Excerpts in English

We all came from tiny towns and didn't really know what we were looking for at this school. The diploma guaranteed long working hours at the factory, equipped with noise-muffling earphones: without them, after the long day in the monotonous cacophony of needles scratching the multitudinous patterns, we wouldn’t be able to tell music apart from tyre screeching on the streets.

“I’m standing under the big oak tree, right here in the yard by the house, and stirring cranberry mousse with a big wooden spoon. Ieva says that’s her first childhood memory. Well, I’ll be! I don’t remember that day. Still, the idea of it is hardly a surprise – I always made cranberry mousse for dessert. Not every day, of course – just on holidays and days off. It’s strange that she remembers it, though.”

I was in third grade when I got up and solemnly announced that I didn’t have a father. I trembled on the inside when thirty pairs of surprised eyes looked at me. There was something between sympathy and doubt on the teacher’s face. “We need to know for school statistics,” she explained.