smiled a little and squeezed my hand. She closed her eyes. “If only you could know how tired I am,” she said. “Two children and city life and working full-time as a doctor.”

  “But you have it all,” I said, not meaning to sound bitter, though finding it hard to keep the edge from creeping into my voice.

  “Hmmm,” she murmured. “I suppose I do.”

  I ARRIVED HOME AGAIN ON A THURSDAY EVENING, AND EVERYTHING looked different than it had when I left. The dusky sky seemed blacker, the street from the train to our apartment longer. Even our apartment itself felt smaller after having spent months in Papa’s more spacious place in Warsaw. But Bronia and I had sold all of his things, split the rubles between us with a share for her to take back for Hela too, and now with them heavy in a purse in my valise, I wondered if we might finally have enough to move into a bigger place in Loksow.

  Inside my apartment, I washed my face, took my hair from its bun, and ran a comb through it. And then I began to feel an impatient longing for my husband again, whom I hadn’t seen in seven whole weeks. We had written weekly letters while I was away—I knew he was busy with Hipolit’s research, doing almost all the work himself now, which as I’d written to him really made it his research, didn’t it? Kaz had written back, deferred to Hipolit’s brilliance, but I’d told him he needed to give himself the credit he deserved, to which he replied how much he loved me for writing that.

  When the door opened at last, and he walked inside, I felt a light inside my body, the memory of what it felt like to skate with him on the pond in Szczuki so many years earlier. So young and alive and free. I felt that again, suddenly.

  He smiled widely, when he saw me. He felt it too. He came to me quickly, ran his fingers softly through my long untangled hair, leaned in and pressed his lips tenderly to my forehead. “Kochanie, why didn’t you send a telegram? I would’ve met you at the train.”

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” I told him. “I know how busy you are with your work.”

  “Never too busy for you,” he whispered into my hair. “Oh, I have missed you so.”

  We stood like that for a while, holding on to each other in the darkness of our apartment. I clung to him, inhaling his familiar pine scent. I had not cried, not the whole time, since Papa’s death. I had moved ahead, making plans, helping my sisters, ordering the disorder in the aftermath of death. But now that Kaz was holding on to me again, steady, I could finally let go. And the tears I hadn’t even understood I’d needed to cry came quickly, furiously.

  Kaz lifted my head up gently, wiped away at my tears with his thumbs. He leaned down and kissed my cheeks softly.

  In the years since my baby Zosia had died, I’d pulled away when he reached for me, afraid to be close to him in that way again, afraid of what would happen if there were another pregnancy, another baby growing inside of me. I never forgot the doctor’s words, that it was my fault, my body to blame.

  But now I was overcome by a need to be with him, and when he tugged at the buttons on my nightgown, I leaned in closer, kissed him, found a desperate sort of comfort in his body that I hadn’t even realized I’d been longing for.

  KAZ AND I USED OUR NEWFOUND RUBLES TO MOVE INTO A two-bedroom apartment on Złota Street, a few blocks closer to Hipolit and to Kaz’s research. Here, on a street named for gold, the buildings were a little nicer, the sky strangely less gray, and flowerpots filled with corn poppies lined the steps in front of our new building.

  Kaz quit his teaching position and began assisting Hipolit full-time. He was now doing all the research on elasticity on his own, with only guidance from Hipolit, who was mostly bedridden. Hipolit was paying him well to conduct the research, and Kaz promised Hipolit that he would publish the findings, even if it wasn’t during his lifetime. I encouraged Kaz to tell him that whatever findings were published, they should have both their names on it. It might’ve started as Hipolit’s idea but now Kaz was the one doing the work.

  I put the remainder of the rubles into hiding in the bottom drawer of my chest, promising myself I would use to it to grow and build my university, somehow. It was what Papa would’ve wanted, what Papa would’ve been most proud of. And I would not disappoint him. I would continue to teach and h
elp other women learn. I would continue to learn myself.

  THE NEW YEAR DAWNED, AND IN THE SPRING, BRONIA SENT A letter telling me it was official: she would be a resident of Poland again by the end of summer. Construction on their sanatorium in Zakopane had begun, and it would be completed by August. Soon they would be only a six-hour train ride away from me.

  This was followed in quick succession by a letter from Hela—she was engaged to Jacques! She wanted to hold the wedding in Paris before Bronia moved away, but only if Kaz and I were able to make it there. Were we?

  “Are we?” I asked Kaz, showing him the letter, later that evening.

  We were in a different place, a new apartment, and in the past few months we had reconnected. We had a newfound pleasure in being together again, exploring each other’s bodies at night in bed. I felt a way I had not in years, not since the beginning days of our marriage.

  “We have to go to your sister’s wedding,” Kaz said, frowning a little. I could practically see the thoughts going through his head by the long crease in his forehead. It would take days to get to Paris, days to get back, not to mention the time we would spend there for the wedding. And what would Hipolit do without him in that time? How would his research suffer?

  “I could go on my own,” I told him. “I wouldn’t mind.” The truth was I would mind a little. But I also understood how important his work was to him.

  “Let me see if I can figure it out,” Kaz said, rubbing his chin with his fingers. “Can you wait a few days to write Hela back?”

  I nodded, and leaned across the table to kiss him. He kissed me back, deeper, harder. I put Hela’s letter down, put my sisters out of my mind. Here on Złota Street, in Loksow, it was just me and Kaz. And that felt exactly perfect.

  “MARYA,” LEOKADIA CALLED OUT TO ME ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. She’d been teaching a piano class to three young women interested in music who I’d found at the girls’ gymnasium in town after befriending the headmistress, a woman my age who desired more for her students. I’d attended Leokadia’s class today simply to watch, as it was my first experiment in pulling girls as young as fourteen into our university. Their talent was astounding—even with a few years of my own lessons from Leokadia, I could still barely play a simple song—and Leokadia’s teaching was wonderful. She was kind and patient, and she handed all three of them more challenging pieces to practice, saying she would want to see them again next week. The girls left, their faces glowing, and Leokadia called out to me, asking me to stay.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said now, with a smile and then a hug. The truth was I’d kept my distance from her since returning from Warsaw. We were busy moving, and then I’d been focusing all my time on figuring out how to build my school and being happy with Kaz again. And now writing to Bronia about her move and Hela about her wedding. But if I were being honest with myself, there was something else, something gnawing at the edges of me, something I’d been pushing back, trying to ignore. That thing she’d said to me in Warsaw as her fingers had moved so deftly with the knitting needles: how lucky I was, to have two men who adored and respected me.

  “I’ve missed you too,” I said, hugging her back. With my arms around her, I noticed she’d lost a little weight, and when I pulled back, examined her more closely, the bones of her face looked more angular, making her expression seem slightly severe; her cheeks were paler than they used to be, too. But it was cold outside still, perhaps it was the lack of sunshine from the winter months. “Can you stay for supper?” she asked me.

  “I shouldn’t,” I said. “I need to get home, prepare something for Kaz.”

  “No, no.” She waved me away with a flick of her wrist, her fingers running easily through the air like they were playing imaginary piano keys. “Kaz is back in Papa’s study. I’ll go fetch him. You should both stay. How lucky I would be to have the two of you to myself for an entire evening.” There it was again, that word: lucky.

  And finally I nodded, unable to think of another reason to refuse her.

  LEOKADIA’S MOTHER WAS AWAY IN WARSAW, VISITING HER sister, and Hipolit was too ill to dine at the table. Leokadia brought him a tray, prepared by their live-in housekeeper, so it was only the three of us at their long, rectangular dining table, certainly built to entertain a party of twenty or more. The three of us sat at one end, Leokadia at the head of the table, Kaz and I across from each other, both staring uneasily into our bowls of beautifully prepared beetroot soup.

  Leokadia chattered on about a concert she had played the weekend before, about a man who had told her she played better than any woman he’d ever heard. “He managed to be both flattering and demeaning. You know how that is, Marya.”

  I nodded into my soup, and then I looked up at the same time as Kaz. Our eyes met across the table, and something flashed across his face: guilt, or remorse, or sadness, and then I knew. I just knew.

  “DO YOU LOVE HER?” I ASKED HIM LATER, AS WE WALKED BACK to our apartment together. We were not holding hands; we stood farther apart than we had from each other in months, since before Papa died.

  Kaz stopped walking, took my shoulders gently in his hands. “I love you, kochanie. Only you. Always you.”

  He tried to kiss me, but I pulled back. I put my hands on my hips. “But you betrayed me, with her. You both betrayed me.” I stared at him, waiting for him to deny it. But he didn’t say anything. I turned away from him, furious, and kept on walking, leaving him behind.

  He ran a little to catch up with me. “Marya, wait. Stop. Please, let me explain.”

  Kaz hardly ever called me Marya, preferring instead his term of endearment, kochanie. And the sound of my name in his voice startled me enough to make me stop walking. I turned and faced him.

  “You pushed me away for so many years, and I just . . . needed someone. I was lonely,” he said. “It was . . . my body needed . . . it meant nothing.”

  I felt as though I’d been struck solidly in my chest, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Leokadia was my friend, and Kaz was my husband. Part of me wanted to know every detail of what had happened between them and how long this had gone on, and the other part of me wanted to throw up. My physical needs overtook all my senses, and the beetroot soup I’d eaten for supper came back up, violently, right there in the middle of the street.

  “Oh, kochanie.” Kaz rubbed my back. “Breathe,” he said gently.

  I listened, inhaled and exhaled until the wave of nausea passed. Then I pulled away from him. “I will go to Paris for Hela’s wedding alone,” I said. “I’ll make arrangements to leave in the morning. I’ll go now, stay for a little while, help her with the planning, too.”

  “But you were just gone for all those weeks in Warsaw,” he protested.

  I gave him a stony look. What right did he have to protest my absence? He had betrayed me. I could barely stand to look at him right now.

  “I’ll talk to Hipolit, get the time off. I’ll go with you to Paris, as long as you need me.”

  “I don’t need you,” I said. My words were sharp, and they cut him. I could see it in the pained look on his face. But I wanted to hurt him. Wanted him to feel pain. And most of all I wanted to finally, finally go to Paris on my own.

  Marie

  Paris, 1903

  It is a strange thing to be back in Paris, knowing that in Poland, Papa lies rotting in the ground, Hela and Stanislaw and little Hanna exist in their small home in Warsaw without him, and Bronia and Mier and Lou and Jakub are isolated in the beautiful mountains of Zakopane. Even as the new year comes, I cannot shake this feeling of darkness. My constitution dims, I lose weight, as it is hard to make myself eat when I am never hungry. The photograph I have in my mind of Papa, gray and withered inside a box, overtakes all else. The darkness hovers over me, and even my sleep is disturbed—I awake many nights finding myself wandering around in a room in which I did not fall asleep.

  Somnambulism, Pierre diagnoses me when I recount the episodes to him. Pierre has been to the doctor for his o
wn nightly ailments, pains in his legs so bad that he often cries out. He’s been diagnosed with only a vague sort of rheumatism, and I wonder if his audible discomfort is what draws me out of bed to wander our house in my sleep. Then, in the mornings, I get pains in my legs too—and maybe it is from too much walking all night. Every day my bones are tired, my body aches.

  Papa’s death is a shadow. It follows me and hovers over me, even as I begin to teach a course at the girls’ school in Sèvres. Even as I go back to the lab with Pierre to continue our experiments on radium. Even as I learn, early into the new year, that Pierre and I are going to have another baby.

  Pierre is unable to contain his joy when I tell him the news. “A life ends, a life begins.” He grabs my cheeks and kisses them softly. “When Mama died, we got Irène. And now this!”

  And then over a few weeks, his joy becomes my joy; the shadow slowly lifts. My stomach begins to grow, and I begin sleeping all night in my bed again. In the lab, our radium glows, echoing the way I feel: bright and happy and alive once more.

  It is not like before, with Irène. I work through my condition with barely any trouble, barely any bother. I am so very busy and so very tired, but not more than I was before I went back to Poland.

  Pierre is convinced that this baby is a boy, and he says we should name him Władysław, after Papa, and I suggest that perhaps Val would be more fitting, more French, but still with an acknowledgment to Papa.

  And that is my first mistake, that I name him. That in my mind, he becomes a real living person, before he truly exists.

  IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1903 IN PARIS, AND THE AIR IS HUMID, the sun too warm to walk, never mind to bicycle as I am always wont to do in the summer months. We spend evenings out in our garden on boulevard Kellerman, our neighbors also scientists and parents like us, and it is so good to have the company nearby. Jean and Henriette Perrin live next door, and Jeanne and Paul Langevin on the other side. Irène enjoys playing with their children, and they run back and forth from garden to garden, playing hide and seek just after dusk, while the adults spend the evenings outside, discussing work.