The Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz

Author:Paula Lichtarowicz [LICHTAROWICZ, PAULA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Przemysl, South East Poland

One two three four. Romek has decided to teach Agata to count even though she’s only a year old and yet to say a meaningful word. He’s leaning her out of the upstairs window, pointing down the lane. The quiet farm road is alive with boots and red flags. One two three four. One two three four. The family crowd at the window watching an army march past heading for town.

‘Look at all those empty stomachs,’ Ulka says, shaking her head. She hands Lena a basket and they go racing through the fields.

But everywhere they try in the merchants’ quarter, shutters are drawn, the interiors dark. A light is on inside the bakery. Lena runs to bang on the door.

‘Who’s there?’ Mrs Manowska’s eye is white at the crack.

‘We have leeks to trade. It’s Lena Bem.’

Mrs Manowska takes a moment for thinking, and the chain is loosened. ‘Be quick, I think I hear them.’

One two three four. One two three four turning in at the top of the street.

Adam’s dangling his legs in the pan of the sack scales. ‘Go fuck yourselves!’

Mrs Manowska’s hands fly to her hair. She ducks behind the counter and brings out two wheat loaves. ‘These people, what will they do with my boy?’

Lena touches her shoulder. She hands over the leeks.

One two three four. A hammering at the door.

A voice, heavily accented. ‘Open this up for the procurement division of the People’s Army.’

Adam clamps his hands over his ears and begins to hoot. The women grab him under the arms and drag him into the storeroom. Mrs Manowska pulls open the hatch that leads out to the street. ‘Take the back alleys. Stay safe.’

Lena hurries home through the old town’s crooked passageways. There’s not so much as a rat to be seen in the gutters. Whatever lives in the town has retreated into the spaces behind its walls. Nothing moves in the streets but a tide of marching.

When she gets back she finds Romek and Agata relocated to the gate to get a closer look at the horses and vehicles now moving down the lane. So many men have passed that the ground is rutted, the verge worn to mud. Romek is making a tally in a notebook, holding Agata on the fence, open-mouthed at the passing circus. The animals are fleabitten, their heads too large for their scrawny necks. Many lack saddles and bits in their bridles. The men on their backs are filthy and too young really to be called men. Ulka is coming and going from the house with buckets of water for those permitted to pause to drink.

The soldiers hear her accent. They thank her and call her sister.

‘What manner of conquering is this?’ she says; she is shaking her head.

A man with more uniform than most takes several cups from the bucket. He splashes his neck and tells her the town is not conquered. It has been liberated by the People’s Army.

Ulka laughs in his face. ‘Which people?’ She pulls the cup from his hand and turns up the path to fetch more water.

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