The rain-soaked, pregnant field welcomes them into her ample lap. Maria too once was like a rain-soaked, pregnant field with an ample lap. Even then, while shelling beans in the sleepy autumn sun, she had a premonition that her son would be taken from her. She saw how he was born – quickly, easily, almost without any pain, afterward she saw her son in the yard making nests for birds from freshly mown hay, and then, she already was washing her little boy’s muddied tiny feet, getting him dressed up, dressing herself, and heading for the bus to go to the city. She needed to buy their groceries. In the city bus station a man accosted them. He grabbed Maria’s hand, and told her she was beautiful, and that her little boy was beautiful. They must be happy for sure. But that would not last. She should buy this book for just one lats, it would teach them where real never-ending happiness lay. Maria tried to shake off the man’s hand. Darkness crossed the man’s face and, on leaving, he said:

“Your son will be taken from you …”

Somewhere far, far away it is still thundering. The dogs now and then run circles in the rained out field. Maybe they are looking for the old dog. Maria too stops now and then, and calls out to her fellow travellers:

“Go and find. Find, find, find …”

Go find. Find, find, find. On that evening, when she returned from the city with her son, she could not fall asleep. Nightmares beset her. She was buying sea needles from a fisherman in the market. Her son had told her not to buy this fish, because in place of mouths they have beaks like savage birds. The fisherman laughed and advised the lovely lady not to listen to the boy’s foolish tales. When she, with the sea needles in one hand and her son’s hand in the other, wanted to cross the market square, she noticed that it was fenced in. On the periphery of the square people were bustling with film cameras, microphones and projectors. Others were standing in groups waiting for something.

She had decided to go around the fenced area, when the same man who offered her the book of happiness for a lats ran breathlessly up to her. He was dressed differently, looked exhausted but cheerful. He said to Maria that he was shooting a film here and having seen her, it occurred to him that for one episode he needed Maria with the sea needles in one hand and her son in the other, just as she then stood. He would pay her and her son.