‘Hugó works at MOL,’ she recounted as she plucked fat snails out of their shells. ‘He’s in the economics department, but he’s very intrigued by the world of agriculture. That’s why we were so happy to learn that you host visitors during the harvest. We’re also saving up for a property in the country for our old age. That’s his big dream anyway.’

She sighed deeply, as if she could already smell the bleach-scented happiness of those elderly years, when all their troubles would be behind them. Hugó’s constant speeches about the countryside were too abstract to attach emotions to, but this imagined calm she had associated with Hugó’s obsession was something she could grasp.

‘Watch out, don’t let the shell fall into the mash,’ Erzsébet said, while rapidly crushing the snails’ shells with professional movements, one after the other, like a machine. She wore plastic flip-flops, jersey pants, and a faded Pepsi T-shirt.

‘Jesus,’ Andrea said with disgust. The snail in her hand was still alive. Its slimy internal organs trickled down her fingers, but it was still moving and writhing, clinging to its crushed life to an unnatural extent. Andrea found the experience disturbing, yet somehow exciting.

‘That’s perfect,’ Erzsébet said. ‘Put it in the smaller bowl. These are the ones we’re looking for. They’re bait.’

Andrea nodded and threw the agonizing animal into the plastic yellow bowl. For one terrible moment she thought the dying body had attached itself to her fingers and would never let go. She shook her hand and the animal dutifully dropped into the bowl to go on dying with its peers.

‘What if it dies before the harvest?’ Andrea asked, but Erzsébet just shook her head.

‘They never die,’ she said. Andrea shivered and changed the subject quickly.

‘How is life in the countryside?’ she asked. ‘Living in harmony with nature?’

Erzsébet shrugged. ‘We have lived this way our entire life. We live well. Nowadays there’s a high demand for our organic products. Gergő never stops complaining, but that’s just how he is. If we work hard we harvest well, and that’s all that matters. We usually harvest six to eight of them a season, good quality too, and that’s enough to live on after the sale. We get nice tax breaks, local and EU too, for keeping up the traditions.’

The soft bodies began heating up under Andrea’s hands, as if they were tiny bombs about to explode. Erzsébet went on. ‘Last year we added the guesthouse. Now we have to wake earlier to provide for guests, clean up after them, guide them through the harvest. That’s additional work, you see. When there are no tourists around, we’re still here. We have to nurture the snails and the earth all year. That’s the soul of it, the earth. It has to be well fed.’