Half Life

was just a girl ambling on the cobblestone streets of Loksow, hopelessly in love with this beautiful mathematician. I entwined arms with him so we were walking elbow to elbow, hip to hip. The warm fresh air was good for my sickness, and as Kaz told me about the equations he was working on with Hipolit and how Hipolit was trying to help him secure a place at the university, I felt a sense of calm come over me that I hadn’t felt in a while.
“Maybe by the time the baby comes, I will have a job there, and we will have more money,” Kaz said. “You could stop working for the Kaminskis.”
It had felt a small torture these past few months chasing after those two ill-behaved boys while feeling so ill, and all I could think about each day was that I longed for the baby inside of me to be a girl and to be nothing like those raucous twins. The Kaminskis had offered that I could bring my baby to work and care for all three children. But now the idea that I might be able to stay at home and care just for my baby, and oh my, I could read and study and think all day long too? I stopped walking, stood up on my tiptoes and kissed Kaz softly on the mouth.
All at once, there was a sharp pain in my stomach, and I let go of Kaz, doubled over, and put my hands to my belly.
“Marya?” The pain was so blinding, I couldn’t see him any longer. His voice was far away, like it was traveling through water, bending and breaking and garbled. “Marya,” he said again.
My belly throbbed and pulled, and I clutched it, wanting the pain to stop. And then from somewhere very far away, I heard his voice again: “You’re bleeding.”
I blinked and tried to focus my eyes, but everything was black and dizzying, and the pain was so bad, I could not stand up, and maybe I crumpled to the ground, or maybe I didn’t, but the next sensation I understood was Kaz picking me up, carrying me, running with me back toward our apartment.
I told him, Go to Agata’s instead. She knew about the body, studying as much as she could. In another life, another country, she would’ve trained to be a doctor, like Bronia in Paris. Oh, Bronia. I suddenly wished for my sister, for the comfort of her hug and the warmth of her medical knowledge.
But maybe I didn’t tell Kaz anything. Or maybe he didn’t listen. Because he was breathing so hard, carrying me up the flight of stairs past the bakery, to our tiny apartment. And then for a moment the pain lessened, and I thought, if only I could go to sleep, everything would be okay again when I awoke.
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES AGAIN IT WAS MORNING, OR, DAYTIME. Sunlight streamed through our apartment window, making the table a yellow, glowing circle.
“Marya.” A man’s voice. But not Kaz. I was keenly aware it was not my husband, but I didn’t know who could possibly be saying my name. I blinked to focus on his face. He was older, Papa’s age, balding with a sparse gray beard. I didn’t recognize him.
Then I heard another voice, a woman: “She’s coming out of it,” the woman said, and the familiarity of her tone struck me, colder than the river in winter in Szczuki. My mother-in-law, Pani Zorawska. I had not spoken to her since that day I’d run away from my job caring for Kaz’s younger brothers and sisters, years earlier. If she were here now, I must be dying. She must’ve come here to take back her eldest son.
“No, he’s mine now,” I tried to say, but the words would not come out. My tongue was thick, too hot. Everything was fire. And pain. There was a knife in my belly, tugging me apart.
“Marya.” The unfamiliar man again. Then he explained: he was a doctor. The Zorawskis’ family doctor. Had Kaz been so worried about me, he’d asked his family for help?
“Kaz.” I finally found my voice. “Kazimierz?”
“I’m here,” he said, and it was only then that I saw him, sitting by the bed. He reached out and stroked my hair.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “Tell me.”
“Kochanie,” he said. “The doctor says there is a problem with your body, and that the baby might not be okay.” He choked on the last words, so that it sounded like he was gasping for air.
The baby might not be okay?
“If only you had come to me sooner,” the doctor said now, his tone accusing. Come to him? Kaz and I did not have the money for a private doctor. Women had been having babies since the beginning of time on their own, with midwives and female friends to help them. And I hated this man, this doctor, for blaming me for whatever was happening now, and worse, making Kaz believe it too.
“This isn’t my fault,” I whispered, but the words came out sounding meek, defensive, useless even to me.
Kazimierz turned and exchanged a look with someone, maybe his mother, but I couldn’t see her, only hear her sigh from somewhere across the room.
“All you can do now,” the doctor said, “is stay in this bed and rest until the baby comes. And pray to our Lord that He forgives you. That He lets you have this baby.”
I DID NOT BELIEVE IN GOD. I HAD NOT EVER SINCE MAMA DIED of tuberculosis when I was ten, and just before her, my eldest sister, Zofia, of typhus. It was then that I decided I would put any faith I had into science, not into religion. Science, medicine, could have saved them. God had not. Bronia had felt the same as me. It was why she’d gone to Paris to become a doctor.
But then it was only me and my bed each day, and this baby inside of me. Every