Half Life Jillian Cantor (trending books to read .txt) 📖

“Of course I do.” It is one of my earliest memories of learning about the world, loving science and feeling that deep and abiding sense of wonder I still feel now each morning in the lab.

“Pierre reminds me of the way he was with us, so good with our children.”

In the darkness it is hard to see that Pierre can barely stand. And in the excitement of his voice, it is hard to remember the way he’d been restless all night last night, moaning in his half-sleep about the terrible pains in his bones.

“I’m worried about him,” I tell Hela now. “The doctors cannot say what is causing him so much pain. I worry he will never feel good again, that there is something wrong with him that they do not understand yet. He is only forty-six, and you would never know it from the way he walks and cries out in agony all night.”

Only two months ago in Sweden, he was seeming better, but now in the damp sea air, he seems so much worse again. It is hard to love him so much and to watch him suffer. I want to help him, want to fix him, and I have no idea how.

“You are a good wife, a good person. A wonderful scientist! Papa would be so proud if he could see you now.” Hela kisses my cheek, and I feel her own cheek wet with a tear against mine. I’m not sure why she’s crying exactly, but it makes me start to cry too. “Moja mała siostrzyczka. You will find a way. You will fix him, take care of him, help him,” she says to me. I want to fix his pain more than anything, but I truly don’t know how.

“Mon amour,” he calls out to me now, his voice rich with excitement, and I pull away from Hela. “It’s your turn. Come, have a look at the sun.”

I tread slowly to him in the darkness, and then I listen to his instructions for viewing in the large scope. I look at the sky through his lens.

The sun has retreated into a nearly impossible darkness, turning its fiery light black and dim.

Marya

Poland, 1905

By the beginning of 1905, my Flying University had greatly multiplied in size. Eight of the original women who had come together with me to learn, over ten years earlier, now all acted as professors with me. We taught in our own areas of specialty, ranging from sciences to maths to literature and even music, after Leokadia followed through with her promise to connect me with her old teacher. And we had close to sixty young women enrolled in our courses, each paying two rubles (or whatever they could afford) a month to attend. This money went toward paying all of us teachers a salary. And to pay the rent on a one-room apartment where classes took place a few evenings a week. A revolution was rising in Poland, the people wanting to break free of Russian rule. The Russian police were busy with protests, looters. In a way, it gave our burgeoning school a new safety. They had no time for us.

Still, Kaz continued to worry about me breaking the law, and perhaps even more so now that we had Klara. But I felt an odd safety in our numbers, in the fact that we had gone on and on like this for years with hardly a problem. As long as we did not advertise what we were doing, out in the open. As long as we stayed secret, I truly believed the police would continue to leave us alone. What did it matter to them, really, if we were educated? There were no jobs for us in Russian Poland, nothing we could do with our education, anyway.

Kaz had gone back to teaching maths at the dreaded boys’ school for only half the salary Hipolit had been paying him, and on nights and weekends he worked to get his and Hipolit’s research on elasticity written up into a paper, with the goal of publishing it, eventually being able to secure himself a better job in his field. We moved around each other, both busy, barely talking, barely touching each other.

But Kaz loved Klara, so deeply, so obviously. The first thing he did when he walked in each night after work, before poring over his research, was go to her, where she was often playing on the floor, babbling to herself while I prepared dinner. He would walk in, pick her up: “Kiciuna, how I missed you today.” He’d swoop her into a hug and tickle her belly with kisses until she began to laugh.

Then he would turn to me, smile a little. Ask me if I’d had enough money to buy food for supper, or if I needed anything else for the apartment. He could always tutor a boy or two after school to make some extra money if we needed it. That was Kaz, steady. Even when he himself was struggling with his work.

And sometimes, I would stand there at the edge of the kitchen, watching him with Klara. For just a moment I would remember it. Why I loved him. Why I married him.

I STAYED AT HOME IN OUR APARTMENT WITH KLARA DURING the day, almost every day. She took regular and long naps, and I got a lot of reading done, new papers being published in chemistry and physics, which Hela would send to me in big, thick packages once a month, knowing my hunger for them. I continued to learn, to self-teach, so that I could impart this knowledge to my young students on Wednesday nights. I loved Klara and the days we had together, but even with my time for reading, being at home constantly became somewhat mind-numbing. Sometimes I simply longed for intelligent conversations with adults, longed to be learning in an