Translated from the Hungarian by Joe Bates

To begin with I’ll describe the past. The past was tough, we couldn’t work back then, there was no kind of salary. Women mainly had casual jobs. We struggled to look after our children because of the lack of work. We lived off little, but even then, my family was happy. But now that there are jobs, we can send our children to school, thank God. Now gypsies have their trades too. The only reason Hungarians don’t employ them is because they see them behaving like gypsies, and most of the time Hungarians aren’t accepting of gypsies.
I used to go apple picking. Four Hungarian ladies, and three gypsy ladies. There was this young lady among them. At the start she was very unpleasant, you could tell that she didn’t like working with gypsies. But within three or four days we had become friends, she was my partner, and we picked apples together. She had become so friendly that every day she would ask me not to stay home because she’d miss me. Every day she brought me a chocolate. We always put a little apple into her bag for us to take home. But my bag was small. The next day she brought me a bag. Once she complimented my top. That evening, I washed it, and out of love and friendship the next morning I gave it to her. It was good working with her, I miss her a lot.