The Barn

The site was cordoned off; yellow tape and child policemen surrounded it protectively. Yana drew her shawl around her shoulders and walked up to one of the policemen, bold by desperation. "Please, sir, can't I see?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, we can't let anyone in." The boy had a very neutral face, beardless. Probably he couldn't even grow a beard. He couldn't have been twenty. He was very pale.

"But I think my fiance... he might be in there." The terrorist had been led away; he hadn't put up a fight. Everyone inside the barn was dead. Misha had been in the barn an hour ago, she knew, volunteering to enlist. She thought perhaps he had escaped. Hoped so blindly.

"I'm very sorry," said the boy, who looked like Yana's nephew Isak, really. "I wish I could help."

"When... when will they take out the bodies?"

The boy shook his head. "I don't know. Would you like to give me your telephone number, and I can let you know?"

Yana gave the boy her address instead. She didn't want to leave, though. An older policeman came and brought the young ones coffee and doughnuts. Her policeman offered her a quarter doughnut, which she accepted. She sat on a doorstep, adjusted her skirt and watched the policemen. They made her angry, the way they avoided the inside of the barn. Someone must have checked to see if all the people inside were dead, of course. Or had they? She thought of asking, but she had bothered the boys enough. She thought of Misha, his lamb's beard and lips that always bled. She wanted to tear off her headscarf and burn her fingers and rend her clothing. More, she wanted Misha to show up suddenly beside her and kiss her and kiss her.

The sun dimmed; shadows lengthened. Yana tore off her shoes and walked home barefoot. She ran a bath and couldn't stand to take it. She sat at the table, unable to do anything. Her mother came over. Yana talked to her for a few minutes and sent her off. She lit a candle and passed her fingers through the flame. The hours passed so slowly that Yana felt they had taken up a year. She slept perhaps two hours all night.

The next morning the young policeman knocked for her. Yana was thrilled to see him, and hugged him. He led her to the scene. "They took out the bodies, if you want to identify your fiance. If he's in there, which he might not be." He was a boy in all respects.

Some of the corpses were almost unscathed; others, maimed to the point of inhumanity. Misha was not among the recognizable ones, although two of the mangled ones had builds similar to his. "Reason enough for hope, I'd say," said the policeman optimistally. "If you find him, let me know, will you? I'll be at the police station for the next week. My name is Sander."

Yana nodded and let him lead her out. She walked home, still shoeless, almost wishing that her feet were not so callous so that they would show her pain. She opened her door and

--there sitting at her table was a man with a woolen coat and a lamb's beard and eager brown eyes and empty gloved hands--

"Misha!"

She knocked him and the chair over in her incredulous joy, and he was laughing, "Yana, what are you doing, you'd think I'd been gone a year!" and she cradled his face in her hands.

"God, God above, Misha, didn't you know? The barn you went to enlist in, a terrorist set a bomb in it, not an hour after you'd gone. I was so worried, Misha, Misha."

Misha was speechless and Yana saw that his hands shook. She steadied them. "God," Misha said after a little time, which got it all across really.

"Well," said Yana at length. "Did they let you join the army?"

"I've got a weak heart," he said regretfully. "They wouldn't let me."

"Just as well," and Yana was happier than she would have wanted him to know.