Jillian Cantor: Half Life

“And Paris,” I reminded him, each time Bronia’s letters arrived. Eventually we would go to Paris, and I would do my coursework at the Sorbonne.

“Yes, of course, my darling.” Kazimierz kissed the top of my head. “Someday, Paris.”

But for now, Kazimierz had a job in Poland, and after our wedding, we moved from Warsaw to Loksow. We rented a tiny one-room apartment above a bakery for seven rubles a month, and all the day long the smells of bread drifted up into our one-room, taunting us. We did not have money for enough food, or enough coal to heat our room regularly in winter. But never mind that. We had each other.

In bed at night, Kazimierz wrapped his large arms around me, pulled me in close to his body, holding on to me while he slept. His breath matched my breath. Steady. And we fit together perfectly. I slept enveloped in a cocoon of love and happiness, and I was plenty warm and plenty full.

IN WARSAW, IN THE YEARS BEFORE I BECAME A GOVERNESS, I had taken classes at the Flying University. In Russian Poland it was illegal for women to obtain a university education, and the Flying University classes were taught in secret, the locations ever changing to avoid detection. I’d learned about chemistry and physics and literature. In Loksow, though, there was nothing of the sort. And after we had been living there for three months, I announced to Kazimierz over a dinner that I was going to start a Flying University myself.

“What, kochanie ?” He was distracted, grading student exams at the table while we ate. He did not mean to ignore me, but it was the best time of evening and best place in our apartment to get any light, as the late spring sun had not yet set and our only window framed our tiny table.

“Flying University,” I said again. “I want to start one here, in Loksow. Women here need a university. I need a university.” I made circles with my spoon in the dinner I’d made, a clear broth that I had tried (and failed) to make more interesting by adding an aging potato.

During the day while Kazimiez taught, I worked as a governess for twin boys. The Kaminskis were a family Kazimierz had known from his other, wealthier life, and they were not put off by the fact that his parents had disowned him, since I was cheap labor for them. But at night I longed for more. I read Kazimierz’s books, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted stimulating conversation and experiments and problem solving, and most of all, a community. My entire life, other than in Szczuki, I’d had people to learn alongside: first banned Polish books as bedtime stories and discussions with Papa and my sisters, later the Flying University classes I attended with Bronia in Warsaw.

Kazimierz finally put down the exam he’d been focusing on and looked up. His eyes were dark brown, nearly black, and I had stared at them enough times now to understand the subtle differences in his expression between desire and anger, worry and hunger. Now, his eyes were filled only with worry. “I’ll teach you maths at night if you want to learn something.”

“Oh, Kaz,” I said. “You’re already exhausted from teaching all day. And besides, I want to find other women like me to interact with.” I’d done years of self-study in Szczuki; I was ready for so much more. And as much as I loved my husband, it was lonely here in Loksow with no family, no friends, and no learning opportunities outside our apartment.

“But a secret university? That sounds much too dangerous, Marya. If you were caught, you could be arrested, jailed.”

“I won’t be caught.” I did not want to be arrested, but maybe there were worse things. My mind felt numb, soft, restless. I itched to exercise it among new people and new studies.

“I don’t like the idea,” Kazimierz said. He covered my hand with his. “I couldn’t bear the thought of anything ever happening to you, my beautiful sweet Marya.”

“But it won’t,” I promised him. “Bronia and I attended classes in Warsaw before I met you and everything was fine.” Truth be told, there had been a scare or two, a raid from time to time. A woman I’d actually known in my chemistry class, Petra, had disappeared, rumored to have been arrested. But there’d also been another rumor circulating about an illicit affair, a baby, and though I never saw her again, all the danger had felt muted, far away. I let myself believe she had moved somewhere else, out in the countryside, with a family perhaps. “I will start something small,” I promised Kazimierz. “For a few women. We will only meet once a week. I need this,” I said again.

Kazimierz sighed. He knew me well enough to know that nothing he might say now, no worry he might have was going to change my mind. He squeezed my hand. “Just promise me you’ll be careful,” he finally said.

“Of course, darling.” I leaned across the table and kissed him once softly on the lips to mollify him. I sat back down and began to chart it in my head, how I could begin this university, where I would even start.

Kazimierz was still staring at me, and he put the exam down again, reached his hands up to hold on to my shoulders and pull me closer to him. He kissed me, more forcefully than before, as if to remind me that he was here, that he was the most important thing. And he was.

But we were going to get to Paris, I was going to go to a real university eventually. And in the meantime, I had to prepare as much as I could, so I would be ready.

Paris, France, 1891

You have a choice. There is always a choice.

I get on the train to Paris, leaving Kazimierz still standing at the station, looking as though I had trampled upon his heart. But my own heart feels free, bursting with so much possibility for my future. The heavy sinking cloud that had crushed my thoughts and my hopes, working so many dull years as a governess, begins to lift as the train pulls away from Warsaw. My university education is finally within my grasp, after all these years. Maybe my love for Kazimierz had not been love at all, as now the prospect of giving up university, for him , does not feel even remotely right to me the way it had only months earlier, skating in Szczuki.

Forty long and uncomfortable hours later, Bronia is waiting for me at the station in Paris. She completed her course of study in obstetrics and is a married woman now—having fallen in love with another doctor, a Polish man, a political dissident exiled from Russian Poland.

It is wonderful to see her again, and my heart swells further. She looks so beautiful, so happy and so grown up and… it can’t be! I rest my hand gently on the round bulge of her belly, before I even give her a hug. “You are having a baby?” I ask, stunned that my sister is about to be a real mother to her own child, not just a sister-mother to me and Hela. And, that she has kept this last bit of news from me until now.

“Yes.” She laughs a little and holds me tightly to her, kissing the top of my head. She smoothes back the wisps of my blond hair that have come loose from my bun on the very long journey. “You are going to be a tante. ” She quickly corrects herself in Polish: “ Ciotka , I mean.”

“ Tante ,” I repeat back, the French word both foreign and delightful on my tongue.

BRONIA AND HER HUSBAND LIVE IN A SMALL APARTMENT IN La Villete, on rue d’Allemagne, an hour and two horse-drawn omnibus rides away from the Sorbonne.

I take a few days to unpack my things and settle in, and then Bronia draws me out a map. I manage to navigate the omnibuses into the city for the first time alone, without getting lost. And as I walk the rue Saint-Jacques to go and register for my classes, I’ve never felt such a lightness, such a happiness before. In Poland, a woman cannot simply walk into a university, pay the fees, and register. But in Paris—anything is possible!