The Woman in Red

by Diana Giovinazzo

  “Yes. My wife and children are in Montevideo, Uruguay. We have three sons now, but my wife is insisting it’s time I come home so that she can have a daughter.” He shrugged. “What are your plans?”

  José paused for a moment, focusing on our son. “We haven’t thought that far out.”

  Anzani stood. “You should think about coming to Montevideo. It’s the Florence of the Americas. Every Mediterranean has settled there. Well, if you decide to go, come and find me. I’ll be the man driven mad by his wife.” He placed his hat back on his head and made his way through the bushes from where he’d come.

  Part Three

  Uruguay

  Twenty-Six

  February 1841

  We weren’t sure what to do, but then José burst into our cabin one bright morning while I was trying to appease our angry child. “You’ll never believe it. People from every region of the fatherland are living in Montevideo, and guess what they are calling themselves, guess!”

  I was pacing, gently bouncing Menotti, who was teething, in my arms. I turned to José, prepared to make a sarcastic response, but his exuberant smile stopped me. He looked happier than he had in ages. “Tell me, husband, what are they calling themselves?”

  “They are calling themselves Italians. Do you understand? They are gathering together from all over the peninsula. It’s not Tuscany versus Umbria or Calabria versus Basilicata. They are unifying of their own accord.” He turned me to face him. “If they are unifying in Uruguay, this means they can unify at home. It’s happening, Anita, there will be an Italy.”

  My husband didn’t need to say the words for me to know what he meant. Leave Brazil. As I looked into my husband’s hopeful eyes, a million questions filled my head. Brazil was everything to me, but then I thought about my father and the words that he had said to me so long ago. There was more to the world than my little island.

  Brazil was the fabric that shaped me, but that fabric was now tattered, worn from the war. There was no way that my little family could have a life of peace in my home country. The Imperial government made sure of that. There was more to the world than my little island. “There is more to this world than Brazil,” I said to my husband. “It’s time we go to Uruguay.”

  * * *

  The great rolling hills of Brazil flowed into Uruguay, spreading out into vast green prairie. Never had I been in a country so flat. Immediately I missed the giants of Brazil; the absence of those majestic mountains left me feeling exposed, as if one strong gust of wind could lift me up into the heavens. We traveled through the vast expanse until we reached the outer limits of Montevideo in southern Uruguay.

  Every building in Montevideo was created with great care. Offices rivaled cathedrals in their architecture. The houses were not the hastily built shacks I was used to; they were painted in bright teals and pinks, lined up tightly next to each other. I was amazed. Montevideo bustled unlike any city I had ever seen. The sounds of people speaking Spanish could be heard as we traversed the streets, making me thankful for the nomadic gauchos that had periodically traveled through my village from Argentina. My stomach gurgled violently as the scent of wood-fired meats floated through the air, mixed with the fresh saltiness of the sea.

  José drove our little cart down toward the docks. Pulling to a halt in front of a pink house, he looked up. “This must be it.” We went up to the door, but it opened before we knocked. A miniature Anzani stood in front of us. “You’re the Garibaldis!” the boy exclaimed.

  “Indeed, we are, and who might you be?” José asked.

  “Tomaso Anzani.” The little boy stared up at us. “You look dirty. Did you have a rough journey? Did you fight bandits?”

  “Tomaso, stop asking so many questions and let our guests in!” Anzani came up to the doorway with another small child in his arms. He tousled his son’s hair before sending him away.

  “That would be my eldest. This little one is Antony, and around here somewhere is Cesare.” He waved a hand in the air. “He likes to find a cubby to curl up in with a book. We’ll find him again when he’s hungry. Speaking of hunger, you must be famished. Come with me.”

  He led us through their parlor, filled with overstuffed furniture and children’s toys, to the kitchen. We sat down at a large wooden table just before Anzani started pulling out every bit of food from their cupboards. “I am sorry it’s not much, Luisa has yet to get back from the market.” Soon the table was covered with various fruits, cheeses, and sweetmeats. It was more food than I had seen in months.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of securing a new home for you. It’s down the street. I know the owner. He just needs to meet you and have you sign some agreements. It won’t be much, a bit smaller than this.”

  I gasped. “That would be lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much.” Tears of gratitude stung my eyes. I was not used to such kindness. As I sat at the table listening to José and Anzani talk as if they were old friends, the realization that this was the right decision spread through me. Here, we had a future. We could dare to have the life we had only dreamed about in the rugged wilderness of Brazil.

  “Tell me about the Italians,” José said, not hiding the smile that grew on his face.

  “Most of us are from the north, Genoa specifically, but more are coming in from the south. They’ll soon outnumber us.”

  “Why so many?” I asked.

  “The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which controls the lower half of the peninsula, is ruled by an absolute monarchy,” Anzani explained.

  “We had such high hopes for the king when he ascended to the throne,” José interjected. “He cut taxes for the poor, gave amnesty to his father’s political prisoners. The Carbonari thought this was a monarch who could unite our country. A true leader. Then it all went wrong.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “King Ferdinand believes that he has divine right to rule the country. He even backed his sister’s usurper in Spain all because she wanted her people to have a constitution,” José explained.

  “The king has gotten worse,” Anzani said. “He’s created a special peacekeeping force.”

  José went rigid. “A peacekeeping force? What for?”

  “I’ve heard there was a protest in Sicily, almost everyone came out for it. The people wanted a constitution. He sent his soldiers in to break it up. You can imagine what violent ends the demonstrators met.”

  “So that’s why there is an influx of Sicilian immigrants,” José said, as much to himself as to us.

  “Not just to Uruguay, all over the Americas. It’s safer for them to take a chance emigrating than to stay in the fatherland. If the peace force doesn’t kill them, the outbreak of cholera will.”

  I blanched at the thought of the disease, which had yet to reach its deadly fingers into South America, though I had heard of it. A disease where you were dying of thirst no matter how much you drank. Where your body tried to expel every last ounce of fluid. It left people dead within hours. No wonder the Sicilians were seeking safety on foreign shores.

  Luisa Anzani floated into the house on a jasmine breeze. She was a tall, stately woman with light brown hair that was twisted up in a simple knot. She set her basket down with a sigh. “The market didn’t have any of the fish you like, my love, so I got something else. The fishmonger said it should taste the same.” She stopped short. “And I see that we have company.” She turned to her husband crossly. “And that you have put them to work. Where are your manners?”

  Anzani jumped up from the table, rattling off a string of words in Italian that I had a hard time following. Luisa nodded, looking faintly amused. “Well, if it isn’t too much trouble, husband, why don’t you take Senhor Garibaldi to settle in while I get to know my new friend Senhora Garibaldi?”

  José handed me Menotti as he happily followed Anzani. “Well, now that they are out of the way, let’s set about getting to know each other,” Luisa said. “You are going to love this city. It’s the only place in all of South America
that feels like Italy. Frankly, it’s no Roma, but really, no place can ever have the feel of that city.”

  Luisa scooped mate into a red gourd as she continued. “People from all over Europe have settled here. When I was walking through the market today, I heard four different languages. Four! Can you believe that? You’re just going to love it here. I can tell,” she said, sipping her tea with a wink.

  I smiled as she passed me the gourd. Montevideo was already feeling like home.

  * * *

  Later that evening José and I made our way down to our new house, with bellies full of food and a basket of additional goods to get us through the night. The downstairs boasted a parlor and a kitchen with a large worn-out table, while the upstairs held two bedrooms, one of which had a bed. My spirits rose as I let my fingers graze along the wall. I prayed this would be the place where we finally settled.

  Twenty-Seven

  March 1841

  The Italian community thrived in Montevideo. José found employment as a mathematics teacher at a boys’ school and I found a new group of women to surround myself with. Every week we and the Anzanis took turns hosting supper at our homes. Our house became the unofficial meeting place for all of our expatriate comrades to gather and find camaraderie with their countrymen.

  It was during these evenings that I learned to be an Italian. The women gathered together in the kitchen to cook, and using the local gossip they helped me improve my language skills. As my hands deftly rolled out the dough for spaghetti one evening, Luisa came up behind me, placing her chin on one of my shoulders and her hand on the other. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you were born Italian.” She kissed my cheek. “You were meant to be one of us.” The other women laughed in agreement.

  José held court in the parlor, discussing the formation of the first Italian newspaper, L’Italiano, in Montevideo. Uruguay valued its free press and the men wanted to capitalize on that by using the newspaper to share their liberal ideals. I chose to stay in the kitchen with the women. In the parlor the men talked, but it was in the kitchen that the important decisions were made.

  I watched as the women gossiped and told stories of the fatherland. Moving from the table, I stood in the doorway between my husband’s world of soldiers and glory and the world of women. It was then that I realized that this was where I would make the most impact for my husband’s cause. Yes, I thrived at his side, but at the end of the day, these women held more sway over their husbands than José ever could. I listened as they talked. These were not passive women who were content to be led around the world by their husbands. They were active heroines of their own stories.

  “I wrote to my sister yesterday,” one confessed to Luisa. “Her husband’s crops are failing, and they raised the taxes yet again.” She focused on the rolling pin, putting more pressure on the dough as she spoke. “I told her how different it was here. How we can live off the work that we do. God, I hope she listens.”

  I went to the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. “She will.” Looking over the faces of the women, I could see that they each looked at me with a sense of awe. José had his soldiers, I had mine. “When you write home to your sisters, your mothers, don’t be afraid to tell them what you have here. Jealousy can be a powerful thing. Let them grow envious of your life in Montevideo. Perhaps they can join us or perhaps they can claim liberty for their families in Italy.”

  The women smiled and began discussing their families and the ways they encouraged them to come here or to rebel against Austria and France. I squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “Let me know when your sister makes it to Uruguay.”

  She smiled. “I will. Thank you.”

  The next day, while José spent his morning teaching, I tended to our home. It was a relief to be able to put down roots in one location, at least for a little while. If only my mother could see me, happily cleaning a home. She wouldn’t believe I was her daughter.

  I was quietly laughing to myself, imagining my mother taking in my humble little home, when I heard a knock at our door. Upon opening it, I found a plump middle-aged woman with a kind face and a large smile. She stood in front of me holding a small basket of sweet bread. Her slightly messy black hair was streaked with gray. “Hello, I’m your neighbor Feliciana.”

  Graciously accepting her gift, I welcomed her into my home and offered to share the little bit of tea we had. Feliciana’s eyes followed me as we moved through the house, taking in the threadbare sofa, the wobbly armchair, and the sparse walls. She cooed over Menotti, sleeping on a blanket in the parlor. “They are just cherubs, aren’t they?” Following me into the kitchen, she asked, “What brings you to Montevideo?”

  “My husband and I are looking to make a fresh start.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely.” Feliciana took the liberty of breaking off some of the sweet bread for herself. “Fresh starts are always a fun adventure. Where did you come from?”

  “Brazil.”

  Feliciana choked on her bread. “That’s quite a way with such a young child.” She looked back to where Menotti slept. “Where in Brazil?”

  I paused. “All over, really. But enough about me, I want to hear about you.”

  At my suggestion, Feliciana delved into her history with abandon. They were natives of Montevideo, she and her husband, Marco. He was a mountain of a man whose shyness made him gentle. They had no children of their own but fostered a boy who worked as an apprentice and slept at their shop. Soon she was telling me which markets were best, when the right time to visit the washing well was, and where to sit at church, “in order to get the perfect view of the altar, of course.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, knowing that I had no plans to step inside the church.

  Her kind eyes didn’t judge as I told her who my husband really was and about what I had done in Rio Grande do Sul.

  “You mean to tell me you fought alongside your husband?” she asked.

  “Yes, I wasn’t going to let him leave me behind.”

  “How remarkable,” she said in an awed whisper. “How did you meet? What made you want to leave your home? Tell me everything.”

  I sat across the table from her and began my story as she leaned forward, anxiously waiting to hear everything that I had to tell her.

  After that first morning, Dona Feliciana showed up daily with pastries, wanting to hear stories of my adventures. I made us tea as she doted on Menotti, trying fervently to get him to call her abuela. I grew to look forward to my mornings with her.

  One day, after Dona Feliciana sat down, the steaming gourd of tea looking large in her hands, she asked the one question I wasn’t prepared to answer.

  “Tell me about your wedding. I haven’t heard that story yet.”

  I slowly turned to her. “Well, that’s because there isn’t much to tell.”

  “There has to be something. Was it a beautiful ceremony under the stars? Were you able to get a priest or did one of the generals marry you?”

  I sat down opposite her, watching the steam rise from the tea. My heart pounded in my chest as I debated what to say. I had told this woman so much, more than I ever shared with my husband. This secret, that we weren’t actually married, was something that weighed on me. Others wouldn’t understand, and there was a risk that Feliciana wouldn’t either. That she would walk from this house and ruin the good name José had worked so hard to build. Yet, after everything, she hadn’t left. “You see,” I began, “the thing is, José and I aren’t really married.”

  Feliciana gasped as she crossed herself. “But you act as if you are.”

  “Because in our hearts we are.”

  “But what about in heaven? You are living in sin,” she whispered before crossing herself, yet again.

  “What could we do? We love each other and there was no one who would give us their approval.” Feliciana gave me a look and I felt the need to press my case. I didn’t owe her anything, and yet I wanted her to understand. “There was so much danger. We had other t
hings to think about. How could we take time away for something so frivolous when people were dying?”

  “But what about your immortal soul?”

  “My soul means nothing to me.” My finger traced a knot in the wood. Why should I care for my soul when I barely believed in the faith of my childhood? My sins were many and when the time came, I knew I would not be warmly greeted by Saint Peter. But my son…what was going to happen to Menotti?

  I wiped my eyes with the side of my hand as I stared into my tea. I didn’t want her to see the sudden fear that I felt. I knew she would reject me. I took a deep breath, steadying my trembling hands. “I know I will have to atone for all that I have done; of that I have no doubt. What I care about is my family.”

  “Anita, what have you done?”

  I took a deep breath and finally told her about Manoel. I hadn’t uttered his name since we left Laguna. Manoel. The husband I didn’t want. The man who was forced on me. I thought I had escaped him in Laguna, but he still haunted me.

  Feliciana placed a warm, callused hand over mine. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, but we have to think about the well-being of your son in both this life and the next.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Yes, we.” Feliciana firmly grasped my hand. Looking at her, I saw her smile at me in a way that made me wish she were my mother. “Leave it to me. I’ll sort this all out.”

  I let the tears flow down my cheeks as I reached out to embrace her.

  Twenty-Eight

  A couple of days later Feliciana burst through my door, her black hair flying around her face. “I’ve got the best solution for you! It’s the answer to all our problems!” She danced about the room. “We only need to tell the priest that Manoel is dead! It’s as easy as that!” She smiled broadly. “Well? What do you think?”

  I took a deep breath. “From what I understand, the priest has to see that the person is dead, or I have to have a family member swear that I am allowed to remarry. My family will never do that. After all this time, I doubt they would even speak to me.”