By some miracle the cross on my father's grave remained intact even though the grave itself was invisible. All around was a desert – no handsome oaks, no garden, no house. A ravine instead of the vineyard. Nothing resembled Tsepilovo, my dear Tsepilovo! A desert...
You close your eyes and the memory brings everything that used to be, you open them and anguish oppresses the soul... After collecting a handful of earth for the amulet into a handkerchief and taking a bunch of sweet thyme I kissed the cross and walked away without looking back. I never thought the native land might be so strange! Something like a photograph with two pictures on the same negative pursued me long after that. Silhouettes of mighty oaks, rows of fruit trees and currant bushes appeared through the imprint of the desert with pits left from the uprooted trees.