Half Life

by Jillian Cantor

  Jean Perrin, who once got the job Pierre was passed over for at the Sorbonne, is quite brilliant and also kind, and I forgive him for taking Pierre’s job (which is, anyway, not his fault.) His wife, Henriette, is not a scientist but a writer of stories that she regales the children with. All summer long, she mixes me concoctions of waters and fruits designed to help ease the swelling of my condition. Paul Langevin was once a student of Pierre’s but now works in a lab at the Sorbonne. He and his wife, Jeanne, are often in an argument—they are the kind of couple who love to complain about each other. And Paul frequents our garden alone. But Jeanne is kind to me, coming to me on her own, baking us bread to make sure, as she says, you and the baby are well fed.

  Still, it is funny how, that summer, Papa is gone, my sisters are so far away, but my neighbors, my friends, surround me, care for me. I begin to feel I am not without a family nearby at all. Perhaps Pierre is right. Life cycles. Grief fades and becomes lightness again.

  IN JULY, A GIANT BICYCLE RACE IS COMING THROUGH THE entire country of France, ending in Paris: the Tour de France, they’re calling it in all the papers. Pierre has been saying for weeks that we should take a day out of the lab, take Irène to see the men bicycling through the city, racing one another.

  But when the day comes, Pierre’s rheumatisms are particularly bad, and he cannot get himself out of bed. I have already planned this rare day out of the lab, so I decide I’ll still take Irène to watch the race on my own. As the two of us walk together hand in hand, the humid air smothers me. It is hard to breathe, and quite suddenly, my stomach begins to ache.

  Irène chatters, as she often does now, telling me about the maths and sciences Dr. Curie is teaching her. It is astounding to hear the theories of geometry in her tiny voice, filled with confidence and aplomb. She is brilliant, this child of mine. Perhaps every mother believes that about her child, but with Irène it is scientifically and objectively a fact.

  It is so hot. I let go of her hand to wipe my forehead, and the ache in my stomach intensifies. I clutch my stomach, nearly double over from the pain, which is suddenly blindingly bad.

  “Maman?” Irène’s small bright voice comes through the darkness. “Maman?”

  We have not made it far from the house yet, but I suddenly do not know if I have the strength to make it back there on my own. I want to sit down right here in the street, but I know I can’t. Irène is only six, and though she’s brilliant, I can’t fall down and leave her all alone.

  I close my eyes and try to breathe. Inhale, exhale. I am the woman who spent four years extracting radium from pitchblende. I will not let a little pain, a little afternoon heat, stop me in the street.

  “Maman?” Irène’s voice is softer now, or maybe it is harder for me to hear her through my pain.

  “Maman isn’t feeling well,” I tell Irène. “Let’s try and make it back to the house. We’ll play a game and you can be the leader. If Maman falls behind, go fetch Papa or Grand-Père to come back for me. Or if you can’t find them, go to the Perrins and get one of them.”

  “A game,” Irène giggles, reminding me that she is still a little girl who loves to play. She skips ahead, and I reach out my hand to try and hold on to her, but I’m not fast enough. She’s gone.

  The pain is so bad that I have no choice but to sit down now. And the next thing I know, Jean Perrin and Dr. Curie are there, saying my name. Dr. Curie is getting older, frail himself, but somehow he is lifting me off the ground, pulling me toward home, shouldering the weight of me along with Jean. Somehow he is saying, “Oh, Marie, no. No.”

  And I think, Val is gone. Though scientifically impossible, it feels as though my sternum is bursting apart, my heart falling through the walls of my chest.

  I ONCE MIGHT’VE THOUGHT IT RIDICULOUS TO GRIEVE A PERSON who never really existed, who I never even met. But I cannot leave my bed for weeks after Val dies, the darkness hovering over me again, holding on to me so tightly I can barely breathe, much less think about our work.

  “We are marked by death,” I tell Pierre. “It will ruin us. No matter what else we do. No matter what happens in the lab.” And maybe I have been marked by it my whole life beginning with Mama and my sister Zosia. Then Sophie-Claire and Papa gone too soon.

  Pierre shakes his head, always so positive, so hopeful, refusing to succumb to my darkness. “No, no. We have each other, mon amour. And our beautiful Irène, and Papa. And our friends next door. Your sisters and their families in Poland and Jacques and his family in Montpellier. This was just an accident of science, mon amour. These things happen.”

  But I do not believe in accidents of science. That is the opposite of everything I know: science is purposeful and objective, not accidental at all. Pierre is no help, so I write to Bronia, ask for her advice, wanting comfort from my sister-mother, and also her expertise in obstetrics.

  I worry your work in the lab has harmful effects on your health, she writes back. Look at all the pains Pierre has been having, and now this? Perhaps you should leave the lab before you try again . . .

  Her letter goes on to tell me about what is going on with her family. Lou and Jakub have both been ill with terrible coughs as of late, and even the mountain air isn’t helping. But I skim over the rest of her words, turning hot with anger.

  It fills me with rage that she would blame my work and make it seem like this is my fault for pursuing science as well as motherhood. She has had two healthy children, and she is a practicing physician. That seems more dangerous than working in a lab, as she is exposed to diseases. I tear her letter into pieces, scattering them carelessly all about my bedroom floor. Later, Pierre will come in and pick them up one by one, tiptoeing around the room, believing me to be asleep.

  And anyway, Bronia does not know my radium. It is not harmful; it can’t be harmful. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, the brightest thing I have left. Bronia knows nothing.

  NOT EVEN TWO WEEKS LATER, PIERRE RUSHES INTO OUR BEDROOM in the middle of the afternoon with a telegram, his face white as dolomite, his hands shaking. I am still in bed, and Pierre has been telling everyone I’ve now taken ill with a summer influenza. But here I am, not ill at all, flattened by grief, spending my afternoon staring out the window at all the flowers in our garden. How dare they bloom? How dare the pinks and reds and yellows flare so brightly?

  “What is it?” I ask Pierre, his countenance startling me. Pierre is the one who manages to smile still, who wakes each morning kissing my face, promising me that today will be better than yesterday. That tomorrow will be best of all. And though I turn away from him, his words seep through my skin, lighten me, little by little, piece by piece, day by day.

  “Terrible,” Pierre says. “Terrible, terrible. It can’t be.”

  He’s scaring me, and I get out of bed, my legs unsteady. I take a moment to regain my footing, then walk to him, take the telegram from his shaking hands. It’s come from Zakopane, from Bronia. I read the words, as disbelieving of them as Pierre is. Our nephew, little Jakub, took ill, and he died suddenly. Died. Oh Bronia, no. My anger for her dissipates, just like that. How could this happen? Jakub was just seven years old, nearly the same age as Irène.

  Irène.

  I haven’t seen our daughter in days, or has it been weeks? I have been so distracted by my grief over this baby I never met. And I run out of the bedroom now, calling for my real living breathing child. “Irène! Irène!” I am shouting, crying, but I cannot stop myself. I want to hold on to her, wrap her into my body, keep her forever safe and still and healthy.

  We are marked by death.

  “Maman?” Irène’s small voice comes from the dining room, sounding frightened.

  I run in there and she is sitting at the table, working on her lessons with Dr. Curie. Someone has put her hair into two pigtails, and as it wasn’t me, they are parted crookedly, so she looks out of sorts, disheveled.

  “Oh, darling.” I open my arms and she gets up and runs to me. I smooth back her uneven hai
r, kiss the top of her head, inhale the little girl scent of her, rose petals and dirt from the garden, where her grand-père must’ve allowed her to play with the Perrins this morning while I was still sleeping. “I am never letting you go,” I say into her hair. “I am never letting you go.”

  Marya

  Paris, 1903

  The sun was shining so brightly the first morning I arrived in Paris, streaming in through the glass ceiling of the Gare du Nord, that for a moment it was hard to see, the light blinding me, turning the station and the people and even the exquisite sounds of French yellow and gold and glimmering.

  Then I blinked, and there in front of me was my sister-twin, Hela, laughing, grabbing onto me for a hug. We walked outside the station together, and there was the bustle of a vibrant city, a beautiful city, with wholly different architecture than I’d ever seen before in Poland, and even the air smelled different. I inhaled; all around me, the scent of flowers. “Marya, you finally made it!” Hela said.

  Yes, I had made it, on a lie and by dipping into Papa’s rubles that I was saving for my school. I’d written ahead to my sisters, told them Kaz was so busy with his research and he was sending me to Paris alone, knowing how good the time with my sisters would be for me, for all of us. And how excited I was to help Hela plan her wedding and to make up for some lost time with my niece, Lou, and nephew, Jakub, too. Those things were, at least, true. But on the very long, very uncomfortable hours and hours on the train, the ache in my chest over Kaz grew larger and larger, so that when I first breathed in the flowers of Paris, it was already a chasm: giant and gaping and nauseating all over again. I clutched my stomach.

  “Are you hungry?” Hela asked. “I can take you to my favorite pâtisserie before we get the omnibus to Bronia’s.” Hela had moved out of Bronia’s home, into an apartment closer to the Sorbonne, but it was just one small room. Bronia had offered me Hela’s old room at her home in La Villete for the duration of my stay, but as Hela was closer to the train, and didn’t have the constraints of the children, she’d offered to come and fetch me and take me to Bronia’s today.

  I shook my head. I should be hungry, but I wasn’t. I’d fled Poland days earlier, leaving while Kaz was at work, without even a goodbye, and I’d barely eaten anything but some stale bread on the train. Kaz had left a letter for me on the table, and though I’d put it in my bag, had even been tempted on the train to read it, I hadn’t opened it yet. I wasn’t ready for whatever he’d felt the need to write. Whatever happened between us, whatever would happen between us, now resided in my stomach, a giant nauseating punch.

  “All right,” Hela said with a shrug, then a laugh. “You know Bronia. She will have prepared a feast for you already.”

  Hela walked briskly, and I followed after her. My sister-twin had a lightness about her that I’d never seen in her before. Her cheeks glowed pink, her stride was quick, and she bounced a little as she went. I practically had to run to keep up with her.

  ONE HOUR AND TWO DIZZYING OMNIBUS RIDES LATER, WE were in La Villette, standing in front of Bronia’s home. It was three stories tall and built of red bricks, and it sat on a quaint cobblestone street, reminding me of something from a storybook I might have found in the Kaminskis’ nursery once upon a time. But no, this was my sister’s real life here in Paris. The life she told me was too much, the life she would be escaping soon to move to Zakopane. I stood in the street, staring up at her house for a moment before walking inside, stifling a laugh, or maybe a scream. It was hard to believe anyone would want to leave this. It was hard to believe that a woman with a wonderful professional life, two beautiful children, and a very nice husband would ever want for anything different than what she had. Maybe happiness was a bubble, floating by us, something none of us could quite hold in our hands. Not even Bronia.

  “Marya,” Hela called my name. “You’re catching flies.”

  I shut my gaping mouth and followed her up the front steps and into Bronia’s home. The way she skipped up the steps, opened the front door without knocking, she was at ease here. I, on the other hand, stepped carefully, keeping a distance behind her, looking all around me as I walked inside.

  Hela had been right, of course. The inside smelled strongly of my favorite Polish food: Bronia’s zupa grzybowa, and I supposed that here, in Paris, the mushrooms were fresh and affordable, and her broth would be savory and rich. I inhaled, and then my stomach turned again. I was somehow both starving and still overwhelmed with nausea.

  “Bron,” Hela called out. “I’ve found our little sister, wandering off a train from Poland, and now I’ve brought her here and we’ll keep her forever.” She smiled at me, reached for my hand, and squeezed it. I knew she was joking, but still, I wondered: Could I stay here forever? What would Kazimierz do back in Poland without me? What would I do here, on my own? Could I use the remainder of Papa’s rubles to finally pay tuition at the Sorbonne? They would only cover a semester, a year at most. But that could be a start.

  Bronia rushed down the stairs, looking uncharacteristically unkempt, her hair askew, wisps tumbling out of her normally neat bun. “Shhh, Hela. The children have finally gotten to sleep.”

  “Sleep? It’s the middle of the afternoon,” Hela said.

  “Marya, moja mała siostrzyczka,” Bronia called out to me as her little sister affectionately, her tone softening as she noticed me standing there behind Hela. “How was the trip? It’s very long, hmmm? You must be exhausted.” She didn’t give me a chance to answer before she turned back to Hela and kept talking. “Both the children got suddenly ill with a summer flu, and they were up all night coughing. Dr. Curie just came to administer breathing treatments, and now they’ve both finally fallen asleep.”

  “Dr. Curie—Jacques’s father—is quite good with the children,” Hela said to me, beaming.

  Bronia frowned, as if the implication was that she wasn’t, and maybe she resented Hela for saying this. But then she sighed and hugged Hela’s shoulders, and I wondered if perhaps I was misreading their faces. Bronia looked exhausted herself, and I guessed she’d been up all night, tending to the children and their coughing. “I’ve discussed it with Dr. Curie, and Marya can stay there until the children are better,” Bronia said more to Hela than to me. “They have plenty of room for her.”

  I opened my mouth to object—I had not come all the way to Paris to stay with Jacques’s family, strangers. And besides, I needed my sisters now. More than either one of them knew. But before I could get a word in, Hela was already talking over my head. “Oh yes, and the estate in Sceaux is lovely this time of year. Marya will adore the flowers.”

  “I don’t mind the children being sick,” I protested. There had been many days I’d gone to the Kaminskis and nursed the twins through one cold or another. I’d caught many of them myself and still returned to the work the following day. “I can—”

  “Nonsense,” Bronia said, cutting me off before I could finish saying I’d be happy to help her out with them at night. “I’m not going to have you get sick from my children. You are here to help Hela plan her wedding, not to be in bed, coughing for weeks. Come, have some soup before Hela takes you out to Sceaux to settle in.” The idea of being taken anywhere else, riding on another horse-drawn carriage or another train or another anything, turned my stomach again, but Bronia left me no room to argue. And anyway, I was too tired to argue now, too tired to think or do anything but accept her delicious soup and then let Hela take me away.

  THE CURIES LIVED IN A LARGE ESTATE IN SCEAUX, ON THE outskirts of Paris, but when Hela and I finally arrived it was dark, and I could not really see the grounds. I awoke at dawn the next morning, stretching out in the unfamiliar comfort of the Curies’ guest room, the bed softer than any I’d ever felt in my entire life. I stood and went to the window, and I saw what Hela meant about the flowers: golds and reds and pinks, as far as the eye could see. It was so startlingly beautiful, I gasped.

  I hadn’t actually met the Curies last night when I arrived, as they�
��d already gone to sleep and the housekeeper had shown me to my room. But Hela had told me a bit of their story on the interminably long omnibus rides from Bronia’s.

  Jacques’s mother died a few years earlier of cancer, and before she got sick, Jacques had been living and working in Montpellier as a professor, where he’d planned to settle. But when she fell ill, neither his father nor his younger brother, Pierre—both highly emotional, Hela clarified—could handle things at the estate. And besides, Jacques wanted to spend time with his mother in her final days, and so he’d taken a leave of his job in Montpellier and picked up a course to teach at the Sorbonne while he was in Paris. Hela was a student in his class, and she said she knew she was in love with him immediately, and he felt the same about her, but they waited until the end of the session before acting upon their feelings. Of course, Hela said, blushing a little. And then, he forgot all about Montpellier. Now, five years later, Jacques was in Paris for good, and she was about to become his wife.

  Jacques no longer lived at the house in Sceaux with his father and brother, but had his own house in the city on boulevard Kellerman, closer to the Sorbonne, which Hela planned to move into after the wedding. His father and his younger brother now inhabited this great big estate in Sceaux all on their own, with plenty of staff, Hela assured me.

  I thought about her story again as I got out of bed, stretched, and stared at all those glorious flowers. Who planted them, took care of them? Did they employ a gardener as part of the many staff Hela mentioned? The idea that my Hela was marrying someone French with enough money to employ a gardener made me laugh out loud. And then, as if someone had been standing out in the hallway, testing to see if I was awake, there came a quick knock on my door, and I put my hand to my mouth to stop my laughter.