Miracle at St. Anna

by James McBride

  He turned a corner and was marching up a flight of stairs when the door to a pink house with only one shuttered window opened. A young child, carrying a bucket, emerged from the front door, followed by Bishop, buttoning his shirt. Bishop saw Stamps and frowned. Stamps approached.

  “What?”

  “We got a situation.”

  “I ain’t goin’ no place.”

  “The Italian partisan stabbed that German.”

  “No shit. Is Nokes still coming?”

  “He don’t know, so he’s still coming.”

  “It don’t matter then.”

  It bothered Stamps that Bishop was so casual about the stabbing.

  “While you was stokin’ your little johnny, the kid was telling us the SS is ’round here; they killed a bunch of civilians up at the church we were at.”

  Bishop shrugged and tucked in his shirt, taking deep breaths of the fresh mountain air. He looked like he had just finished taking a morning constitutional. “Imagine that. At a house of God, too.”

  Stamps had an overwhelming urge to yank his Colt .45 out of its holster and part Bishop’s face with it. He imagined Bishop’s face being blasted into oblivion, looking like burnt oatmeal and metal. That’s how Huggs had looked at Cinquale, his brain splattered over the hot tank. Stamps suddenly felt slightly nauseous, thinking of the charred pews, the outstretched arms of a baby, bayoneted. He wished he hadn’t heard any of it.

  He glared at Bishop and said, “Man, what is your problem?”

  “None of this is my problem. I ain’t gettin’ all tongue-tied over white folks killin’ each other. When’s Nokes coming?”

  “I want you to get all our gear, the Italians’ mules, radio, everything, and get it over to old man Loody’s house on the double. If you hadn’t sent that doofus over that ridge, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “I didn’t send that dense nigger noplace.”

  “Hell you did. Beat the guy out fourteen hundred bucks, then sent him over there. Stupid motherfucker. What were you thinking about?”

  Stamps watched Bishop’s breathing slow and a deep, burning anger descend upon his face. Bishop’s eyelids drooped heavily. Stamps realized, for the first time, how dangerous Bishop was. He could feel it. The man had power. He’d always thought of Bishop as a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a two-bit hustler. But now he could see it—could see what Train saw. The man had power. The power of the devil.

  “You like it here, don’t you?” Bishop said softly. “Out here, the law is what you say it is. You just like the white man. Keep changing the law so it fits you. You said before we’re gonna get Train. Then you say we gotta get a German. Then we get the German, and you fucked around playin’ ‘America the Beautiful’ for these honey drips here, and now the German’s dead and we’re stuck here with them, waiting for the real white man to show up while the Krauts is fittin’ to throw us in the chicken fryer. So you changed up, you got to live with it. Not me.”

  Bishop was standing on the top steps leading to the front door of the house as he spoke. The door behind Bishop opened and Renata emerged, wearing a red dress and holding a pack of American cigarettes, no doubt a gift from Bishop. She took a quick look at Stamps and departed swiftly.

  Bishop watched her go, then smiled slightly at Stamps.

  “And I grilled that ass, too. She sucked my roscoe and everything.”

  Stamps leaped on Bishop and grabbed his throat. The two crashed through the doorway of the house and fell inside the darkened quarters, smashing tables, chairs, and rolling toward the open brick hearth. Spoons, ladles, and wooden bowls flew about. Bishop was pummeling him, but Stamps could feel nothing. He choked Bishop until Bishop’s eyes bulged and he began to strike desperately with more force. He struck Stamps’s head again and again, granite-hard blows that did nothing to weaken Stamps’s grip. Then Stamps felt a blow on the other side of his head. His arms were ripped from Bishop’s throat, and he was pulled back, gasping and sweating.

  Hector stood between them, his chest heaving.

  “Jesus!” Hector said, his head swiveling as he looked back and forth at Bishop and Stamps. “Settle up on your own fuckin’ time. C’mon, get your shit together, man! Nokes is here.”

  20

  NOKES ARRIVES

  The boy felt himself slipping off the edge of the world, floating in a sea of black and white with the strange sound of the accordion guiding him, so he shut his mind and looked for Arturo. It wasn’t as hard to do as it once had been, but now Arturo didn’t come as often. The boy squeezed his eyes tight, until the outside sounds were gone. Everything disappeared inside him, and there was only blank space and no beginning, end, or middle, and after a few moments Arturo appeared.

  “You don’t come easy like you used to,” Angelo said.

  Arturo shrugged.

  “I saw the one from the church,” Angelo said.

  “We agreed not to talk about it,” Arturo said.

  “I’m afraid of him,” Angelo said.

  “That’s why the chocolate man came to you.”

  “He’s run out of chocolate, though. I even checked the pocket where he keeps it. There’s no more.”

  “There’s plenty more. You’ll see.”

  Arturo disappeared, and Angelo opened his eyes and saw two jeeps in the distance, rumbling and bouncing up the mountain road. A Negro and a white man rode in the first jeep, followed by four colored men in the second jeep, one manning a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted atop the rear. Train placed the boy on the ground and stood at attention. Stamps, followed by Bishop and Hector, stepped in front of him as the jeeps approached.

  The vehicles slammed to a halt, and Captain Nokes leaped out.

  “How the fuck did you get all the way up here?” he asked, charging up to Stamps, who stood with his legs spread, hands on his hips, his clothing disheveled, still sweating. Stamps didn’t bother to answer. He gave a half salute, then turned away and picked up his helmet, gear, rifle, and other belongings and walked toward the second jeep. He wasn’t going to ride back with Nokes in the lead jeep. The hell with it.

  Nokes watched him, furious. “Where’s the German?” he said.

  Stamps pointed in the direction of Ludovico’s house. “In there.”

  Nokes glared at him. He didn’t like the attitude. He was exhausted. It had taken fourteen hours to get around Ruosina, mostly with Italian alpine mules pulling the jeeps through mud and snow, with the shelling getting heavier every minute. How these four Negroes had ended up twenty-three kilometers from base, deep on the wrong side of the Serchio Valley, was something he simply could not fathom.

  Nokes barked at Birdsong, who was behind the wheel of the lead jeep. “Find out what his problem is while I get the prisoner.” He glared at Stamps. “You got two minutes to button your men up.” Bishop and Hector glumly gathered their helmets and moved slowly toward the second jeep, too. They had no plans on riding back with Nokes either. Nokes started toward Ludovico’s house, then noticed Train standing with the statue head dangling from his waist, holding the boy in one arm. “And get rid of that kid,” he said.

  “Been trying to, suh,” Train said, “but I guess he won’t let me go. He’s a nice little fella.” He held Angelo, wrapped him in a blanket. “Take a look.”

  “Get rid of him.”

  “I don’t know what to do with him, suh. I can’t leave him here, so I figured to bring him along. He don’t talk much, but he do tap. See? Watch this here. One tap mean—”

  Nokes took a step toward Train. “What is the matter with you?”

  Train straightened and saluted again. “Nothing, boss. I’m just saying that, see, this young’un here, he don’t . . .”

  He stopped in fear as Nokes took two long strides at him, closing the distance between them, facing him with such rage that the big man leaned backward. Nokes’s eyes blazed like fireballs. His jaw reached Train’s chest, and he stood so close to him with his face thrust forward that his spit flew into Train’s face. “What the fu
ck is wrong with you, soldier?”

  Train tried to stammer a reply but could not. “I . . .”

  “We spent two days risking our asses getting here for you! Good men are dying for you! Good white men, your commanders, are holding back the attack for you! And you’re telling me about some kid?”

  “I . . . I feels sorry for him, suh.”

  “You feel sorry for him. You feel sorry for him?”

  Nokes realized his error as soon as he said it. Talking to a nigger that way with four armed niggers in the jeep, four more in front of him. The kid began to cry.

  Nokes lowered his voice to an even pitch, trying to keep a tone of command in it. “Button up and get in the jeep and let’s get outta here, soldier.”

  Train didn’t move. A slow rage began to creep into his face.

  “Ain’t no cause for that kind of talk in front of no child. You ain’t got to make him cry now, suh.”

  Stamps stepped forward. “Cool it, Diesel.”

  “Naw. Ain’t no way to talk to no child, making him cry ’n’ all, cussin’ and carryin’ on.”

  Stamps faced Nokes. “He don’t understand, sir. He’s slow in his mind. It was my idea to bring the kid. We got ’im down at the Cinquale. We was trying to find out where he belonged. He won’t leave us, is all. I told Train here to take ’im. It was my idea.”

  The four black soldiers in the second jeep stared silently as Captain Nokes hesitated. He’d always dreaded a moment like this: alone, out in the open, within easy reach of German artillery and rifle fire, with eight Negroes and ten Italian peasants looking on and no white American in sight. He wanted to beat the crap out of Colonel Driscoll, that Mr. Hoo-ray Yankee bastard, acting like this was just another white outfit fighting the Germans. These Negroes were screwing white women—he’d seen that himself back in Naples. They’d have to be reeducated once they got home. Nobody considered that, he thought bitterly. Every fiber of his being felt violated. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He was supposed to be with the 10th Mountain Division, good white men who were on the other side of the Apennines, but he had no pull at division. Now he was stuck here on Christmas Eve with a bunch of chicken guzzlers on a hill in who-knows-where-goddamn-Italy. He couldn’t believe it.

  “Birdsong!” he snapped.

  Lieutenant Birdsong stepped out of the lead jeep.

  “Deal with this while I get the prisoner. If it’s not together when I get back,” he pointed to Stamps and his men, “I’m court-martialing all four of you. Now where’s the damn prisoner?” Stamps pointed at Ludovico’s house, and Nokes stomped away, muttering, sweat oozing off the back of his neck despite the cold.

  Stamps watched him go, knowing the explosion that would follow. He stifled an urge to follow Nokes. He wanted to see Nokes’s face the moment he walked into Ludovico’s house and saw the German dead on the bedroom floor. He was curious. Why not? He was already in a shitpile, anyway. He hoped to drag Nokes down into it with him. Served him right for screwing up at the canal.

  Birdsong stepped forward, awakening him from his reverie. The two had known each other since officer candidate school. Birdsong wore a frown of resignation on his face. He waited till Nokes was out of earshot, then said, “Stamps, tell your big man to loosen up.”

  “Bird, I can’t do nothing with him. He won’t let anybody near the kid. We got a situation here. Got a bunch of civilians killed by the SS up at the church about a kilometer up that ridge. What we gonna do about that?”

  “We’re gonna get the fuck outta here like the captain said, that’s what we’re gonna do about that.”

  “Why you so strong for him? Ain’t nobody done a thing to him.”

  “He’s a captain, that’s why.”

  “Why you so uppity, then? I ain’t seen you down at the Cinquale when we was getting our asses kicked.”

  “I was there.”

  “I see you got some new stripes out of it, too. ’Fore you know it, you gonna be a big white captain like him.”

  A couple of soldiers in the jeeps laughed, but not all of them, Birdsong noted. He shot a glare at the culprits and saw that all the men, even those who hadn’t laughed, were looking on in sympathy at their muddy, filthy comrades. Stamps glanced at Bishop and saw his eyes in dangerous, half-droop mode. He didn’t know if that was for him or for Birdsong. He didn’t care. This thing was winging way out of control. A crowd of Italians had now gathered behind Stamps and his men, Ludovico, Ettora, and Renata among them. Stamps wished they hadn’t come to witness this face-off. It didn’t seem decent. These people had enough problems. He glanced over his shoulder at Renata and felt affection and shame. She owed him nothing. She was free person. She’d belonged to him only in his dreams. And now she had to stay here, had to keep living this nightmare, while he would go home to his own.

  Birdsong said evenly, “I got to follow orders out here like everyone else, Aubrey. You know that. I’m asking you—not telling you—to please get your men together, lessn’ we all face a court-martial when we get back.” He glanced at the ridges behind him. “If we can get back.”

  “All right then. Bishop, Hector, git your rags together. Train, give the boy to Miss Loody here.” He nodded at Renata without looking at her. He couldn’t look at her again. She had broken his heart. He deserved it. Served him right for dreaming so high and wrong.

  “She ain’t his mama,” Train said.

  “I know, Diesel, but you got to give him up.”

  Train’s heart was pounding, his head swimming. “She don’t know him like I know him, Lieutenant. He ain’t got no mama. He got to go where somebody can tend to him. I got a grandma can do it.”

  Stamps saw Birdsong roll his eyes as Hector touched Renata’s arm and leaned in close and whispered in her ear. She stepped forward and gently removed Angelo from Train’s arms. The boy began to wail and kick. Bishop and Hector converged on Train and tried to push him toward the jeep, but the boy broke free from Renata and leaped back onto Train’s legs. Train swept him into his arms.

  “See, he don’t want to go,” Train said glumly. The men in the jeep laughed.

  Stamps turned away and picked up his helmet, gear, rifle. Fuck it. Let Nokes handle it. He turned around just in time to see Nokes charge from Ludovico’s house, on his face an odd mixture of disbelief and outrage. A thunderous round of artillery struck behind Ludovico’s house, forcing Nokes to bend over for a moment; then he straightened again and stalked forward. Hector winced as he approached. Now the shit was really coming.

  “Is this a joke?” Nokes said to Stamps.

  “No,” Stamps said.

  “The fucker’s dead in there.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s dead. How did he get dead?”

  “Somebody killed him.”

  “No fuckin’ kiddin’! No fuckin’ kiddin’! ” Nokes was furious. “Didn’t you put a man on him?”

  “I had a man on him. The Italian partis—”

  “You had him and you fucked up, y’understand! You fucked up, Sergeant Stamps!”

  Stamps silently fought the anger rising in his throat. It had taken him three years to earn those lieutenant’s stripes. Three years of work. Gone in a blink. He could hear artillery and small-arms fire drawing closer. Big booms that shook the ground. He saw a grove of trees shorn off beyond Nokes’s shoulder. Long-range eighty-eights at work. In a moment, German helmets would be peeking over the ridge. They were coming from the east, from above, after all—at least he had been right about that.

  Birdsong said, “Sir, we gotta pull out.”

  Nokes didn’t hear. He didn’t care. He backed off, hands on his hips. “Shit . . . Goddamn, sap-sucking, yellow-bellied, son of a bitch . . .” He was kicking at the snow. He seemed to have lost touch.

  “Please, sir,” Birdsong said, “we gotta roll.”

  “Okay, goddammit.” Nokes was panting now, staring at Ludovico’s house, where the dead German lay. Finally, he climbed into the front of the lead jeep. To Stamps he s
aid, “You’re in trouble.”

  Train stepped forward.

  “Please, suh. I jus’ . . . I just wanna explain something ’bout this child heah . . .”

  Nokes undid the holster holding his service revolver. He said, “I’m gonna court-martial you, soldier. I gave you an order to load up.”

  Train stood silently, still holding the boy, then slowly set the Italian youngster on the ground behind him and carefully placed his helmet on the boy’s head. The child, with Train’s helmet covering nearly half his face, peeked out at Nokes and the others from between the giant’s knees.

  Behind him, Birdsong heard the four soldiers in the rear jeep stirring. “Ain’t no need to shoot the man over no child, sir. We can take him back to headquarters. We got room.”

  “Yeah, ain’t no problem to take the child, suh. Let’s go, suh . . .”

  Nokes glanced at them out of the corner of his eye. To Birdsong he said, “Lieutenant, take the kid.”

  Birdsong jumped out of the lead jeep and approached Train slowly. “Don’t make it tough on me, big fella.”

  Train didn’t move. “You bet’ not come no closer.”

  Birdsong lunged to grab the kid, and with one hand Train grabbed him by the neck and squeezed, lifting Birdsong into the air. Nokes yanked his carbine out of its holster, and as he did so, Bishop, standing behind him in front of the second jeep, flipped the catch off his M-1 and stuck it in Nokes’s ribs.

  The four soldiers in the second jeep watched in shock as Train held Birdsong high in the air by the neck. Stamps leaped on him, but Train’s strength was too great. “For God’s sake, put him down, Diesel,” Stamps begged. The four men in the rear jeep leaped out to help Stamps free Birdsong from Train’s grip, but the giant’s power was too mighty. He held Birdsong high, and for the first time, Ludovico, standing behind them, saw the truth, saw what he had spent a lifetime trying to imagine: He saw Train silhouetted against the Mountain of the Sleeping Man behind him, the smaller men uselessly grappling with him, dangling like flies as he shrugged them off with mountainous strength, and Ludovico knew then that he’d seen a miracle, that Ettora’s spell had worked, that the Mountain of the Sleeping Man had awakened to wreak vengeance and to claim his true love, except his true love wasn’t a fair damsel after all; it was this child of innocence, a child who had survived a massacre, a miracle boy who represented everything that every Italian held dear, the power to love, unconditionally, forever, to forgive, to live after the worst of atrocities, and, most of all, the power to believe in God’s miracles. That this child of innocence had brought this American to them was an even greater miracle, for behind this giant would come many more Americans, all because the Negroes and the child had come to Bornacchi by mistake. But this was no mistake. The war was going to end, and they all would be free soon. Ludovico watched, awestruck and terrified, as Birdsong’s feet dangled high above the ground, his face turning blue. Birdsong was pummeling Train with his fists, then his palms, then with slaps, until his strikes became weaker and weaker and his body began to sag. Only after several long moments did the five men manage to force Train to release his mighty grip—just as the artillery around them began to thunder louder and machine-gun fire began to reach the town’s outer walls.