“Çary Aga, thank you very much for what you have said. These are matters of fate,” I said and I stared out of the window of the train. Through the window it looked as if grey sand was flowing past. The train passed Türkmenabat and went on towards the Repetek Desert. It was as if my dear father, straight and brave, was visible in front of my eyes in his last appearance to me. Moreover, his pure thoughts: “No, I do not die. I have three young sons and their beloved mother, my Gurbansoltan, living in my homeland and they are my descendants.” His words were in my ears.

I am pleased with the fact that neither my grandfather nor father left any inheritance to me. In fact they left me instead something as valuable as a great inheritance. Everybody who knew my father and grandfather praised them: “Your father was a very great man.” Like this, they extolled and glorified them and these expressions filled my heart with joy. What greater wealth can there be than that?

 Many years later on, I wondered what had happened to the men who had shared the cigarette. They had been freed in an exchange of prisoners and the three of them had returned to their villages. But, they encountered many troubles in their fate. Two of them were from the villages in the area around Aşgabat. In the 1950’s, the first one had a stroke, lost his mind and tongue and died. The second one committed suicide by hanging himself at home. The third was from the village of Gökdepe. After the war he had committed suicide by throwing himself on the railway.