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

concerto Leokadia was set to play that night. It was, of course, still much too hard for her, but she wrinkled up her small forehead in concentration and taught herself the beginning portion, at a much slower speed.

“Do you think she remembers me?” Klara asked as we walked to the concert together that afternoon, arm in arm. The late day was warm, balmy. The pink amaryllis had just begun to bloom and they smelled divine. I inhaled, enjoying the contrast to what I smelled so often now in Professor Mazur’s small lab as we worked side-by-side with combustibles: smoke and ash, everything burning. It was so hard to get the smell of burning out of one’s nose, even after I went home for the night to Kaz and to Klara. I breathed deeply now, wanting the scent of amaryllis to stay with me forever. “Do you, Mama?” Klara prodded. “It was a very long time ago that I met her.”

Perhaps in Klara’s small life, it was a very long time ago. A time, for her, before piano. Before Krakow. I imagined it must be hard for her to even remember that other life of ours, our little apartment in Loksow on Złota Street with our view of the smokestacks. And all the hours and hours she spent with me at my school. “Of course she remembers you, mój mały kurczak.” I reached my hand up to smooth a stray hair back into her braid. “And I tell her about you in my letters whenever I write to her. She is very excited about your progress at Chernikoff.”

Klara smiled and I relaxed into my half-lie. I had written to Leokadia about Klara attending Chernikoff, but only once. We did not write each other enough letters anymore for either one of us to keep up on anyone’s progress.

I learned about Leokadia’s progress as I read the concert program while we waited for the concert to begin. According to her biographical note, she had sold more records than any Polish woman pianist in history. And she was currently touring, performing with symphonies all across Europe and Asia.

When she walked out on stage, she was stunning, as always. She wore a shiny red dress, her blond curls swept back away from her face in a perfectly sculpted chignon. She sat down to play, and, after hearing Klara practice oh-so-many hours, I understood now just how divine, how precise and passionate Leokadia’s piano playing really was.

“She’s so famous, Mama,” Klara said, her eyes wide, as we walked backstage to meet her for dinner after the concert. “That is going to be me up on that stage one day.”

“You desire fame, chicken?” It was a hard thing for me to understand. I had my entire life craved learning, perfection, but I shied away from attention.

She shook her head. “No, Mama. I mean I want to play piano the way she plays. I want to be the best.”

I smiled at her and kissed the top of her head. She was my daughter, after all, wasn’t she?

Then Leokadia walked out, her face red and glowing, a sheen of perspiration across her petite forehead, and somehow her hair was still wrapped up inside that perfect chignon, not even one strand out of place.

“Moi kochani!” she exclaimed when she saw us, wrapping us both up in a hug. She stood back, stooped down a little to be eye to eye with Klara. “Oh, let me look at you, my little pianist friend.” Klara beamed from the attention. “You have gotten so tall. So beautiful, just like your mama, huh?”

“Hi, Kadi,” I said softly. She stood, smiled slowly at me, wrapped me again in another hug.

“Papa wanted to come,” Klara blurted out, God knows why. “But he’s at a conference in Brussels.” There was no way Kaz would’ve come here with us, even if he were home.

Kadi averted her gaze and changed the subject by asking Klara what pieces she was studying now at Chernikoff. Then she told us to follow her to her hotel, where she had preordered us a dinner feast.

She was staying at a beautiful brick hotel on the Wisla river, and she had a huge suite there, complete with her own piano and a beautifully displayed fish dinner laid out on a dining table. The magnitude of her success did not quite hit me until that very moment, when we stepped inside her lavish suite. It was one thing to read it in the liner notes, and quite another to see the way she lived, to taste it.

FULL AND HAPPY AND EXHAUSTED, KLARA LAY DOWN ON Leokadia’s parlor couch, closed her eyes, and fell asleep after we ate supper. And then Kadi poured two glasses of wine and told me to follow her out to her balcony so we could talk.

“I really should get Klara home,” I protested. “It’s late.” But it was an idle protest. Kadi handed me the wine, and I took it. Klara had a few days off school for the holiday, and Kaz was in Brussels. There was nothing for the two of us to rush home for.

“How have you been, Marya?” she asked me, sipping her wine as she sat in a chair on the balcony. I sat down next to her. “Krakow seems to agree with you.”

“Does it?” I said, taking my own sip of wine. It was a dry wine, dryer than I’d been expecting, and I puckered my lips as I swallowed. “I suppose it does. I’ve been working as a research assistant in a lab at the university. Working on combustion. Each day is explosive. Quite literally.” I laughed at my own joke, and Leokadia smiled.

“And you are teaching still, like you were in Loksow?”

I shook my head. “No, but I’m learning so much now. I will teach again one day, and then I’ll have more knowledge to give my students.”

“Wonderful,” she murmured. “Wonderful, wonderful. You were always the smartest one of all us, Marya.”

I laughed a little,