Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride

  Rodolfo.

  He had heard the German clearly. He had told the boy to “Run, run like I told you before.” The German had played dumb the whole time. He’d pretended he didn’t speak Italian when they caught him. Now he knew why. Now he understood the look of accusation on the German’s face when they had first captured him and he’d seen Rodolfo. The German had seen Rodolfo before. The German had seen the boy before, too, and vice versa. Something was wrong.

  He mentally reviewed his band’s movements in the week preceding the mess at St. Anna. The four of them had killed two German soldiers near Ruosina, two kilometers north of St. Anna, then split up. It was their common practice. He was too hot. They all knew it. It was too risky for them to be with him when the Germans came hunting for them. It was Rodolfo who had created the escape plan, and it seemed to be a good one: The three others would leave, split up, follow separate trails around the town of Sampiera, hide in the caves for two days, then meet up in Giorgina. Meanwhile he, Peppi, would travel through Mt. Ferro and head up to St. Anna di Stazzema to find food and supplies for them. He had a cousin there, Federico, who would help. But the plan had backfired immediately. When he had split from the others, he ran into a German patrol on the trail between Ulibi and St. Anna and had barely escaped. It was an unmarked partisan trail. It was impossible for the Germans to know that trail. He had gotten lucky only because an old farmer up there had warned him just before he’d approached St. Anna that a German patrol awaited him. Otherwise, he would have been at his cousin Federico’s house stuffing his face with olives and bringing the wrath of the SS down on him and hundreds of others, which had happened anyway.

  Instead, he’d doubled back, given up on St. Anna di Stazzema, and had met his band at Giorgini. He tried to remember whether Rodolfo was surprised or not when he’d stumbled into the village, but he had been exhausted when he’d arrived and he had encountered another problem on his hands the moment he set foot there.

  Rodolfo had found some money on the dead Germans they’d killed in Ruosina. He had used it to throw a feast for the villagers in Giorgini. When Peppi arrived, the villagers and partisans were laughing and carousing in the village square, drinking grappa and roasting chickens they’d bought with the dead German’s money. When Peppi found out where the money for the party had come from, he was furious. He’d chased them away from the square, emptied the remaining bottles of grappa onto the ground, and flung the roasted chickens into the dust, grinding them into small pieces with his foot. The money he found, he tossed into the fire.

  The villagers had encircled him, aghast. “What are you doing?” they cried.

  “This is blood money,” Peppi said. “If you become dependent on someone’s death to feel alive and throw a party, then you are worse than the Germans, worse than even the Fascists. I am an Italian,” he cried. “I don’t kill for money and grappa and chickens. I fight for my freedom. I fight for Italy. To hell with you.”

  He had stomped off, leaving the ashamed villagers to stare in his wake.

  Rodolfo had not taken that well. He had followed Peppi into the forest and they had argued. It had been a snub to him, Rodolfo protested. It had made him look stupid in front of everyone in the village. What difference does it make, he said. It was our money the man had. We took back what was only ours.

  But Peppi would not hear it. You can take the Germans’ money anytime you want, he’d said. But if you kill the man and take the man’s money, you are not a soldier, you are a thief. That man died poorly, he said. Don’t you remember? He did not die like a soldier. He was pissing when we caught him. He was holding his dick when he died.

  From that moment on, there had been a space between them, and over the ensuing days and weeks it had widened into a gap, and now it was a yawning valley, and in the middle of it sat the boy, who recognized Rodolfo, who had seen him, who had seen the German, too. But where? There were no survivors of St. Anna that Peppi knew of. His cousin Federico was dead. Furthermore, most of the inhabitants in the surrounding villages didn’t know the people of St. Anna. The tiny town was a bubble, a haven for the residents of Forte dei Marmi and Lucca and Florence. They had come there for its church, for the convent where the four nuns lived since before anyone could remember. They came because it was away from the battle lines, ten kilometers from the Gothic Line, where the Americans and Germans were fighting. They came because it was safe. Peppi wanted to throw up thinking about it. He felt nausea working its way up his throat, then retreating, then working its way up again.

  He sat down and dug a stick into the snow, trying as hard as he could to reason why Rodolfo would betray him. Rodolfo was a good soldier. He had seen his own brother Marco die. Peppi himself had been there. He had seen Rodolfo’s resolve, had seen Rodolfo shoot at his own flesh and blood for the cause of Italy, he had seen Rodolfo’s tears. They had wept together and held each other up as they stood, near to collapse, at Marco’s grave. Peppi had told Rodolfo then, “We are brothers now,” and Rodolfo had understood, for they both realized Rodolfo had crossed that most sacred line, the line of taking blood, true Italian blood, family blood, for the cause of Mother Italy. There was no greater sacrifice. It was impossible to believe Rodolfo would betray that ideal.

  But then there was the money.

  The price on Peppi’s head had tripled. He’d learned that from Ludovico. When he’d cornered him in the town square, the old man had told him, “I would not trade fourteen rabbits for the lives of five hundred people at St. Anna when I could have a ten-kilo bag of salt and two million lire for yours.” Peppi was stunned. Two million lire and ten kilos of salt were riches beyond any man’s dreams, worth more than gold. The old man had said, “I am a Fascist, Peppi, but I am not a killer of men.” He had nodded toward his daughter, Renata, who stood nearby, out of earshot. “Her husband is dead,” the old man had said. “He is not coming back. I want to see her married when this war is done. Maybe you will be my son-in-law someday. Or him.” He had pointed to one of the other partisans. “Someone from around here. I want her to stay here, with me, to help me keep my rabbits when I grow old.”

  Peppi had had to stifle a smile then. Ludovico was already old. “How did you get so many rabbits?” he had asked.

  The old man had smiled sheepishly and shrugged, showing the palms of his hands. “Don’t you believe in miracles?” he asked.

  Only then did Peppi believe him, believe him with all his heart, because he, too, believed in miracles. Everyone did. All of Italy was a miracle. Every bit of it. Every centimeter and kilo of it. There was no reason for any of them to be alive anymore without miracles. Every hope was dashed, every dream ruined, every villa destroyed because of the war, yet there they were. Every conceivable crime and nightmare had occurred: children shot to death in front of their mothers, fathers executed in front of their daughters, men raping men, men raping children, yet there they were. Brother killing brother, mothers howling over sons, fathers killing sons, fathers losing their minds, the dogs of war unleashed in every corner. Miracles were all they had left. Miracles were what kept them alive. At that moment, Peppi knew he could not kill Ludovico even if he wanted to. Ludovico was just a frail old man. He had watched Ludovico from the ridges as the old man skinned his precious rabbits, plucked his sole chicken, and pulled out his grappa and handed it over to the Americans and the rest of the village. He’d known the old man his whole life. The old man was always cheap, Peppi thought wryly, but he’s still an Italian. An Italian knows how to live. An Italian knows how to eat, an Italian likes to have fun. An Italian believes in miracles.

  Traitors. Traitors don’t believe in miracles. They believe in nothing.

  Rodolfo had changed after his brother died. He had, Peppi thought sadly, become more like me. His silences were long and deep, his eyes were now calm, savage, and thoughtful by turns. Rodolfo’s careless bantering, his bickering about the great Tuscan poet Giovanni Pascoli, his bragging about having seen the works of the great artists of Rome and Florence,
whom he’d aspired to emulate, had disappeared in the weeks following Marco’s death. He had become silent and moody. His once warm smile had become like ice, his laugh bitter-sweet, the laughter prompted not by curiosity or wonder or kindness but by cruelty. He’d chortle as he snatched bread from the baskets of old women, helping himself to the last grapes from an old farmer’s vineyard, saying, “This is for the war cause,” as the farmer’s family watched helplessly. These were things that Peppi, even when the Rage came upon him, even when the Black Butterfly filled his soul with lava-hot anger, could not do. Rodolfo had killed the two Germans in Ruosina and enjoyed it, stabbing one in the chest and watching him gurgle in his own blood and choke helplessly till Peppi had shot him to put him out of his misery. Rodolfo had enjoyed the killing. He had volunteered to make the perilous journey across the mountains alone, to the American headquarters at Viareggio, disguised as a priest, to tell the Americans of the atrocity at St. Anna, in the hopes of the Americans sending troops there. In doing so, he had thrown off suspicion from himself. It was a clever move, Peppi thought, because Rodolfo understood how the Americans operated. The Americans didn’t understand Italians. They would march their armies into St. Anna. They would arrest whomever they wanted to, they would find an SS or an Italian collaborator, they would conduct a summary military trial, perhaps jail or even execute someone. That would be the end of it. But an Italian would not bother with a stupid mock trial. An Italian would exact revenge, and it would not be pleasant.

  Peppi pondered the possibilities. The American Negroes who blundered into Bornacchi were not what Rodolfo had expected. Nor was the German prisoner. How had Rodolfo reacted when they found the prisoner? They’d captured the German wandering in the forest outside Corglia, near Mt. Forato, clearly one of the many deserters that were increasingly leaving the German army. Rodolfo had wanted to kill the German prisoner right away. “We need to find out what he knows,” Peppi had argued. But Rodolfo had swayed the others. “You saw what they did at Stazzema. The woman said it was the SS. What is he? He is SS. He was there!”

  It had taken every ounce of Peppi’s convincing to keep them from killing the German. And even now, he was not sure he had done the right thing in leaving him with the Negroes. But he did not want the blood of an innocent man on his hands. It would not make the dead at St. Anna di Stazzema any more alive to kill the German if he’d had no hand in their deaths. So Peppi had left him with Rodolfo and the Negroes as a test. The German army would not arrive for at least another day, perhaps two if he detonated a few charges to slow them down. If Rodolfo wanted to test the ire of the Negroes by trying to kill the German, let him. Then the Negroes would deliver justice, not him, and that was better, for to kill Rodolfo was like killing himself. Peppi was not sure he could do it.

  The war was killing him, he thought, and he realized at that moment that even if he survived it, the Black Butterfly would not, and as the Black Butterfly went, so he went. He accepted it peacefully. He would never be able to wash the blood off himself, anyway—the useless killing, the senseless betrayals of brother by brother, the rich forcing the peasants to suffer, the peasants exacting their revenge on the rich, the starvation, the death of all innocence. He felt as if he were drowning, the water surrounding him, pushing behind his eyeballs, pumping through his face and brain like a constant flu. It would overtake him and sink him. It was only a matter of time. He turned from the ridge and stared at the twelve-year-old Ettalo, singing harmlessly and dancing around the tiny fire as the other partisan, Gianni, sat with bowed head, nodding to sleep. He wondered what kind of life awaited Ettalo. The boy had no parents left. He’d learned to shoot and kill at an age when he should have been learning to hunt and fish, plant, read poetry, and study the colors of the different trees in the mountains. The boy was dead before he even had a chance to become alive. He had no hope. No life awaited him.

  The rustle of the bushes below signaled Rodolfo’s return from town.

  “How is the German?” Peppi asked.

  “The Americans made me leave. They are going to evacuate and take him, I think.”

  Peppi was silent.

  “We better go,” Rodolfo said. “The Germans are coming down Mt. Forato fast. I saw them just now. Thousands of them, with lots of mules.”

  Peppi rose and motioned Rodolfo over. The others followed. Peppi decided it didn’t matter if they heard.

  He stared out over the ridge at the towns below. He could see the glow of small fires starting in several homes. “I think we’ll head down to join the Americans,” he said.

  He could hear Rodolfo’s rush of breath as he sucked in. “Why? Let’s get away. We go up to Mt. Procino, set some charges to slow the Germans down, and go. The Germans are going to catch the Buffalo Soldiers in a day. They’re as good as dead.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll join the Negroes, fight with them. They asked us to.”

  “What’s the matter with you? We made a deal. We would revenge the church ourselves. The Americans will not deliver justice. They don’t understand us. We’ve got to catch the traitor ourselves.”

  “No. It’s over,” Peppi said.

  “What are you talking about?” Rodolfo snapped. “There were five hundred and sixty people at that church, Peppi, remember?”

  “What’s one person?” Peppi said. “What’s ten? What do they have to live for? The war is almost over, Rodolfo. The Germans will lose. Everyone knows it. And what will become of us then? We will be peasants after the war, all of us. The Aracia mines will have our souls. The rich will be rich again, the poor will be poor. You’ve said this yourself many times. What’s the point? I’m tired.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “It’s not Ludovico, anyway,” Peppi said.

  “Then we will keep looking till we find him. There are several villages we haven’t checked. Let’s save ourselves now, and get away from here.”

  Peppi shrugged and kept his back to Rodolfo. He was afraid to look at him. Instead, he gazed over the mountain ridges into the darkness. “I wonder if the Mountain of the Sleeping Man will ever really wake up, like they say he will,” he murmured softly. “That’s what Marco used to say. He used to wonder about it. He told me he was going to climb to the top of the eye once. He used to wonder if he was strong enough to do it. I think he could have. He was strong, you know.”

  Rodolfo was silent.

  “He was a good brother, wasn’t he. He was like a brother to me, too.”

  Rodolfo remained silent. Peppi knew him too well. Any other secret he could keep in his heart, his terrible mistake, the blood still on his sweaty hands from the fresh murder he’d committed not even ten minutes old, but this he could not. Peppi had always been smarter than all of them, even Marco.

  “But Marco wasn’t my true brother,” Peppi continued. “I don’t have to care for his mother once the war’s done. That’s your job. No more art school for you. No more dreams. Because Marco, who took care of your mother, is dead and it’s my fault.” He felt his heart was breaking as he talked, and he choked back a sob. The truth was unraveling to him now, and though he felt his heart peeling back in layers, he couldn’t stop himself.

  Rodolfo gazed into the snowy darkness covering the ridges below. “Peppi, can you go to hell for making a mistake?” he asked softly. “Even if you confess to God, and He forgives you?”

  Peppi shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. The confession didn’t surprise him. For a moment, they were no longer two partisan soldiers fighting a war. Just two young men, two friends who had known each other since boyhood and shared every fear, every dream, every resolve, every secret. “I’m not a priest. People think I am, but I’m not. That’s why I love it up here.” He gazed at the mountaintops around them. “I lose myself up here. Up here, I’m not the Black Butterfly, the great partigiano, the leader of men, the destroyer of Germans. I’m just myself. Peppi Enrico Grotta. The boy of the air. Remember when I called myself that? Scanapo, the Air Boy? When we
saw that airplane for the first time?” He didn’t wait for Rodolfo to respond. “I remember it. That was something.” He turned and faced Rodolfo. “Now look at me.” Rodolfo, whose eyes were glued to the ground, glanced up at him and was surprised to see Peppi sagged, his back bent as if a giant weight were on his shoulders. Peppi placed his hands in his pockets and sighed. “It’s like every little bit inside of me that was real, it’s gone, and the rest of me . . . I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  The revelation soured Rodolfo. Peppi always tried to act so smart, trying to find the meaning of things. Sometimes things had no meaning. They just existed.

  “I know who I am,” Rodolfo said.

  “And what is that?”

  “I am a freedom fighter.”

  “What makes a freedom fighter?”

  The rhetorical question snapped the reverie, and Rodolfo felt his anger rising. “What’s wrong with you?” he barked testily. “Why do you ask so many stupid questions? Why are you wasting time? You can’t think anymore, is that it? We would have known who betrayed St. Anna if we had kept the German. We could have waited and found out he spoke Italian.”

  “True,” said Peppi, “and then he could have told us about you.”

  There was a long silence as the fire behind them popped and crackled. Peppi wished it were lighter so he could see Rodolfo’s eyes, but even so, Rodolfo’s voice told him more than he wanted to hear. He spoke in the tone of the new Rodolfo, mirthless, calm, deliberate, now clear of the subject of Marco, his weak spot distant, his resolve once again firm.

  “You afraid I betrayed you?” Rodolfo said slowly. “Is that it? You heard that stupid German talking to that boy and believe him over me? How many years do we have between us? This is war. People suffer.”