One Soldier's Story, (continued)
Every other day in summer, and once a week when the weather grows cold, Natalya Dmitrievna goes to the cemetery to visit the grave of her son. After riding the bus three stops from her neighborhood, she makes the long walk across a grassy slope toward the cemetery. Zhenya's grave lies along a dirt path through the gravestones, and is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence decorated with lyres, a symbol of the music Zhenya loved so much.
His mother wipes the granite gravestone carefully, and straightens whatever flowers haven't been taken by the homeless women who pilfer them for sale at the market. On the gravestone is an image of Zhenya's face, and below that, his guitar and two roses.
"How could I have known, when we went to the train station a year ago..." she begins, shaking her head sadly. Then she wipes one last smudge from the gravestone and begins the long walk back.
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