The other wives happily took to the idea. Over the next several days we gathered every plant and seed we could find, filling two shared gardens with vegetables and fruits.
Thirty-Four
November 1841
It had been months since I’d heard anything from José and his men. Luisa and I took turns visiting the military offices to see if they had anything sent to them by messenger about our husbands. But more often than not we were shooed away for being a nuisance. I tried to push away any worries I might have about the fate of my husband and his men as I weeded our little garden. My pregnant belly was beginning to take shape. It wouldn’t be long before I couldn’t get down on my knees to garden. Menotti kneeled beside me, marveling at every bug and leaf. A true Italian, he loved tomatoes. Picking the small ones, he held them in his cheeks before slowly eating them. If I let my child survive on tomatoes alone, he would. As we gardened, we sang his favorite nursery rhyme together:
Minhoca, minhoca
Me dá uma beijoca
Não dou, não dou
It wasn’t a very pleasant rhyme, having to do with kissing worms, but Menotti loved it because he had a fascination with the earthworms of our garden. As we were singing, we heard bright and clear:
Minhoca, minhoca
Você é mesmo louco
Menotti and I turned to see José standing in the garden before us in his tattered clothes, covered in dirt.
He was alive.
Menotti ran giggling to his father, who picked him up into the air, then held him close. José set Menotti down as I approached him, a little more cautiously. I still couldn’t believe it was my husband standing before me, smiling with pure joy.
Gray clouds shifted, revealing bright November sun, warming my face as I looked up at my husband. José kissed me with a passion I hadn’t felt since we were young in Laguna. He held me close, breathing the scent of my hair deeply into his lungs. I could have stayed in his embrace for eternity.
* * *
After José had the opportunity to wash and put on fresh clothing, we sat in the parlor, José playing with Menotti. José helped him pass blocks from one pile to another while I was in the nearby armchair, watching them interact. José was always so warm with our son. Always tender and loving. Somehow along the way in my crazy life I got lucky to have such a wonderful husband.
“I have only been gone for just over four months. How could he have grown so much?” he asked with wonder as he gladly received a block handed to him by our son.
“That’s what children do. They grow.”
José grabbed Menotti around the waist, pulling him into a hug. “You aren’t allowed to grow up.”
“No!” Menotti called out with a giggle.
“What do you mean, no?” José tickled and kissed Menotti, who squealed with delight before breaking away. “I noticed Menotti isn’t the only one who looks a bit different.”
“Did you now?” I raised an eyebrow, amused by the direction of the conversation.
José turned to look at me. “You do look different.”
I smiled, toying with him. “Really? How so?”
He thought for a moment, trying to form words. It was a struggle that played out in his features. “You, you look…softer.”
“Softer?”
“Don’t mock me.” He laughed. “No, really, you look softer, like the edges of a cloud, but at the same time you look…tired.” His face fell into a concerned frown. “Tesoro mio, have you not been feeling well since I have been gone?”
I sighed with extra drama. “Truth be told, I have been falling asleep as soon as I get into bed, but it’s clearly not enough for the baby.”
“The baby?” He returned to Menotti, who looked back at him with an angry little scowl.
“No,” he said, taking a toy soldier from his father’s hands.
“Oh no, Menotti sleeps through the night. That’s not the baby I am talking about.” I couldn’t resist the smile that began to spread.
José at this point got up onto his knees. “Another baby, does that mean, that you, that we are—?”
“Almost nineteen weeks, by my calculations.”
“Tesoro mio!” José grabbed me, wrapping me in a large hug that pulled me to the floor. “Another baby.” He laughed. “Did you hear Mamãe? Menotti, you’re going to have a baby brother.” I hit José playfully on the shoulder. “Or sister. What do you think of that, son?”
Menotti’s full, pouty lips puckered in displeasure. “No!”
José smiled, turning back to me. “All right then, now we know his opinion on that.” He kissed me. “Another baby. I truly am the richest man in all of the Americas.”
That night, in bed, José told me the full story of what had happened to him. “We were outmanned. My ship didn’t stand a chance.” We lay on our sides, face-to-face in bed. José held my hand in his, keeping it close to his heart. “The Argentinian flagship was the one that made the point of attacking us. I thought for sure it was going to sink us.”
“But it didn’t.” I touched the tips of his fingers, each one of them right where it was supposed to be.
“No, that’s the strange thing! Instead of firing the kill shot, it broke off. We lost the ship, but they let us escape.”
“That’s odd.”
“Absolutely. The Argentinians have employed a norte-americano by the name of Brown. He has a fierce reputation, but I just don’t understand why he let us go.” José sighed as he reached out and stroked my arm. “Anyway, we found what was left of the Uruguayan army in Corrientes and made our way home. Fighting the whole time.”
“It sounds like it was quite the adventure.”
José kissed my hand, his lips lingering on my knuckles. “As strange as this sounds, I wished you were there. It was the kind of action you would have lived for, but as I understand it, you had a few adventures of your own.”
“Adventures?” I asked, stretching out. “It was just an average day in the life of Anita Garibaldi.” José and I broke into childlike laughter.
* * *
In the few weeks that José had been home, I marveled at our ability to fall back into the comforting rhythm of our old life.
José’s exploits were written about in every paper in Montevideo—the small navy that stood up to the might of Argentina. José was a hero. Important people started talking; how embarrassing to have such a pitiful navy compared to the might of Argentina. Uruguay’s finest fleet was composed of roughly patched-together rafts that could barely float. What would the great kingdoms of Europe say if they saw such ridiculousness? A rumor grew that the Argentinian navy failed to sink José’s ship because they were so impressed by José’s sailing capabilities. Argentina had hired Brown, who was an admirer of my husband’s. Supposedly this North American told anyone who would listen that to kill my husband would have been to kill a beautiful piece of art.
José used the gossip as leverage to get the government to reconvene to assess its war plans. In the end, Vidal and his supporters were overruled. José was given a small fleet of ships, two already built with four more commissioned.
On one of those blissfully normal evenings, José came home and wrapped his arms around my growing belly. “I have a job for you.”
“You are putting me to work now too?”
“The war council put me in charge of forming a legion. An Italian legion.”
I whirled around, wrapping my arms around his neck. “They are giving you your own legion? That’s incredible!”
“It is, but I need your help. Our men need uniforms.”
“I suppose I could do something.” I pulled at his shirt.
“Tesoro mio, you are so gracious.” José kissed me. “Tomorrow you and Anzani will go to the tailor.”
Anzani and I arrived at the tailor’s the next morning just after the shop opened. The tailor looked up from his books, stifled a yawn, and then looked back down over the rims of his spectacles, leaving us to survey the wares on our own.
>
“Excuse me, senhor, do you have any recommendations for a newly formed military regiment?” Anzani asked.
“Blue is such a fashionable color.” He slowly walked out from behind his counter, huffing over being interrupted. “This one is quite light, it would be good for the men.” He held out the fabric for me to feel.
I ran a hand over the material and shrugged. “It’s all right, I suppose, if we want to look like every other soldier in every other army.”
“Are you able to get any other colors?” Anzani asked, studying the fabric.
The tailor shook his head sadly. “Only what you see here. The war, it’s not good for business; I can’t sell my bolts. I have some green left over, but the French Legion is using that. I was able to get some white fabric a few weeks ago.”
I scrunched my nose. “And look like bakers? No, thank you.”
My eyes landed on one corner with an excessive amount of bright red fabric. I walked over and rubbed it between my fingers. It was a soft, breathable material. I turned to the tailor. “You seem to have quite a bit of inventory here, senhor.”
The tailor sighed. “Yes, unfortunately that fabric was supposed to go to the butchers in Argentina. However, with the war, I can no longer fulfill their order.”
“The butchers, you say?” I looked back down at the fabric. “Anzani, don’t you think red would be an intimidating color for our legion?”
“Red?” Anzani studied the fabric with his hand on his chin. “But this is supposed to be for Argentinian butchers. They are not respectable men. They are dirty…”
“They are intimidating. When you see a butcher, you know he is in the business of one thing and one thing only: death. Don’t you want our legion to be that intimidating? Don’t you want our enemies to shiver in their boots the moment they lay eyes on us?”
“Red is not a sanctioned color, at least not for any legion in Uruguay.” Anzani gripped the material in his hands, turning it over and twisting it to test its strength. He turned his gaze to me. “All right…all right, let’s get it.”
I was thrilled when we received the uniforms from the tailor a few weeks later. “What do you think?” I asked José as I turned from side to side.
“It certainly is as red as Anzani said it would be.”
“This one is mine. After I have the baby I will take it in, of course, but I thought it would be nice to have one of my own. Even though I don’t get to fight anymore.”
“You would be quite a force to be reckoned with. The Argentinians would certainly retreat in fear,” he said, taking me in his arms, “but you shouldn’t discount the work that you do with the wives.” He cupped my chin. “Without you we would have no one to come home to.”
Thirty-Five
April 1842
While the government assembled José’s fleet, the Italian Legion defended Montevideo from the Argentinian force’s constant bombardment. To the Montevideans, José was their savior. The Italian Legion, which people affectionately called the Redshirts, were cheered as heroes. The Italians walked around with pride, wearing their red shirts even when they didn’t have to. It was a pride I had never seen in our people.
With José’s rise in popularity came a number of people who wanted to be around him, which also meant that they wanted to be around me.
Our home became a hub of activity and meetings. The women were always in my kitchen. I had no peace and quiet. In actuality it wasn’t the constant stream of people who came and left at all hours of the day that drove me mad. It was the gossip. Who wore the better dress? Can you believe it, Maria was flirting with the butcher? When she knows very well he’s married. It was a buzz that fluttered around my kitchen, sowing seeds of chaos.
For days I thought about ways to keep the women busy and productive, but nothing worked. That is until, by chance, Father Lorenzo brought up an intriguing opportunity. It was a lovely afternoon as I let Menotti play in the central plaza with a group of children. The boys ran in circles, playing by rules logical only to those in the thick of the game. Around us, people meandered from one shop to the next, sitting at cafés across from the plaza. It was as if the people of Montevideo had collectively decided they weren’t at war.
“Dona Anita, what a pleasure to see you,” the priest said with a smile as he approached me. “My goodness, you are going to have that baby any day now, aren’t you?”
I smiled in return. “It would certainly appear that way.”
Menotti, accompanied by two little boys, sweaty and out of breath, ran up to Father Lorenzo. The good father had gained a reputation for carrying sweets with him that he freely gave out to the children. He reached into the folds of his robes and produced a candy for each child. He offered one to me, which I tried to decline.
“Save them for the children,” I said, trying to wave him away.
“I am. This one isn’t for you.” He winked. “It’s for your baby.”
I thanked him as I took the honey-flavored sweet, and we sat on a park bench to watch the children play. Father Lorenzo had a genuine care for his parishioners. He didn’t view his position as a place of power but as one of assistance. “It is most fortunate that I should find you,” he said, looking out at the children playing. “I understand you have some expertise in hospitals at wartime.”
I nodded, squinting into the afternoon sun. “I worked as an aide during the Ragamuffin War.”
“Montevideo’s hospital could use you.”
“I’m going to be very busy soon. I’m sorry, but I have to decline,” I said, placing a hand on my belly, but soon a thought occurred to me. “But I may have a solution for you.”
With Luisa’s help, I formed the Montevideo Ladies’ Brigade. While I prepared for the birth of my child, the women went door to door collecting money for the hospital. They also volunteered two days a week to help the sick and injured. The women were happy; they got to gossip all they wanted. Father Lorenzo received the help he needed. As for me, I got my house to myself.
I was sweeping the floors when I felt my waters slide down the insides of my thighs. “José!” I called out. “The baby is coming!” It was shortly thereafter that the cramps came, violent and so strong that I doubled over on myself. The child wasn’t going to wait for the midwife to arrive, whether I liked it or not.
I lay on my side on the sofa and tried to breathe through the pain and hope that the child would wait. José rushed for the midwife, and within moments of her arrival my tiny daughter lay in my arms, wide-eyed and curious about the world around her. When she let out a little yawn from her tiny pink lips, I thought my heart would explode. José quietly slipped into the room, his happiness evident on his face.
“They told me I have a daughter.”
“It’s true.” I smiled. “Come say hello.” I passed our daughter over to him. His large hands cupped her head as they stared at each other.
“She is such a pretty little thing, isn’t she? As pretty as a rose,” José said, entranced by our daughter. “Our little Rosita.”
“I thought girls didn’t get an ‘-ita’ added to their name until they became women.”
José stood up, bringing Rosita back to me. “Not my girls. They will always be considered women.”
Thirty-Six
January 1845
In the two and a half years following Rosita’s birth, our shining city deteriorated into crumbling ruins. As I made my way into town, I felt sorrow for what it had once been. Buildings collapsed in on themselves, windows were broken, and the sickly sweet smell of garbage filled the air and stuck to the back of my throat. I was long past the morning sickness stage of my latest pregnancy, but walking through the streets of Montevideo made me feel ill all over again. José continued to run missions for the government while I led and organized the women. We needed each other in order to survive.
Argentina continued to tighten its grip on Uruguay, attempting to invade from the east and north. They effectively cut off any supplies from Brazil, leaving us to fe
nd for ourselves. Unfortunately, we were not prepared for this, having spent so many years relying on goods from other countries. Meanwhile, the French sat idly by, claiming to be seeking a diplomatic resolution with Argentina. Making my way down Avenida Rincón, I could see that most of the shops were deserted, their windows hastily covered by boards. I walked into the candlemaker’s shop, the tinkling bell echoing off the empty walls. Ghosts of what had once been haunted the dusty shelves. “Hello?” I called out for the shopkeeper.
He walked out from the back room, wiping his hands on a cloth. His wire-rimmed glasses rested low on his nose. “How can I help you, senhora?”
“I need some candles.”
“Don’t we all, senhora.” The shopkeeper sighed, then reached below in his cupboard and pulled out a pair of tall candles. “This is my last pair.”
“Your last pair? How?”
“I can’t get any more wicks for the foreseeable future, senhora.”
“Very well. I shall take them.” I handed over my money.
“Senhora, this is too much.”
“No, I believe this is what is necessary for taking the last of your supply. Have a good day.” I took my candles and left before he could argue with me. I did the math in my head of what was left in my purse. We would be skipping meat again tonight.
As always, my little family seemed to weather the storm. Menotti continued to grow, reminding me of a small pony in the way that his arms and legs grew faster than the rest of him. He was a miniature José, looking more and more like his father every day—except for his dark hair and scrutinizing black eyes. All the women remarked on how he had his mother’s eyes. They sat around my kitchen table telling me that this was a good thing, he would see the world as I did. I smiled; my son would never be taken for a fool.
Rosita was the beloved child whom everyone fought over to get just a little of her attention. Luisa, resolved in the fact that she would never have a daughter of her own, fawned over her. In her mind, being the godmother was the equivalent of being a second mother.
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