her way to a stone building at No. 1 Miodowa Street and climbed the stairs to a small office crammed with agitated people and cascading piles of documents, one of the Resistance's secret lairs, where she met an old friend, Adam Englert.
"Any news?"
"Apparently, our army is out of ammunition and supplies, and discussing official surrender," he said bleakly.
In her memoirs, she wrote that she heard him speak, but his words floated away from her; it was as if her brain, already choked by the day's horrors, had issued a non serviam and refused to absorb any more.
Sitting down heavily on a couch, she felt glued in place. Until this moment, she hadn't let herself believe that her country might really lose its independence. Again. If occupation wasn't new, neither was ousting the enemy, but it had been twenty-one years since the last war with Germany, most of Antonina's life, and the prospect stunned her. For ten years, the zoo had seemed a principality all its own, protected by the moat of the Vistula, with daily life a jigsaw-puzzle fit for her avid sensibility.
Back at the lampshade store, she told everyone the sorry news she'd heard from Englert, which didn't agree with Polish Mayor Starzyński's upbeat radio broadcasts, in which he denounced the Nazis, offered hope, and rallied everyone to defend the capital at all costs.
"While speaking to you now," he had said on one occasion, "I can see it through the window in its greatness and glory, shrouded in smoke, red in flames: glorious, invincible, fighting Warsaw!"
Puzzled, they wondered whom to believe: the mayor in a public speech or members of the Resistance. Surely the latter. In another broadcast, Starzyński had used the past tense at one point: "I wanted Warsaw to be a great city. I believed that it would be great. My associates and I drew up plans and made sketches of a great Warsaw of the future." In light of Starzyński's tense (was it a slip?), Antonina's news rang truer and everyone's mood fell, as the owners edged among the tables, switching on small lamps.
Several days later, after Warsaw's surrender, Antonina sat at a table with the others, hungry but too depressed to eat the little food in front of her, when she heard a crisp knock at the door. No one visited anymore, no one bought lamps or fixed broken lampshades. Anxiously, the owners opened the door a crack, and to her astonishment there stood Jan, looking exhausted and relieved. Hugs and kisses followed, then he sat down at the table and told them his story.
When Jan and his friends had left Warsaw weeks before, on the evening of September 7, they followed the river and walked toward Brześć on Bug, as part of a phantom army, looking for a unit to join. Not finding one, they finally split up, and on September 25, Jan overnighted in Mienie, at a farm whose owners he knew from summers at the Rejentówka cottage. The following morning, the housekeeper woke him to ask if he'd translate for her with a German officer who had arrived during the night. Any encounter with a Nazi was dangerous, and as Jan dressed he tried to prepare himself for trouble and rehearse possible scenarios. Taking the stairs with the feigned confidence of a legitimate houseguest, he kept his eye on the Wehrmacht officer standing in the living room, discussing provisions with the owners. As the Nazi turned to face him, disbelief washed over Jan, and he wondered if he were seeing something churned up by his jumpy heart. But in the same instant the officer's face flashed surprise and he smiled. There stood Dr. Müller, a fellow member of the International Association of Zoo Directors, who directed the zoo at Królewiec (in eastern Prussia, and known as Königsberg before the war).
Laughing, Müller said: "I know only one Pole well, you , my friend, and I meet you here! How did this happen?" A supply officer, Müller had come to the farm seeking food for his troops. When he told Jan of Warsaw's catastrophe and the zoo's, Jan wanted to
"Any news?"
"Apparently, our army is out of ammunition and supplies, and discussing official surrender," he said bleakly.
In her memoirs, she wrote that she heard him speak, but his words floated away from her; it was as if her brain, already choked by the day's horrors, had issued a non serviam and refused to absorb any more.
Sitting down heavily on a couch, she felt glued in place. Until this moment, she hadn't let herself believe that her country might really lose its independence. Again. If occupation wasn't new, neither was ousting the enemy, but it had been twenty-one years since the last war with Germany, most of Antonina's life, and the prospect stunned her. For ten years, the zoo had seemed a principality all its own, protected by the moat of the Vistula, with daily life a jigsaw-puzzle fit for her avid sensibility.
Back at the lampshade store, she told everyone the sorry news she'd heard from Englert, which didn't agree with Polish Mayor Starzyński's upbeat radio broadcasts, in which he denounced the Nazis, offered hope, and rallied everyone to defend the capital at all costs.
"While speaking to you now," he had said on one occasion, "I can see it through the window in its greatness and glory, shrouded in smoke, red in flames: glorious, invincible, fighting Warsaw!"
Puzzled, they wondered whom to believe: the mayor in a public speech or members of the Resistance. Surely the latter. In another broadcast, Starzyński had used the past tense at one point: "I wanted Warsaw to be a great city. I believed that it would be great. My associates and I drew up plans and made sketches of a great Warsaw of the future." In light of Starzyński's tense (was it a slip?), Antonina's news rang truer and everyone's mood fell, as the owners edged among the tables, switching on small lamps.
Several days later, after Warsaw's surrender, Antonina sat at a table with the others, hungry but too depressed to eat the little food in front of her, when she heard a crisp knock at the door. No one visited anymore, no one bought lamps or fixed broken lampshades. Anxiously, the owners opened the door a crack, and to her astonishment there stood Jan, looking exhausted and relieved. Hugs and kisses followed, then he sat down at the table and told them his story.
When Jan and his friends had left Warsaw weeks before, on the evening of September 7, they followed the river and walked toward Brześć on Bug, as part of a phantom army, looking for a unit to join. Not finding one, they finally split up, and on September 25, Jan overnighted in Mienie, at a farm whose owners he knew from summers at the Rejentówka cottage. The following morning, the housekeeper woke him to ask if he'd translate for her with a German officer who had arrived during the night. Any encounter with a Nazi was dangerous, and as Jan dressed he tried to prepare himself for trouble and rehearse possible scenarios. Taking the stairs with the feigned confidence of a legitimate houseguest, he kept his eye on the Wehrmacht officer standing in the living room, discussing provisions with the owners. As the Nazi turned to face him, disbelief washed over Jan, and he wondered if he were seeing something churned up by his jumpy heart. But in the same instant the officer's face flashed surprise and he smiled. There stood Dr. Müller, a fellow member of the International Association of Zoo Directors, who directed the zoo at Królewiec (in eastern Prussia, and known as Königsberg before the war).
Laughing, Müller said: "I know only one Pole well, you , my friend, and I meet you here! How did this happen?" A supply officer, Müller had come to the farm seeking food for his troops. When he told Jan of Warsaw's catastrophe and the zoo's, Jan wanted to
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