When the car arrived, he stood at the gate for a long time, as if he didn’t dare to go in. Everything inside him tightened. He had never been here — he had been arrested while her funeral was taking place. He hadn’t even seen where exactly she was buried. He had spent almost five years in prison.

The cemetery was enormous. Rows of tombstones stretched endlessly. He wandered among them for nearly half an hour, scanning each name. The name he needed was nowhere to be found. Only strangers’ surnames, strangers’ dates, strangers’ stories.