Hugó was tired but radiating with happiness. Although there was a shower in their room he had washed himself in a barrel along with the other men. He felt a kinship with them now. He opened a can of beer. Andrea watched her husband from the bed.

‘Are you happy?’ she asked, for that was the only thing that mattered now.

Hugó smiled.

‘I have never been happier.’

At dawn Nóra sneaked into Emese’s room and slipped into bed next to her. Emese smelled the odor of tobacco on her breath.

‘What is it?’ she asked drowsily.

‘Feri is waiting outside,’ Nóra said. ‘He can do you in the shed. It would mean a lot to him, and it doesn’t really matter to you, does it? You’re a city girl.’

Emese buried her face in the pillow in annoyance.

‘Leave me alone!’ she whimpered. ‘I’m not sleeping with your idiot brother!’

Nóra shrugged.

‘As you wish.’

The essence is traditionally handled by the women in the family; only blood relatives can touch it, usually the mother or the grandmother. The larvae live for twenty-four to thirty-six hours without the essence. The final phase of the harvest must be completed before that.

‘Seven mirrors broke last night,’ Gergő said. ‘That means seven essences for seven larvae.’

Hugó took a bite from the sausage prepared for breakfast. Many of the men were still sleeping on couches and in sleeping bags. The women were up to prepare the day’s work.

‘What happens when there are more larvae than children?’ Andrea asked.

Gergő smiled. ‘It doesn’t happen often. If it does, it goes to waste unless we get another child quickly somehow.’

The upstairs room was only used at harvest time. Otherwise it was kept locked. Andrea helped to carry the necessary things upstairs. The fresh snail oil had already cooled down.

‘We have to hurry,’ Erzsébet said. ‘It solidifies quickly and then it’s no good anymore.’

They fished out seven Tupperware containers from the kitchen cupboards. They filled them with water, threw a magnesium capsule into each, as well as a handful of gravel and two spoonfuls each of salt and sugar. They then spit into all of them. Andrea mixed up the contents of the containers, then took them upstairs. In the upstairs room stood an old bed; generations had stained it with their bodies. On the bed lay handcuffs, attached to chains secured to the floor. The chains and handcuffs were new. Andrea almost dropped the plastic tubs she was carrying at the sight of the bed and the chains.

‘It’s for the children’s sake,’ Erzsébet said.

The price that Hugó had paid included room and board, plus participation in the harvest. Working with the essence was the only thing that Hugó was forbidden to take part in. Men were not allowed to be present upstairs, not even the fathers. Entry to the room was strictly limited to Erzsébet, Mama, the given child, and its mother.