Miracle at St. Anna

In 1983, postal worker Hector Negron takes rare note of a customer due to the man’s large diamond ring (in the Epilogue, the man is revealed to be partisan traitor Rodolfo Borelli). The man’s face causes him to recall the feelings of terror he felt in his past (revealed later to be during his experience in World War II and specifically the German artillery fire at St. Anna). He shoots the man in the face. One reporter who writes about the crime travels to Hector’s apartment, where he finds the missing head of a Florentine statue. The case is thus reported in the international press. A copy of a newspaper bearing the story is thrown out a window in Rome; it flutters down near a well-dressed man (revealed in the Epilogue to be Angelo Tornacelli, known through most of the book as “the boy”), who bolts when he reads the headline.

In December 1944, Sam Train becomes “invisible” as he, a member of G Company of the US 92nd Infantry Division (an all-Black division in a segregated US military), faces hidden German troops. The Germans are hardened but disheartened, knowing they have lost the war but forbidden to abandon their posts under punishment of death. When ordered, Train rushes forward, despite being certain he will die. He watches his fellow solider, Huggs, get shot and die, but he does not feel fear. He mistrusts both the white officers who lead the division and the Black soldiers from the North, whose combativeness against racist white people makes Southern-born Train fear that he will suffer ill treatment as a result.

Train, religious and illiterate, struggles to recall memorized Bible verses, so he begins singing a hymn instead. Train, who is regularly mocked for his large size (as this makes him an easier target) and lack of intelligence, feels sudden peace and clarity come over him. He freezes, convinced he is now smart and invisible, which he attributes to the head of a statue he found in Florence, which he has carried ever since. His peace evaporates; he has been shot in the head. He runs back to a copse of trees and waits for death, but he is revived by a man named Bishop, to whom Train owes substantial gambling debts.

Bishop, a Kansas City minister, insists that Train did die, but Bishop brought him back to life due to the debt, though he insists this is not “a mojo.” He directs Train to deal with a “white boy” hiding beneath a haystack.

From his hiding spot in the haystack, the boy (whose name is revealed as Angelo in Chapter 15) tries and fails to imagine himself elsewhere. For as long as he can remember, he has lived in a barn, performing menial agricultural tasks for an old man (whose name he does not know) in exchange for a daily bowl of weak soup. Neighbors warn the Old Man to leave before the German army arrives, but the man refuses. One woman tries to take the boy as she flees, but he bites her. The approaching artillery doesn’t bother him, as he prefers the distraction from his scant memories of a happier life.

He fails to follow the Old Man’s orders to whistle an alert when he sees the approaching Germans because he has been waiting for his bowl of soup, which has not arrived in three days. His fear of the Germans is abstract, and he considers approaching them for help before deciding against it. The boy follows his imaginary friend, Arturo, out of the barn as it is struck by artillery. Rubble buries him. He calls out and Train, the first Black person the boy has ever seen, rescues him. The boy considers Train a “huge chocolate giant” (30), which leads him to lick Train’s face before passing out.

Train hides in the destroyed barn with the unconscious boy, feeling that his invisibility prevents the advancing Germans from looking in and seeing them. He marvels at the frailty of the German soldiers. He envies white Italians for their ability to switch sides without notice until he sees killed precisely the men he envies. He fears the boy is dead, too, and touches his face gently to check, thinking of how he has never before touched a white person’s face. As the artillery grows distant, Train realizes he is cut off from his allies and vomits in his panic.

The boy wakes and begins to panic despite Train’s attempts to calm and silence him. He considers shooting the boy, instead offering him a melted candy bar to keep him quiet. This backfires as the child loudly demands more, attracting the attention of a lingering German soldier. He shoots the German, angry at the boy and Bishop, whom he blames for compromising his invisibility. He bolts, realizing quickly that the boy hasn’t followed him, that he has lost the statue head, and that, with Germans approaching and his gun in one hand, he can only grab the boy or the statue. He chooses the statue.

Despite flying bullets, Train reaches the safety of an olive grove. He looks back and sees the boy, caught between the Germans and the Americans, and decides to return. As he runs across the field, he feels his invisibility return. With his rifle on his back, he grabs the boy and retreats again to the olive grove. He heads deeper into the grove instead of attempting to rejoin his squad.

In the squad, Second Lieutenant Aubrey Stamps asks Bishop what he did to Train; Bishop denies doing anything. Stamps has only been in command for the few minutes since the squad leader’s death. During this time, he has been accused of lying about his company’s position by a white officer, Nokes. Nokes delivered the artillery support that he denied to Stamps to a white-led company nearby. Stamps can’t decide if he should send someone to retrieve Train, whom they can see climbing up a mountain in the distance.

Stamps asks Hector Negron to use his radio to locate their allies; Negron comments that “everybody is everyplace” (41), scattered and with radio lines disrupted. Germans and Americans, having ceased firing and out of gun range, shout insults across the canal at one another. Bishop decides to follow Train, citing his luck and the money Train owes Bishop. Stamps and Hector follow.