The order came in early in the morning. Andre was picked up from the bus stop and driven to the gate of the Cemetery. The driver of the car and the man in the passenger seat were sullen and unspoken. They had nothing to say to the grave digger. And also Andre was not really asking for conversation.
He understood that a funeral was not the best time to have a heart to heart talk. They dropped him off, showed him where to dig, and quickly left. The man was still half asleep. Setting himself to work, he spun around the grave, examining it. It was an old grave. A photocarved on the marble stone showed a young man in a Soviet military uniform. Andre counted that at the time of his death he was only 29 years old, very young. He had not even had time to live. He was buried here 15 years ago.
It is visible that the grave was looked after. The monument was renewed. His wife must have remained faithful to him after his death because her grave is also located here, close to him. The husband has been waiting for his wife for 50 years and she came to him too.
Andre felt uncomfortable somehow. He felt pity for the woman. It remains to hope that her life was good, that she has children, but she would hardly remarry. Otherwise she would be buried somewhere else. Andre took out a thermos and poured himself some hot tea. He almost burned himself coughing. The tea was strong. His wife hadn’t spared the infusion. The flavor was unusual.
She must have added some herbs to it again. She knew that at this early hour her husband would still be sleepy. Most likely she added something to his tea to refresh him. After drinking it, Andre immediately woke up and actively started his work. The ground was hard to move. It was dry as it had not rained for a long time. But it is good that he has arrived earlier in the morning.
At least he will not suffer from heat. He had to finish the work before the heat. He dug and dug without taking a break. After a while he decided to have a rest. He stood up straight and then his foot fell in and got stuck. He tried to pull his foot out but nothing worked. He had to help himself a little with a shovel to get his foot out.
The grave digger realized that he had accidentally hit the old coffin. It seemed that when they were changing the monument, they had miscalculated a little bit about the location. Andre’s work came to a halt as he had to get his foot out somehow.
Unfortunately, the foot fell right into the old coffin and got stuck in the rotten planks. He had to help himself with a shovel, but he couldn’t stand on his feet and fell right on top of the coffin, breaking the rest of the planks. He cursed himself and thought that it was a good thing that no one was around to see this. Shame, Andre started to get out of the coffin. For 50 years, nothing remained of the body, just bones and a small photo that had miraculously survived.
The grave digger mechanically shoved the old photo into his pocket and started to bury the old coffin. He had to work hard to hide his unexpected find. When he had finished, Andres sat down on a bench near a neighboring grave and took out a thermos of his tea again. He would take a break and then go home. He was drinking tea and looking at the results of his work.
Then he recalled the photo. He took it out of his pocket and started to look at it. Suddenly he choked on his tea, barely coughed it up. He put the thermos away and moved the photo closer. Then he slowly looked around the Cemetery. He stood up, walked around the grave he had been digging, stopped in one place and stretched out his hand with the photo in front of him, then froze in horror. Andre realized that the photo was taken from this exact spot. But how could it be?
The man looked around carefully. Well, it couldn’t be the same as it is now 50 years ago. Even taking the houses in the distance. They were built only 15 years ago. Looks like someone slipped the picture to the dead man much later. But why did he do it? For what purpose? Did he really know that the grave would be dug up? Andre looked at the digged grave and remembered how hard the ground was when he dug.
Hardly anyone had dug before just to put a photo in the coffin. Andre sat down on the bench again and he began to examine the people in the photo closely and came to an even greater horror when he realized that it was a photo.
No, pronounced Andre. He couldn’t believe it. He took a thermos and sipped his tea. Then he thought maybe his wife had put something in his drink and he was hallucinating. But it all seemed to be true, which could only be a nightmare. The photo, which had been in the coffin for 50 years, showed not only this place, but him.
On the Photo, Andrea was standing amongst other people. The man twisted the photo in his hands. It was a black and white photo, apparently of good quality, as it had not suffered much in so many years. 100% sure that the photo was lying in the coffin and not somewhere nearby. The grave digger was holding the photo of tomorrow’s funeral. He was quite sure of that. On the back of the card was the date, and it was tomorrow’s date.
There were many people in the photo and they were saying goodbye to the deceased in the coffin. And here he himself, Andre, standing at the side of some man and this man was circled. He couldn’t figure out what that would mean. The man swiped the sweat from his forehead. But there had to be a logical explanation for all this.
He had to think about it clearly. Andre took the shovel and hurried home. On his way, he met another man who asked him to help him with the grave. Andre did not want to turn down an extra Penny and rush to help the man. In the end, he forgot all about the photo. Only the next day when he came to bury the deceased, he remembered while he was waiting for the funeral procession to finish, he put his hand into his pocket and found a photo.
The man broke into a cold sweat. He pulled out the card again and looked at it carefully. If he recognized the people around him now, he would be even more horrified. A procession arrived. Expensive cars, respectable people, no doubt officials. The deceased appeared to be wealthy. The grave digger looked at the photo and at the people following the coffin, and he became more and more horrified.
But he pulled himself together and decided that something was wrong. There was a reason why one man was circled. He must find out who he was and what he had to do with the dead woman. Andre watched carefully. What was happening.
Here is a coffin being placed on stools in the photo. This coffin is standing like that here. People are approaching and saying goodbye to the body. Apparently the woman who had died was very much loved. After saying goodbye, people stepped aside and stood on the exact spot where they had been photographed.
The grave digger felt like a guest from the future, some kind of bystander, and now the past was gradually winding down, giving way to the present. Andre looked around and suddenly saw the same man who was circled in the photo. He was standing to the sidelines. The grave digger went towards him without hesitation. Everything should be clear now. This was the man who should know the answers to all the questions.
When Audrey approached him, the man moved aside to make conversation. The grave digger asked if the deceased was a good woman and if the man had known her for a long time. The stranger nodded and Andre asked who the deceased was to him. The man started to say something unclear, saying that she was his relative. Andre was alarmed by the behavior of the man. He stood aside and his eyes flicked suspiciously, as if he had been caught in something bad.
But it was impossible to charge the stranger with anything and he did not have to answer any questions. Suddenly Andre noticed a woman not far from them with a camera in her hands. There was a click of the shutter. The man wanted to rush to her, not because it was forbidden to take pictures in the Cemetery, but because the woman appeared out of nowhere.
He watched the funeral procession closely and could tell with certainty that this woman was definitely not of this company. Something strange was going on around him and he wanted to find out what it was. The man took a step towards the woman. Suddenly he noticed that the stranger was holding a strange object. The grave digger sensed the danger. He did not hesitate, turned towards the man, and knocked the strange object out of his hands.
For a moment he thought he was acting too impulsively that he had overreacted. But then he realized that he had done so for a reason. The stranger pushed Andre away and bent down to get the object. The grave digger kicked it as far away as he could with his foot. Then he grabbed the stranger by the scruff of his neck and pulled him towards him.
The latter started punching Andre with his fists. A fight broke out between the two men. After a while, other men ran towards them and separated the fighting. The unknown man tried to get away and run away. Andre tried to explain that the man was acting suspiciously. He pointed to the very object that the stranger was holding. Earlier, one of the men took it and twirled it in his hands, examining it. The object looked like a small remote control. Then a guy came out of the crowd, studied the remote control, and whispered something in the man’s ear.
They fussed, asked the people to move away, and called somewhere. Soon the police and a special unit arrived and found an explosive device in the coffin. It turned out that the stranger was holding a remote control device that was supposed to detonate it, and Andre prevented it from doing so. If the stranger had succeeded in carrying out his plan, the people who were present at the funeral would probably not have survived. The power of the explosive was strong. Only a miracle saved all those people. The stranger was taken away by the police. The funeral was over.
The people left and Andre started his work. The son of the deceased, a man in his 50s, came up to him. He thanked him for his help and asked how the grave digger sensed danger, and Andre showed him the photo he had found in the coffin. The man was also confused. He invited Andre to his house. Later, when the Memorial meal was over, only the relatives of the deceased and Andre stayed at the house.
He explained everything that had happened to him, how he had found the photo. He mentioned a woman with a camera who appeared out of nowhere at the Cemetery. Relatives of the deceased took out a family photo album and together they started looking through old photos. Andre looked closely at the photo of the Deceased Woman. It Seemed Familiar To Him. Suddenly, Andre Understood.
He Exclaimed In An Impulse That It Was Her. The Woman With A Camera Was The Deceased Only In Her Youth. The Relatives Looked At Each Other. Someone guessed To Show An Old Photo From 50 Years Ago When The Woman’s Husband Was Buried. Indeed, The Black And White Photo Showed Her. Only young. Andre could see that The Similarity Between Her And The Woman With The Camera Was Obvious.
He Even Noticed That Her Hairstyle Was The Same as that Of The Unexpected Guest At The Cemetery. They Also Compared The Two Photographs And Came To The Conclusion That They Were Taken At The Same Time. The Paper And Printing Style Was Identical. But How This Could Have Happened Is A Mystery. The Family Later explained What The Assassination Attempt Was About.
The Son Of The Deceased Was An Official, But An Honest And Fair One. He Did Not Take Bribes, did Not Run Illegal Businesses. The Assassination Attempt Was Arranged By Those Who Did Not Like Him. If It Wasn’t For Andre, Many People Would Have Died, Including The Son Of The Deceased. A Mother’s Love Is Infinite. A Woman Loved Her Husband So Much That After His Death, She Remained Faithful Only To Him.
She Brought Up Her Oneyearold Son On Her Own. His Life Turned Out Well. Thanks To His Mother’s Prayers. He Became A Respected And Wealthy Man. But Honesty And Fairness Were The Main Features Of His Character. His Mother Always Prayed For Her Son And Had Faith In Him. Her Faith Helped In Solving Many Problems In Her Son’s Life. When Andrea Was About To Go Home, The Man Handed Him An Envelope.
He Looked Into It And Stunned there Was A Lot Of Money In It. Andre Started To Refuse, but The Man Said That He Was Used To Paying His Bills At Once And That Everyone In His Life Will Be Rewarded Or Punished. Some Will Pay With Money, Some With Their Time. When he Came Home, He Counted The Money. He Was Astonished Because That Was The Amount Of Money Announced To Him Yesterday By His Wife For A Trip To The Seaside.