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

absent here in Krakow. And I was still the same old Marya, my mind restless and itching, wanting to learn, wanting more.

AT FIRST, I HOPED TO OPEN A BRANCH OF MY WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY here in Krakow. Teaching young women was what I’d come to think of as my life’s work in Loksow. But it was very hard to get started here. For one thing, it wasn’t easy to meet like-minded people in a new city. Mostly, I got introduced to the wives of the men Kaz taught in the mathematics department with, and they were only interested talking about their houses, their children, and their husbands. When I tried to bring up the subject of advancing our own educations, they would laugh. Or look at me funny, like I made them uncomfortable. Suffice to say, I did not make any friends our first few months in Krakow.

But also the bigger problem was, there was not such a need for my school here, as there had been in Russian-controlled Poland. Women could enroll in Jagiellonian and had been allowed to since 1897. A few years ago, in 1906, the university had even hired their first woman professor. When I asked him, Kaz told me she was a part of the science faculty, but he had not met her yet. She felt to me like a mythical creature. And some mornings after I dropped Klara off at school, I would take a long path home, meandering by the science building on campus, hoping that, by chance, I might run into her. But it was silly, since I had no idea what she looked like. How would I even know if I walked right by her?

I wrote to Hela weekly and begged her to send me as much current reading material as she could, so that I could at least continue my scientific education on my own. But Hela was so busy with writing up her findings on elemental magnetism with Jacques that her letters to me, her packages of scientific papers and journals, came less frequently than they had when I’d lived in Loksow.

Our house in Krakow was on Golebia Street, and somehow it felt fitting that this street, too, was named for a bird. A pigeon, though, not a sparrow. And all the pigeons I saw in Krakow were never flying; they were prancing slowly on the street corners, pecking at wayward crumbs passersby had dropped in the street.

IN THE SPRINGTIME, WE BOUGHT A PIANO FOR OUR HOUSE, and Klara could not keep her hands off of it. She ran to practice the moment she woke up in the morning, and then again the moment she got home from her daily school lessons. I had to pester her to do her schoolwork in the evenings and tried to hide that stabbing feeling in my stomach when she would say, Why, Mama? Why? Sciences and maths bore me. I want to play piano instead.

“You can get back to the piano after your lessons are done. I’ll help you with the maths and sciences,” I would say. It pained me so that this was my favorite part of my day, and that she hated it.

But I could not deny that Leokadia had been right about her talent either. After only two years of lessons, her small six-year-old fingers could fly across the keys in a way that mesmerized me when I sat down and watched her play. And her teacher, an older woman who had come recommended to Kaz by one of the other professors whose daughter also took lessons, told us that perhaps we should look into something more for Klara, something better, a professional institute of music?

“Is there something like that here in Krakow?” I asked, genuinely curious. I had known of nothing of the sort in Loksow or Warsaw. And especially not something that would be open to young girls.

She nodded. “There is one institute that accepts girls: Chernikoff. But it is very hard to get in.”

“Oh.” I shrugged, and the truth was, as much as Klara loved piano, I still hoped for her to fall in love with science instead. And she was so young, only six years old. I was quite fine with her taking casual lessons with Pani Lebowska.

“But Klara is special,” Pani Lebowska said matter-of-factly. “She’ll practice a little more, and then I will secure her an audition.”

“I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU,” KAZ ANNOUNCED ONE EVENING, coming in from work, the beginning of our second fall in Krakow. Klara was already practicing for her audition, the sweet melodic sounds of her piano overtaking the entire house.

Kaz had walked into the kitchen, where I was preparing dinner, put his hat on the table, and swooped in and kissed me. “Come, it’s out front.” He held out his hand, but I hesitated, not wanting our food to burn. “Come on, Marya. Come with me.”

I wiped my hands on my apron before taking his hand, letting him lead me to the front steps of our house. And then when he opened the front door I saw it: a bright shiny red bicycle sitting out on our porch.

“What’s this?” I asked him. I let go of his hand, stepped outside, and trailed my fingers along the handlebars. I hadn’t ridden in years, not since that glorious summer in Paris when my niece, Marie, was born and I’d ridden all around with Pierre.

“I wrote your sisters, asked what I might be able to do to cheer you up.” He paused, swallowed hard. “I know it has been hard for you here in Krakow this past year. You miss your friends and your work . . . and I want to make you happy again. Both Bronia and Hela suggested that you would like a bicycle.”

It was a thoughtful gift, or, he had meant for it to be that way. But I felt a disquieting sensation curl inside my stomach. My sisters both believed all I needed to be happy was a bicycle? And