Half Life by Jillian Cantor (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

to mine, allowing myself to be lulled almost to sleep by the rocking of the train, the beating of his heart.

“Klara,” I heard Kaz say, but I didn’t open my eyes. “I heard your cousin Lou is going to teach you to climb mountains this summer and Jakub is going to teach you to swim.” Bronia had written as much in a letter to me, which I had shared with Kaz. Our niece Lou was now almost fifteen and had taken up mountain climbing as her greatest hobby and passion, much to Bronia’s chagrin, wishing for her to be more interested in science instead. And Jakub, now eleven, planned to spend his summer like a fish in the lake.

I heard Klara’s beautiful giggle, resonating against the commotion of the train. “Mama, I’m too small to climb mountains, aren’t I?”

I opened my eyes. She stared at me wide-eyed, serious. I smiled at her. “No, mój mały kurczak. You are not too small. You can do anything you want to do, you know. Anything you put your mind to. I am sure of it.”

ZAKOPANE WAS BEAUTIFUL AND LUSH, GREEN AND SWEEPING, surrounded on all sides by the great green and brown hills of the Tatras. Bronia and her Kazimierz lived in a very large house on the rolling pasture behind their sanatorium. They had access to hiking and swimming, and though it seemed like a rare piece of paradise, Bronia spoke of how they hoped soon Warsaw would be free again, and they could move back there without her Kazimierz being in danger of arrest for the pro-Polish activities he’d taken part in as a young man.

I did not understand why anyone would choose the bustle and dirtiness of the city over the light and the peace here in Zakopane. “It must be like you are on vacation all year long,” I exclaimed to Bronia, looking out the back window of her house, a wide view of the Tatras in the near distance, close enough that it almost felt I could reach my hand out and touch the mountains.

“Or purgatory,” Bronia said, almost under her breath.

I turned and looked at her, surprised. I’d had no indication from her letters that she had anything but happiness in her life. But now that I thought about it, her letters recounted mostly day-to-day minutiae, the pursuits of the children, what they were doing and eating and learning, and how much they were growing.

“It’s just,” Bronia clarified, “in Paris there was so much going on all around us. Concerts, and lectures. Professors and doctors stopping by the house for a salon any night of the week. And there were so many opportunities to learn.” She held her hands up in the air. “We have a wonderful tutor for the children here, but Helena finds her disagreeable, and all she wants to do is climb in the mountains all day. The truth is, there is not much else here to tempt her with.”

We had called Bronia’s Helena Lou since she was born, and hearing Bronia refer to her by her given name now only seemed to underscore her frustration. Suddenly, I had an idea. “What if she came back to Loksow with me for the fall term? She could take courses at my university. The women who teach are all wonderful, and we have everything, sciences and maths, piano and art. She could find an academic or artistic pursuit there perhaps?” Bronia wrinkled her forehead, considering it. “Kaz will be in Vienna, so I could use the help with Klara anyway.”

Bronia nodded. “It’s so kind of you to offer.” She leaned in and kissed me on the forehead, sweeping a wayward hair out of my eyes. “I know she is fifteen, but still, I don’t know if I can let my baby go, just like that.”

“Well,” I told her. “Papa let you go.”

“I was much older,” she said quickly.

“Think about it.” I put my hand on her shoulder, gently. And for just a moment, I wondered which one of us was the sister-mother now.

KLARA SLEPT IN LOU’S BEDROOM, AND KAZ AND I HAD A ROOM all our own—Bronia’s house was large enough to accommodate all of us, even Hela and Jacques and Marie when they arrived in a few weeks.

“I told Bronia Lou should come back with us. Live with me while you’re away. Attend my school,” I whispered to Kaz that night in the darkness in our bed.

“That will be good, for both of you,” Kaz said, approvingly.

Like we always did at home, we lay on opposite sides of the large bed, untouching. But when he spoke now, Kaz suddenly, unexpectedly, reached his hand across the empty space for mine. His fingers trailed against my palm, softly, slowly tracing a line. I hesitated for a moment, before taking his hand, interlacing his fingers with my own.

“Everything feels different here,” Kaz said.

He was right. The past finally felt put away, the future felt spread out, wide and more hopeful before us. Kaz had made a mistake once, but I could remember again now that he was a good man, a kind man. He was my husband and Klara’s devoted father. I squeezed his hand.

He moved across the bed, closer to me, closer still, and when he wrapped his arms around me, I reveled in his closeness, his warmth. “What will you do in Vienna all alone without us?” I whispered.

“I will miss you and Klara,” he said. “I will write you every day. I will be desperately lonely.” It sounded like a vow, a promise. He gently touched my face with his hands, and then he kissed me. For the first time in so long, I kissed him back, deeply, with feeling.

And I suddenly understood how lucky I was to be here this summer with him. To be lying here next to him now, sun-kissed and warm, his heart beating on next to mine.

Marie

Paris, 1906–1907

Time moves forward on Pierre’s pocket watch, and somehow, so do