The Snow Hare


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
 Copyright © 2023 by Paula Lichtarowicz
 Cover design by Lucy Kim
 Cover photographs: background © Jamie Heiden / Trevillion Images, mother and child © Shutterstock
 Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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 First e-book Edition: January 2023
 Originally published in the United Kingdom by John Murray, January 2023
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 LCCN 2022943460
 ISBN 978-0-316-46153-5
 E3-20230104-JV-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 Tatra Mountains, Southern Poland
 Tatra Mountains, Southern Poland
 Tatra Mountains, Southern Poland
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 England
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 England
 Siberia
 Uzbekistan
 Acknowledgements
 Discover More
 About the Author
 Also by Paula Lichtarowicz
 Note On Source for "The Snow Hare"
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 Also by Paula Lichtarowicz
 The First Book of Calamity Leek
 Creative Truths in Provincial Policing
 
 
 
 
 In memory of my grandparents, Krystyna and Piotr Lichtarowicz, and their daughter, Marta
 
 
 
 
 Lena sees the girl far off on the steppe, running towards the horizon where a red sun is sinking. Her elbows jab the air as if to break it. Dust flies up from her heels as she runs.
 Lena can’t take her eyes from this girl. She’s tiny, the child, she shouldn’t be out there alone.
 ‘Wait!’ Lena shouts to her. ‘Please wait, I’ve something to say to you.’
 But the girl keeps on, running towards the departing sun.
 
 
 
 
 England
 A figure is moving in the shadows of Lena’s bedroom.
 There’s a rustling sound, a ripping of plastic. A woman is speaking, the voice telling her something is here now to ease the pain, to help her sleep.
 Her right arm is turned, her inner elbow padded with soft fingertips. ‘Just a sharp scratch, Magdalena, then a good rest.’
 A door closes softly. Lena opens her eyes and sees the familiar pale walls of her bedroom, the pine wardrobe standing where it’s been since the day she and her husband and JoJo moved in. She sees the stretch of her legs beneath the bedcovers, a tented hillock of toes.
 What is it she has to say to the girl?
 Lena turns her face towards the window where rain is smacking the glass. The sky outside has that sullen air, the sort of weather that knows itself unloved. Which is perhaps why a wind is bullying the cherry tree in the centre of the lawn, howling and hurling branches onto the grass. Never mind, that tree was always a puny, ridiculous thing. Her husband’s idea. She scans the back fence, the yew, the patch of concrete they learned in time to call a patio. The blackbird won’t be out, not 
 
 Przemysl, South East Poland
 ‘But you need wind.’
 Who’s saying this? The girl?
 No, it’s Ala. Ala is speaking to her. Her sister is saying, ‘Ulka told me. But it can’t be any old June breeze. It’s got to be a south-westerly, and a strong one, otherwise they’ll end up elsewhere. And they have to come here, they simply have to.’
 Where is Ala saying all this?
 The geranium pots.
 Really?
 Yes, Ala is teetering between Papa’s rows of red and pink geraniums in a slit of sunlight at the sitting-room window. She’s sucking on her plait ends and pressing her nose against the glass to stare down the deserted lane.
 And she, Lena, where’s she?
 There’s a godawful smell – a reek of hot fat and bone – she must be at the hearth, boiling up a rabbit’s head in a pot over the coals in the interests of science.
 ‘Who won’t come here?’ she says, taking her tongs to prod an ear back under the churning water.
 ‘The gypsies, stupid. Ulka says they only travel on south-westerlies. And if they don’t come I’ll never get them.’
 ‘Get what?’
 ‘Are you a complete and utter idiot, twig? My life’s fortunes.’
 It’s entirely unintended, the hoot that comes out of