He bought her the dress when they went for holiday in Lugano, Switzerlandthe year before the war began.  Lara rummaged through some old coats tryingto find one that might fit her father.  Sasha stared at her without sayingit-how she would have only worn the dress on their anniversary before this.But not now.  Now anything one had saved before the fighting wasn't muchgood; nothing that mattered.  Not a dress.  Not a ring.  Not a car.  Not inwar.  Not in Sarajevo.  You had the clothes on your body, and your life, andmaybe your love.  Everything else was only worth what it could buy: in wood,a coat, some food.

All around them people continued to walk about the square lookingfor what food or provisions there might be in the marketplace.  The shoesand socks and mittens and coats laid out there were that of old friends,relatives, customers, cousins, uncles, aunts, children.  Dead now, butnothing could go to waste.  Sasha could hear the costs being exchanged inthe hushed voices around the tables: two pounds of flour DM600, a sack ofwood DM500, a quart of petrol DM50, a pound of coffee DM400, a bar ofchocolate DM200, a pair of boots DM1000.  There had been no trucks inSarajevo for months.  To come from Zenica the army was now forcing theHumanitarna convoys to drive a hundred miles out of the way through thewoods to get to the city.  Not one had made it. 

For himself, he knew he would have gone insane long before if he hadbeen caught in the city without her.  Sasha's life had always been occupiedby activity, the very details of life and days at work.  Now in Sarajevothere was simply existence.  He couldn't understand what might be happeningin the world outside.  Didn't they know?  Didn't they see?  He halfstruggled to push himself on and milled about the marketplace with his handsin his pockets.  He had owned a store once.  Had been quite successful.Sold emeralds from Brazil and diamonds from South Africa.  He looked aroundthe makeshift marketplace in the square.  A lemon was a jewel; a cluster ofgrapes a necklace. 

He looked at Lara, his wife, his friend in Sarajevo since childhood.She had been a seamstress.  Now she worked for the people with what materialthey may have had.  Sometimes she did it for free, depending on whom it wasfor. 

He looked at his darling, beautiful Lara who stood a few feet fromhim near the coats.  Her eyes were bright and excited by something shecaught sight of.  Sasha saw her look down and stare at the single ripepersimmon placed on the table.   He couldn't believe her.  It wasn'tunbelievable that she wanted it.  Maybe it was unbelievable, because shewanted it for him.

The man who owned the persimmon leaned over his table and looked atLara.  He was an old Serb and he had a clean white shirt on and a tie.  Hewore a blue beret with a bullet hole on one side, where some of his brownhair poked out.

"You can have it," the old Serb said to Lara.  "It's good."  Heleaned over the table closer and began to whisper: "A truck came from Viennathrough the Neretva Valley last night.  My brother-in-law was one of themen.  He brought this just for me.  It's all I have to sell today."

Lara looked at the man in disbelief and with delight.

"But they've been telling us there's terrible fighting in theNeretva Valley," she said to the man.

"Don't believe him," Sasha told her.  "Don't believe anything hesays.  He must have stole it!"

"No, it's true."  The man leaned over the table more.  "Just give mesomething for it.  It won't last the hour."

Lara looked at Sasha for his approval.   

"I will give you DM-ten," Lara said.

The man laughed right in her face.

"I could give it away," he said.

"Lara, please," Sasha said. 

"No*  I want it," she said.  "I want it for you."

Sasha looked at her deep blue eyes in the fading light.  He felt adivision within himself.  A division that was half love and half torture.How great could his wife's love be to want to buy him a beautiful piece offruit?  He had not eaten fruit in months.  Not since the heavy fighting hadspread through all the Bosnian fronts.

"I can get it for you," Lara whispered.        

Sasha stood dumb next to his wife, not knowing whether to stop heror not.  He looked over at the street, at a truck carrying corpses andseveral sacks of soldier's heads that had been severed by one side or theother.  His eyes flooded with tears.

Lara looked at the old Serb.  His clothes were so very clean andbright like new.

"I will give you DM-thirty," she said.  "And that's all.  That's allI have."

"It's not enough," he said.

"But that's all I have."  Lara looked over at the table with thecoats spread out on it.  "I need to keep something for a coat for myfather."

"I'm sorry," he said.  The old Serb leaned back from the table andput his hand up near his chin.  He seemed to stop and contemplate a moment.A contemplation a man could only dream up in wartime.  The old Serb lookedat Lara.

"Give me that dress," he said to her.

Sasha turned around stunned by his demand.

"And DM-thirty," he demanded.

"Ten!" she said.

"Twenty!" he said back.

"What are you doing?"  Sasha grabbed his wife's arm.

Lara smiled like she would have before the fighting.  He looked inher eyes.  There was so much life in her eyes even now.  How could he notlet her?  He watched the happiness on his wife's face as she undid her coatand handed it to him.  "You're not going to give him your dress?" Sasha saidto her.  She smiled again as she undressed right in front of him, and rightin front of the old Serb, and right in front of everyone else in the square."Why not?" she said.  "It's only a dress, Sasha."  And with that sheunbuttoned her beautiful red dress.  The beautiful red dress he had boughther in Lugano, Switzerland.  The one with the side shirring and the tuliphem. 

Lara stepped out of it and stood and shivered in her bra andunderwear.  "I hope you're giving it to your wife," she said to the old Serbas she handed him the dress.

He took it and examined it, holding it out about the height of hiswife or maybe his next customer.  "We'll see," he said. 

Lara gave the old man the money, and Sasha quickly covered her withher coat.  He struggled to help her button it up.  "Thank you," he said witha hint of guilt in his voice.  She gave him a hurt smile and reached up andcaressed her husband's cheek with her hand.

And then Sasha watched as his wife walked over and picked thepersimmon up off the table. 

Lara held it up in her hand as if it were the bright shining light of astar.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she said.  "Look at it, Sasha!  It's so red.It's burning with red.  Burning with such red I've never seen before!"   

He looked at his wife and tried to imagine those lives which ranparallel to theirs outside of the city-what they were doing at that precisemoment in that other place. What kind of friends they may have had.  Whatthey did for work.  The kind of house they lived in.  What they ate.  Whatthey did to please themselves.  What inexhaustible beauty surrounded them.What kind of love they may have had for one another.  Did they take it forgranted?  Where they might be with this pain Sasha felt so strong withinhim.  How life was worth more outside the hatred of war.

And at that moment he stood in the marketplace, not two feet awayfrom his beautiful darling wife Lara; and there was a flash of blue light,and for an instant he imagined it had come from her hand holding thepersimmon. 

Sasha found himself on the ground, feebly and desperately trying tostand again.  He couldn't see for a moment, and all around himincomprehensible murmurs became shrieking shouts and the shouts becamescreams.  Dust and debris covered the square from the single shell that hadbeen launched from the hills outside Sarajevo.  Sasha lay on the ground andhis calls for help were ignored.

He felt a deep stabbing pain where blood seeped out the back of hishead. 

"Lara!" he called out.  "Lara!  Lara!" 

He crawled on the ground several feet over to his wife, where shelie on the ground with just her black coat on. 

He pushed up against her body.  She looked untouched, except for herleft leg, which was terribly twisted beneath her, and her bloodied hand,which lie in shadow. 

"Lara!  Lara!"  Sasha shook her in vain.  He caressed her blond hairand looked down at her.  He could see her blue eyes open staring up at hisface, up at the blue sky above them in the marketplace.  Her blue eyesstared straight up at the face of God.

"Lara?" Sasha cried out.  "Lara?  Lara?"

Sasha gathered his wife's dead body in his arms and he began to sobover her.  A dark, dusty wind blew down on the square and Sasha looked up tosee the old Serb who was still standing behind his table in the exact spothe had been moments before.  Sasha saw the old man's eyes staring blanklydown at the bloodied debris and all the dead bodies.  His white shirt andhis tie were somehow untouched and clean, and he was holding Lara's reddress in his hands, his eyes swarming over the slaughter searching for thepersimmon.