The Zookeeper’s Wife (14 page)

By the spring of 1942, a stream of Guests began arriving at the zoo once more, hiding in cages, sheds, and closets, where they tried to forge daily routines while living in a state of contained panic. Versed in the layout of the house, surely they joked about the clunkiness of so-and-so's footsteps, children running, hoof and paw skitterings, door slammings, phone ringing, and the occasional banshee screeching of quarreling pets. At least, in a radio era, they'd grown used to gathering news by ear and adding mental images.

Antonina worried about her friend, sculptor Magdalena Gross, whose life and art had derailed with the bombing of the zoo, which wasn't just her open-air workshop but her compass, in both senses, an imaginative realm for her work and a direction for her life. Antonina wrote in her diary of Gross's rapture, how the animals absorbed her until she lost herself in their quiddities for hours, oblivious to zoogoers who stood quietly watching. Jan, a lifelong fan of what he called "the plastic arts," also admired her work enormously.

Small sculpture her specialty, Gross had captured two dozen or so animals, lifelike and witty, on the brink of a familiar motion or with distinctly human traits: A camel with its head laid back on one hump, legs splayed, caught mid-stretch. A young llama with perked-up ears spying something edible. A wary Japanese goose pointing a sharp beak skyward while eyeing the viewer, like "a beautiful but brainless woman," Gross had explained. A flamingo, mid-Chaplinesque walk, its right heel lifted. A macho pheasant showing off for his harem. An exotic hen hunkering down and trotting fast, "like a shopper thinking only about how to buy some herrings." A deer craning its head backwards when startled by a sound. A bright-eyed heron with long, solid beak, curvaceous shoulders, and chin plunged deep into a large fluffed-up chest—which Magdalena identified as herself. A tall marabou with head sunk deep between its shoulders. An elk sniffing the air for a whiff of a mate. A feisty rooster, ready for trouble, rolling a wild eye.

Gross sought the innuendos of flesh unique to each animal: how it angled hips and shoulders to balance, threatened rivals, showed emotion. She relished tiny flexions, angling her own arms and legs to understand the rigging of her models' muscles and bones. Jan, who served as Magdalena Gross's advisor, was fascinated by the core design of animals, their center of gravity and geometry—how, for example, a bird balances its low smooth mass on two twiglike legs, while a mammal's richer core of shapes and textures requires the props of four thick legs. With his college studies in agricultural engineering, zoology, and fine arts, he may well have been influenced by Darcy Wentworth Thompson's charming classic,
On Growth and Form
(1917), a study of biological engineering, which considers such motifs as the architecture of the spine or the pelvis evolving bone-wings to spare the torso pain. She spent months crafting a sculpture. To select from a repertoire of moves one pose that might embody it—that took time and a kind of infatuation, an ecstasy of imagining Gross loved. The joy shows in her sculptures.

Antonina often praised her artistry and mused how Magdalena figured in the long saga of humans depicting animals in art, stretching back to the Paleolithic age, when by the light of firebrands, humans drew buffalo, horses, reindeer, antelopes, and mammoths on cave walls. They weren't exactly
drawn
; sometimes pigments were carefully blown onto the wall (the laser-perfect replica cave at Lascaux today was decorated using that technique). Animal fetishes carved from antler and stone joined the reliquary, either for worship or for use by hunters in sacred cave ceremonies. Bulging from the natural contours of limestone walls, the animals galloped through initiation rites, in flickering darkness where one could easily confuse heartbeats and hoofbeats.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, and between the wars in the heydey of Dadaism and Surrealism (neither of which was an
ism
as much as an idea about the role of art in life and life as art), animal sculpture flourished in Polish art, and continued during and after World War II. In Antonina's eyes, Magdalena joined the fluent tradition of magical animals adorning the art of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, the Far East, Mexico, Peru, India, and Poland.

Magdalena would first model in clay before fixing a design in bronze, and during this soft, forgiving stage, she often asked Jan to critique the anatomical details of her work, though he reported to Antonina that she rarely erred. Each sculpture took many months to finish, and Magdalena averaged only one bronze a year, because she studied every flake and fiber of her model, dickering with design, and it was hard to let the clay mannequin rest. Once, when someone asked her if she liked her finished handiwork, she said: "I'll answer your question in three years." She cast only two endangered animals—the European elk and bison—devoting two years to the latter, a special gift for Jan. Of course, the zoo animals wouldn't pose—they often took wing, toddled off, or hid from her—and wild animals reserve making eye contact for the rough occasions of eating, mating, or dueling. Vigorously minding them calmed her, which in turn calmed them, and in time they allowed her to stare for longer spells.

Famous as Gross was (her
Bison
and
Bee-Eater
took gold medals at the 1937 International Art Exhibition in Paris), Antonina reckoned her a surprisingly modest woman, endearingly optimistic, and simply besotted with animals and art. Antonina recalled how Gross charmed her models, their patrons, and guards: "Everyone welcomed the sight of this sunny little 'Mrs. Madzia,' with her dark smiling eyes, molding clay with delicacy and gusto."

When Jews had been ordered into the Ghetto, Gross refused, by no means an easier fate, because those who lived on the surface had to disguise themselves as Aryans and keep up the masquerade at all times, cultivating Polish street language and a plausible accent. Estimates vary, but the most reliable, from Adolf Berman (who aided them and kept good records), found 15,000 to 20,000 people still in hiding as late as 1944, and he assumed the number had been much higher. In
Secret City
, a study of the Jews who, at one time or another, lived on the Aryan side, Gunnar Paulsson puts the figure closer to 28,000. As he rightly says, with figures that high, we're really talking about an embedded city of fugitives, complete with its own criminal element (scores of blackmailers, extortionists, thieves, corrupt policemen, and greedy landlords), social workers, cultural life, publications, favorite cafes, and lingo. Jews in hiding were known as
cats
, their hiding places
melinas
(from the Polish for a "den of thieves"), and if a
melina
was discovered, one referred to it as
burnt
. "Consisting of 28,000 Jews, perhaps 70,000–90,000 people who were helping them, and 3,000–4,000
szmalcowniks
[blackmailers, from the Polish word for lard] and other harmful individuals," Paulsson writes, "[this] population numbered more than 100,000, probably exceeding the size of the Polish Underground in Warsaw, which fielded 70,000 fighters in 1944."

The smallest oversight could give a
cat
away—not knowing the price of a tram ticket, say, or appearing too aloof, not receiving enough letters or visitors, not taking part in the typical social life of a housing block, like this one described by Alicja Kaczyńska:

Tenants visited each other. . .sharing news about the political situation, often playing bridge. . .. When returning home in the evening. . .I would stop at the little altar in the gateway of our building. The whole of Warsaw had such altars in its gateways, and the whole of Warsaw sang: "Listen, Jesus, how your people plead/Listen, listen, and intercede." The tenants of our building gathered at these prayers. . ..

Paulsson tells of "Helena Szereszewska's daughter, Marysia, who considered herself completely assimilated and moved about freely," and who "once saw some lemons (almost unobtainable in wartime) on a market stall. Out of curiosity, she asked the price, and when the stall-keeper named the astronomical sum she exclaimed 'Jezu, Maria!' as a Polish Catholic would. The stall-keeper replied slyly: 'You've known them such a short time, missy, and you're already on a first-name basis!'"

Lodging with an old woman, Gross delivered tortes and pastries for several bakeries, which paid her just enough to survive, and she risked leaving the apartment to meet friends at a
cat
-friendly coffeehouse. Jews in hiding sometimes met at a cafe at 24 Miodowa Street, or at another on Sewerynów Street, where they could dine at "the Catholic Community Centre of St. Joseph, which had a well-patronized restaurant. The fact that it was in a quiet side street and the service by the nuns was so pleasant attracted many Jews to the place. . .. It was known to nearly all the Jews hidden in Warsaw, and offered an hour's respite from the cruel outside."

Whenever Gross left home, there was always the chance of being recognized and denounced, but in an atmosphere of daily street executions and house searches, Antonina worried when she heard a rumor that Nazis had begun combing through the apartment houses in Magdalena's neighborhood, at odd hours, raiding attics and basements to roust out hidden Jews.

A
NTONINA STOOD IN THE KITCHEN, KNEADING BREAD DOUGH
,
a daily ritual, when she heard Ryś's excited voice at the back door:

"Hurry up! Starling! Come here!"

Apparently, her son had another new animal friend, and she liked his choice of species. Starlings had always charmed her with their "long, dark beaks, springy hop, and cheerful cackles," and she enjoyed watching them pogo-hop on the ground and dig for worms, tail and head nimbly twitching. The feast of the starlings always foretold winter's end and "the earth softening up its belly for spring." Flocks of starlings form wonderful shapes as they circle the sky—troika reins, kidney beans, cone shells. Turning as one unit, for an eye blink they vanish, then suddenly reappear a moment later like a shake of black pepper. Bouncing and fluttering on the ground, they reminded Antonina of "feathery jesters," she noted in her memoirs, and it pleased her to think of Ryś catching and befriending one. Standing at the sink, hands in gummy dough, she called over her shoulder that she was too sticky to greet his new treasure, but would later. Right then the kitchen door sprang open and she suddenly understood the real meaning of Ryś's words. There stood Magdalena Gross, wearing an old summer coat and a pair of tattered shoes.

All the Guests and friends in hiding had secret animal names, and Magdalena's was "Starling," in part because of Antonina's fondness for the bird, but also because she pictured her "flying from nest to nest" to avoid capture, as one
melina
after another became
burnt
. Passersby wouldn't be surprised to hear animals mentioned at the zoo, and one gets a sense that it also just
felt right
to Jan and Antonina, that naming the usual animals helped them restore a little normalcy to their lives.

In the topsy-turvy alleyways of occupied Poland, the fame Magdalena had enjoyed before the war now endangered her. What if someone from her past spotted her and, from good or bad motives, told of her whereabouts? Rumor has long ears, and as an old Gypsy saying goes,
Fear has big eyes
. With Magdalena on board, the other Guests had to be doubly careful, and Magdalena dared not show her face, so familiar in some Polish circles. "Madzia's usually happy eyes became a little sad now," Antonina wrote in her diary. Antonina and Jan sometimes also called her "Madzia," an affectionate nickname from the softened form of Magda—as the hard formal
g
becomes a soft
j
sound, it yields to convey tender emotions. "She missed the freedom and exciting lifestyle she had before the war," which included a large circle of friends in the arts. In 1934, for example, Magdalena had helped Bruno Schulz, a Chagall-like painter and author of prose phantasmagoria, find a publisher for his first book,
Sklepy Cynamonowe
(translated as
Cinnamon Shops
), a collection of short stories about his eccentric family. She put Schulz's manuscript into the hands of another friend, novelist Zofia Nałkowska, who declared it innovative and brilliant, and guided it through publication.

Hiding indoors by day, Magdalena couldn't roam the zoo to find models, so she decided to sculpt Ryś.

"He's a lynx," she joked. "I should have good results with this sculpture!"

One day, as Antonina was kneading dough for bread, Magdalena said: "Now I can help
you
. I learned how to bake delicious croissants. I may not be able to sculpt in clay now, but I can still sculpt in flour!" With that she plunged a palm into a big bowl of dough, sending up a small white cloud.

"It's terrible that such a gifted artist has to work in the kitchen!" Antonina lamented.

"It's only a temporary situation," Magdalena assured her, gently elbowing her away from the bowl and kneading the dough with powerful hands.

"Some might say that a woman as little as I am couldn't be a good baker. Well! Sculptors develop enormous strength!"

Muscling into clay had given her powerful shoulders and hands annealed by her trade. In her circle, which included Rachel Auerbach and Yiddish poet Deborah Vogel, among others, what Bruno Schulz called the "unique mystical consistency" of matter really mattered, as did the hands that handled it. This was a topic their set often discussed in long, thoughtful, literary letters crafted partly as an art form. Few have survived, but, fortunately, Schulz recruited many of his own for short stories.

In Paris, before the war, Magdalena would surely have studied Rodin's vigorous sculptures of hands in the Rodin Museum, a small music box of a building surrounded by rosebushes and brawny sculptures. She was justly proud of the way strong, agile hands cradle newborns, build cities, plant vegetables, caress loved ones, teach our eyes the shape of things—how round swells, how sand grits—bridge lonely hearts, connect us to the world, map the difference between self and other, fasten onto beauty, pledge loyalty, cajole food from grain, and so much more.

Magdalena seasoned the villa with "loads of sunshine, energy, and a great spirit," Antonina wrote, "which she never lost, even during terrible crises, and she faced horrendous ones in her life. No one ever saw her being depressed." Antonina sometimes wondered how on earth they'd lived without her until then, because she'd become such a robust part of their clan, sharing their lives, everyday concerns, hardships, and insecurities, helping with house chores, and whenever they had too many Guests, giving up her bed and sleeping atop a large trunk for flour, or on two armchairs pushed together. "Like her nickname, Starling, she whistled at hardship, when many in her situation would have succumbed to despair," Antonina recalled in her memoirs. Whenever the household expected a visit from a stranger, Magdalena would hide, and if the visitor seemed dangerous or, worse yet, wanted to go upstairs for some reason, Antonina would alert her with the usual alarm of piano notes or, when that wasn't convenient, a sudden outburst of song. She regarded Magdalena as "a bit of a rascal" and a rousing chorus of Offenbach's "Go, go, go to Crete!" the perfect getaway tune for someone that prankish and high-spirited.

Whenever Magdalena heard that music, she dashed to a hiding place, which, depending on her mood, might be the attic, a bathroom, or one of the deep walk-in closets. As she confided to Antonina, she usually did so laughing quietly about the absurdity of the situation.

"I wonder," she sometimes joked, "how I'll feel about this music when the war is over! What if it happens to be playing on the radio? Will I dash for cover? Will I even be able to
stand
this song of Menelaus going to Crete?"

Once its sprightly melody had been a favorite of hers, but war plays havoc with sensory memories as the sheer intensity of each moment, the roiling adrenaline and fast pulse, drive memories in deeper, embed every small detail, and make events unforgettable. While that can strengthen friendship or love, it can also taint sensory treasures like music. By associating any tune with danger, one never again hears it without adrenaline pounding as memory hits consciousness followed by a jolt of fear. She was right to wonder. As she said, "It's a terrific way to ruin great music."