Half Life

moment, outside our unlocked lab, neither one of us speaking or moving. Until finally Pierre says, “Before you say anything, I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot, and I’ve decided I’ll move to Poland with you.”
“What?” His words don’t make any sense, and I pull away from his face. Whatever would he do in Poland? He doesn’t speak Polish, and he would be unable to work in a laboratory there.
“If that is what it takes for you to be my wife,” Pierre says. “I’ll give this all up.” He gestures to the lab, behind us. “I love science, but I don’t need it the way you do. You can be a scientist in Poland, and I will be . . . your husband.”
“But what will you do in Poland?”
“I don’t know . . . I’ll teach French,” Pierre says. “But it doesn’t matter what I do. I don’t care. Don’t you see that? I just want to be with you, Marie Sklodowska. I love you.”
He would give up his career, to marry me? To be with me? I would not do the same for him. But he isn’t asking me to. Maybe the reason he wants to be with me is because of my devotion to science, not in spite of it.
Then his words settle: I love you.
My fingers twitch, wanting to touch his face again, but I clench them into a fist, holding my hand at my side. Bronia is right. He loves me. I suddenly think of the pine trees in Szczuki, running through them, skating on the icy river, holding on to Kaz, him whispering in my hair that he loves me, and then how quickly he was willing to give up on us once his parents didn’t approve of me. I think of his marriage now, to Leokadia. Are they as happy as we were then? Does he love her as much as he said he loved me? Does it matter?
“Marie?” Pierre says my name as a question, interrupting my thoughts.
He picks up my clenched fist, gently unfurls my fingers, lifts my hand up, kisses the back of it softly, then my palm. He moves my fingers back up to his face. His beard gently scratches my fingertips, and I close my eyes for a moment, inhale. Pierre smells like the lab, like fire and metal. Divine. “Marie?” he says, again, softer. And I suddenly understand this will be the last time he asks.
“Yes,” I say, tentatively at first, the word feeling like a surprise and a question on my lips all at once. Then I say it again, louder. “Yes.”

Marya
Loksow, Poland, 1895
Marya.” Kaz whispered my name in bed one night in early March, testing to see if I was still awake. I’d come home late, after a riveting course in physics, compliments of a textbook Agata had gotten from her brother. I’d thought Kaz was already asleep when I’d slipped in between the covers a few minutes earlier. Now, my muscles tensed, and I focused on my breathing, keeping it even and slow.
I was nowhere near asleep, my mind on fire from two stolen hours with the physics textbook. And part of me wanted to answer Kaz, to roll over and kiss him, hold on to him, and bury my face deep into the pine scent of his neck. But lately, in bed, he only wanted to talk about, and act on, us having a baby. It was easier to pretend I was asleep than to argue with him.
It was true, we had been married almost four years, and I was already twenty-seven years old. But I loved my husband, and I was happy like this, just the two of us. I spent nearly every waking moment caring for Jan and Jedrek Kaminski, and did not enjoy any of it. What got me through so many mind-numbing moments of each day was the knowledge I soaked in at night at my classes, and the dream that one day I would still learn so very much more at a real university. And then, that I might toil away in a laboratory, not in a nursery. I could not imagine adding another child, a baby, no less, to my day. Even if it were my own. Especially if it were my own. How would I continue to go to classes at nights if I had a baby to care for? And I’d been avoiding Kazimierz as much as I could in bed for months, not ready for a family yet, the way he was.
“Marya,” Kaz whispered again now. “I want to ask you about your friend, the pianist.”
“Leokadia?” I shifted, opened my eyes, surprised enough by his question that I’d briefly forgotten I’d been pretending to sleep. Kaz knew Kadi and I had become close friends, but he still had no idea about my secret trip to Krakow with Hela to hear Kadi play her beautiful, beautiful piano in a real concert hall. I had returned feeling remorseful and had promised myself I’d never lie to him again. My heart pounded in my chest now, worried he’d somehow found out, and I was sure Kaz could feel my heartbeat pulsing through my skin.
“Her father, he is Hipolit Jewniewicz?” Kaz said.
“What?” It wasn’t what I was expecting him to say at all.
“Her father?” Kaz said again. “He’s Hipolit Jewniewicz?”
“I don’t know? I . . . suppose?” I did not know his first name for certain. All I knew of her father was what she told me about him disapproving of her, disallowing her from living the life she truly wanted. He was still teaching in St. Petersburg, but would be coming back to Loksow for good, this summer. Kadi was dreading his return. I was dreading it on her behalf.
“The Hipolit Jewniewicz?” Kaz was saying now.
“I don’t know,” I said again. My heartbeat calmed. I exhaled. “Darling, why do you ask?”
“Today at work, someone mentioned he’d heard his daughter playing at a party last weekend, and when he mentioned the names, I finally put