Half Life

by Jillian Cantor

  I throw all the papers in the fire, lies upon lies upon lies. And I stand there watching the flames grow higher and higher, watching the lies burn hot and blue and orange.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, AN UNEXPECTED TELEGRAM COMES FOR ME.

  Irène is huddled in the corner of the parlor, reading the latest papers, in tears. Ève plays a song on her piano, indifferent, or uncaring, or simply too young still to understand—it is hard to tell which. My stomach aches and aches; I have barely been able to keep down a thing since returning from Brussels.

  “Madame Curie.” The house servant brings me the telegram, her own face drawn, her hands shaking, as if she thinks I might blame her for whatever terrible news it must contain.

  But none of this is her fault. I thank her and take the telegram, and then I notice it has come from Sweden. Suddenly a memory hits me like a punch and I inhale sharply: Pierre running into our lab once, so many years ago, when I was drowning in loss and sorrow and grief over my dead baby, my dead nephew. A telegram from Sweden, mon amour! They are giving us half of the Nobel Prize for our work on radium. You and I. Half the Nobel Prize!

  Pierre is so far away from me now, it is hard to remember the sound of his voice, or the feel of his hands, but all at once, my senses flood with him, and I cannot breathe.

  Here it is again, right in front of me, typed across the telegram from Sweden. I am being awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize. In Chemistry this time, to recognize the advancements I have made by discovering radium and polonium, the isolation of radium, and the study of the nature and the compounds of this remarkable element.

  I read the words, and then I read them again, disbelieving them, my eyes stinging with tears. I want to run and tell Pierre. Look, look what we have done, my love! But I can’t even leave my house, much less go to his grave now. Not with all the reporters outside. And it’s not as if it matters anyway. Pierre is dead.

  Then, I long for Paul, but he has returned from Brussels and is hiding out somewhere in France—Jean Perrin has not told me where, and even if I were to know, it would be impossible to go to him without making everything worse.

  “What is it, Maman?” Irène stands close to me, her worried eyes peering over my shoulder, trying to make sense of what news I’ve just received.

  I turn to look at my eldest daughter. She is tall and slender and serious, more a woman now than a girl. The intensity of her eyes reminds me of her father’s. But she is not him, and she is not Paul. She is an apparition of my younger self. And just like me, she has a propensity for science. I hand her the telegram, let her read the news for herself.

  “Another Nobel! Maman, this is wonderful.” Her face alights with joy, and it is strange how just moments ago she had been crying. It is strange how life has a way of being terrible and wonderful all at once.

  I RECEIVE A SECOND TELEGRAM FROM SWEDEN A WEEK LATER, this one asking me not to come to Stockholm for the ceremony in December to accept my prize. Jeanne has now given all our letters to the press and copies of them run in the papers for all of France to read. It seems everyone in the country, all of Europe maybe, knows every detail of mine and Paul’s innermost thoughts. And no one even seems to care or notice that I am being awarded a second Nobel Prize. I am not simply the only woman to achieve this honor now, but the only one to do it twice.

  But the Swedish Academy writes that they are worried about all this embarrassing press. Their concern is that it might follow me all the way to Sweden, distract from the ceremonies. We think it might be better if you don’t attend, they write.

  Better for whom?

  I write back and tell them that my personal life has nothing to do with my scientific endeavors. They have awarded me a prize, a prize that I deserve for my work, and I plan to come to Stockholm to accept it.

  “Do you think they will be angry with you?” Irène asks, when I show her the telegram exchange. Within the space of two weeks trapped inside our house, in hiding from the press, isolated from my lab and the world, and Paul, Irène has become more than my daughter. Now she is also my confidante.

  “I am a woman, Irène,” I tell her. “And I have now won two Nobels, two more than almost any man scientist ever receives in the course of his career. And you see what they’re doing to me in the papers now, don’t you? They will continue to viciously attack me. They will do anything, anything they can to bring me down. To try and ruin me. I cannot worry about people being angry with me. I deserve this prize.”

  Irène bites her lip, trying not to cry, but we are not going to be sad about people trying to ruin me. We are going to choose to be happy about what I have accomplished. We are going to celebrate my accomplishment.

  “No tears,” I say to her, more gently. “Go pack your things. I’m taking you to Sweden with me. Aunt Bronia will meet us there and you can both watch me accept my Nobel Prize.”

  Marya

  Krakow & Stockholm, 1911

  In November, I received the most wonderful news in a letter from Hela. She and Jacques had been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work with elemental magnetism. They would accept the prize in Stockholm in December, and she invited me and Bronia both to come to Sweden and watch her, wanting us to attend so badly that she sent money for our train tickets along with her letters.

  I was thrilled for her, but I felt something else too. It was a little bit of jealousy, or, maybe it was wanting. What if I had been the one to go to Paris all those many years ago, instead? Could I have accomplished all that Hela had by now? And if I had, would I feel happier, be more fulfilled? I loved my life with Klara, working in Professor Mazur’s lab, but could there have been more for me?

  I told Professor Mazur about Hela and Jacques’s prize, the day after I received her letter. We were in the lab, working on trying to condense hydrogen to liquid in a vacuum flask. Professor Mazur had recently gotten the funds from the university to acquire the materials in Brussels when she’d gone to the Solvay Conference there, a few weeks earlier.

  “Marya,” Professor Mazur said my name sharply, instructing me to hold on to the flask just the way she’d showed me earlier to keep it still for her now. We wore masks today, in addition to our glasses, so her voice came through more muffled than usual. And we had rid the lab of any fire today, as liquefied hydrogen, should we succeed in our task, was highly flammable.

  I followed her instructions, precisely, as always, then helped her seal the flask. She put it into the cooling chamber we’d constructed last week, and then removed her mask, wiping at the sweat on her brow with the back of her arm. That’s when I told her about Hela.

  “The Nobel?” Professor Mazur said, her voice thick with disbelief. But then she smiled warmly. “How wonderful for Hela. She was so kind when I saw her at Solvay. Especially when I told her what a great help you are to me in the lab. It is so very rare for someone to be both kind and brilliant. It must run in your family.”

  I felt my face reddening a bit at the unusual compliment. Professor Mazur was intense, always focused on the work, with little time for chatter or compliments. “Hela really wants me to go to Stockholm next month, but it will be too hard to get away from Klara. And from the lab,” I added. After the long summer away, we had settled into our routine again: Klara at school, me working in lab, Kaz teaching his fall courses. I devoted all my time out of the lab to Klara, helping her with her studies, listening to her piano music.

  “Marya Zorawska! Your sister is going to be the first woman to receive the Nobel. I command you to go to Stockholm and report back every detail to me when you return. I want to know all of it. In case I should ever win someday.” She chuckled a little, but I doubted she was kidding. “And my governess can help you out with Klara for a few weeks,” she offered. “So there, now you have no excuses.”

  Later that night I talked to Klara about it, asked her if she would mind being looked after by Professor Mazur’s governess while I was gone. Her eyes lit up, repeating what I’d told her back very slowly. “Aunt Hela has won the
biggest scientific prize in the world. The first woman?”

  I nodded and bit my lip a little. I was so deeply proud of my sister-twin. But I couldn’t help but think of what Pierre had written to me once, about how it was hard to be the sibling to brilliance. I was so deeply proud. But I was still that something else too. The feeling sank in my stomach, aching just a little.

  “Mama, you have to go,” Klara insisted. “I’m almost eight. I can take care of myself.”

  I smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I know you can, mój mały kurczak.”

  THE TRAIN RIDES TO STOCKHOLM WERE VERY LONG, AND after nearly twenty-four hours alone in a cold and bumpy train car, I wondered whether going all alone to Sweden, leaving Klara and my life in the beginning of winter, had been a mistake. But then I finally made it, and Hela hugged me so tightly. Her face glowed pink; I had never seen her so beautiful, so happy.

  Hela and Jacques had splurged for the occasion—the Nobel came with a handsome amount of prize money—and got us lovely large hotel rooms. Bronia and I shared a room, and Pierre stayed next to us in his own room. It felt very strange, all of us here without our children, without our adult responsibilities. We went out to eat dinner and stayed out very late, talking and talking and drinking brännvin.

  Bronia and Jacques got into a heated discussion about the potential uses of his and Hela’s magnets in the field of medicine—Jacques believing they could be helpful, Bronia arguing they could not be. She told Jacques he should stick to the lab and let her understand medicine. Hela tried to mediate, posing her own arguments on both sides. And me? I just sipped my brännvin slowly, careful not to have too much. Pierre caught my eye across the table, shrugged a little, smiled at me, and raised his glass in my direction. “Do you want to go back?” he mouthed to me.

  I nodded, and we excused ourselves. Bronia and Hela and Jacques were still arguing back and forth and barely seemed to notice us.

  “Tell me about your work with combustion,” Pierre said as we walked slowly back toward the hotel. The night air was crisp, quite chilly. I shivered a little. “Are you warm enough? Would you like my coat?” Pierre asked.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, not wanting to take his coat. I had this strange feeling if I put it on, if I wrapped myself up in the warmth and the smell and the feel of him, I would never be able to take it off.

  Hela had asked about my combustion work at dinner, but just as I’d begun to speak about it, Bronia had interrupted with a question for Jacques about his speech tomorrow. “There’s not too much to tell,” I said to Pierre now. “It is Ola Mazur’s work, really. I’m helping her. We’re trying to liquefy gas right now, to see how it works as a detonator.”

  “That sounds . . . dangerous,” Pierre said.

  I shrugged. “We take all the proper precautions. Neither of us has exploded yet.” I was making a joke, but Pierre didn’t laugh. I was used to the fires and smoke and the explosions in the lab now. It didn’t feel dangerous. It simply felt like my job. “What have you been working on Pierre?”

  “Becquerelium,” he said with a sigh. Then he added, “Sort of.” I slowed down my pace and turned to look at him, wanting to know more. “I think there’s a second element with radioactive properties in the pitchblende. My readings can’t be explained by becquerelium alone. I believe there is another element with an entirely different chemical composition, too.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I said.

  “Yes.” He rubbed his beard. “But I haven’t the space in the lab or the strength as one man to try to chemically wash the ore on my own.”

  “Perhaps you could publish a paper explaining your theory?” I suggested.

  He laughed, bitterly. “Yes, I have tried that. The French Academy refuses to publish it without results or the backing of an established scientist. And Jacques is busy with his own work.”

  “Well, you can’t give up,” I implored him. “You will find a way.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, his voice trailing off, as if he didn’t believe me. “Perhaps.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, A FEW HOURS BEFORE JACQUES AND Hela were to present their acceptance speech, Pierre knocked on our door and asked if we would like to take a walk, explore the city with him.

  “Go ahead,” Bronia implored me. “I’m feeling tired. I’m going to rest a bit, and I’ll meet you both at the ceremony later.” She’d come in late last night, and I wondered just how much brännvin she’d allowed herself so far away from her husband, children, home, and patients.

  I was wearing my nicest dress, a blue chiffon that had been made just for me in Paris many years earlier for Hela’s wedding. And I had been overjoyed to find it still fit before I left. It was a little tight around the middle, not the most comfortable for walking around, exploring a city, but I took a breath, kissed Bronia goodbye, and left to walk with Pierre.

  We walked slowly, not saying much of anything at first, as we had already exhausted our talk of work the night before. We took in the sights and sounds and smells of this new and beautiful city. All around us there was the bluest water and quaintest red roofs, and now that we were here today, walking in the daylight, it felt strangely like we were on a holiday. Together.

  We walked along the river path in the beautiful, flowering Djurgården, and I wondered out loud about the various species of flowers, different than the ones I knew so well, native to Poland.

  “I have been thinking so much of you, Marya,” Pierre said suddenly, out of nowhere. “Ever since I returned to Paris, I have been greatly missing our hikes.” He had written that to me in a recent letter, too.

  “Yes,” I agreed now. “The Carpathians were so beautiful last summer, weren’t they?”

  “The mountains, yes,” he said. “But I mean I’ve been missing this. Your company. Our talks.”

  We had talked about everything on our hikes, science and family and love and loss. About getting older and failing and happiness. And the truth was, I missed our talks too. Back in Krakow I talked to Klara and to Professor Mazur. Kaz and I gave each other an obligatory peck on the lips in the mornings, and exchanged quick pleasantries, but I was focused on Klara, and then my work in the lab. He had his own work, and in the evenings, we were both much too tired to truly talk as we once had when we were younger.

  “Look,” Pierre said, tugging gently on my hand. “Look across the water, Marya. Swans.”

  I did as he asked, and there they were, swimming toward us, an entire splendid family of swans in tandem, their beautiful white long necks bobbing across the water.

  The male and female pecked each other playfully, and then Pierre took my other hand, pulled me close enough to him that I could feel his chest against mine, his breath against my face. “Marya,” he said my name, his voice raspier than usual.

  I had the strangest feeling that he wanted to kiss me, and that if I let him, if I kissed him back, everything would change.

  “I can’t,” I whispered, our faces close enough that my breath became his breath, my words became his words. I felt the frown that stretched across his face in my own self, a heaviness that coursed through my entire body, all the way down to my toes.

  “What if you and I were destined to be together?” he said softly.

  It sounded so logical in his quiet voice. But I did not believe in destiny. I believed in science, in making our own choices. And if I kissed him now, if I let myself get even an inch closer to him, I would be making a choice I could never take back, the way Kaz had, many years ago.

  I pulled away from him, took a step back. “I almost moved to Paris once,” I said. “But then I got married instead. And now I have a life in Krakow, a beautiful daughter.”

  “And what if we had met in Paris, so many years ago? Everything might have been different,” he said quietly.

  We stood there for a little while longer, staring at the water, watching the swans, not touching, not saying anything else at all. And perhaps we were both imagining it, what could’ve happened, what might’
ve happened, if once, so many years earlier, I had stepped on that train.

  BACK IN KRAKOW, I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT MOMENT IN THE Djurgården with Pierre a lot. At night, when Kaz was working late in his lab and I was lying all alone in bed in the darkness, I reimagined it over and over again. I moved in just a little closer, put my lips on his. Felt the thrilling scratch of his beard against my chin. I held on to him, inhaled him. He did not smell like the pine cones and peppermint of my husband, but of the fire of my lab, the flowers of Sceaux.

  There was a choice. There was always a choice. Had I made the wrong one? Could there be a happiness for me with Pierre that I would never have with Kaz? Or was it wrong to believe that my happiness, in and of itself, was inherently connected to any man at all? Maybe my true happiness was in the sound of Klara’s piano notes, in the smell of Professor Mazur’s smoke-filled lab.

  “Mama,” Klara’s small voice called out for me in the darkness one night, interrupting my thoughts. I pushed Pierre away again, to the deepest back corner of my mind.

  “What is it, mój mały kurczak?”

  “I had a bad dream.” Her voice quivered, thick with tears. I remembered what she told me before I’d left. She was eight, old enough to take care of herself. But I felt a warmth coursing through my body now, knowing that she still needed me. She was my happiness, my heart.

  “Come, lie in bed with me.” I patted Kaz’s empty side of the bed, and Klara ran up, got in. I held her close, smoothed back her tangled hair with my hands. “Do you want to tell me about your dream?” I asked her, kissing her head softly, reveling in the soft flower-petal feel of her hair. She shook her head vigorously. “Sometimes it helps to talk about it.”

  “You went on the train again to Sweden,” she finally said a few moments later, her voice very quiet, very small. “And then something happened. You never came back.”