“Go, my love, before I change my mind.”
He sighed. “Well, dream of me.”
Early the next morning, before the sun had even risen, I was awoken by a light coming in from the hallway. I opened my eyes and saw Mamma Garibaldi standing in the doorway, looking at me. When she saw me stir, she closed the door and left.
On our second day in Nizza we began unpacking our trunks. Cautiously, like a wild animal investigating something new, Mamma Garibaldi would come around us. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she would reach out and play with Ricciotti, tickling his belly or letting him wrap a firm fist around her finger. She wasn’t sure about Teresita, given her energetic outbursts, but I often caught her looking sideways at Menotti. Her brows knit as she silently scrutinized him.
In the morning of our fourth day, José pulled me aside. “I have a surprise for you.”
I looked at him curiously as he slipped his arms around my waist and whispered in my ear, “I found a way around my mother.” I put both hands on his chest and gently pushed him away, looking at him in surprise. “Be ready to leave just before dinner.”
“But the children, we can’t leave them alone with her.”
“I hired a nurse. She’ll help my mother. I want her to get to know her grandchildren. Spend time alone with them, see how wonderful they are.”
We stole away that evening while the children played with the nurse. We made our way to the ship, where José had a delicious dinner laid out for us on the deck. We ate by the glow of the setting sun, enjoying our time alone together. When dinner was finished, we retired to his cabin to finally have the freedom of being man and wife.
Forty-Nine
February 1849
In the months that followed we settled into our lives in Nizza. This included staying on José’s ship a couple of times a week. I wasn’t happy with our arrangement but believed José when he promised a house of our own when this war was over.
One morning I woke up in our cabin to the familiar pungent scent of salt, old fish, and ocean. The smells brought me back to Brazil. As I stirred in our bed, feeling disoriented, a pang of homesickness struck me. In Brazil I was a fierce soldier, in Uruguay and Genoa I could mobilize the women, but here, here I was trapped in a gilded cage with pink cushions. After years of purpose, spending day after day in my mother-in-law’s parlor made me feel like a limb that had withered from lack of use.
I rolled over and watched my husband sleep, my eyes tracing the scars that fanned out over his chest as it rose and fell with each breath. My fingertips grazed the puckered ridge of skin on his biceps, a harsh reminder of a bullet that missed its mark.
In the quiet of the early dawn, when only the lapping of the waves against the hull could be heard, I realized I longed not for Brazil but for the people we had been while in Brazil. Before the children. Before the glory. When it had been Anita and Giuseppe chasing the wind.
My stomach pitched and churned like the sea during a storm. I ran out of our cabin and rushed to the railing, making it to the edge just in time to lose all of its contents. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I began counting as realization seeped through me. José walked up behind me, tenderly rubbing the space between my shoulder blades.
“Tesoro mio, are you ill?”
I shook my head. “It would appear that we’re going to have another child.”
A broad smile spread across his face. “Another baby?” He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. He put his nose to my head and breathed me in, savoring the moment. “Another piccolo Garibaldi.” His voice was distant, his eyes were closed, and he looked at peace.
“We’re going to have to tell your mother.”
José sighed. “Can we just show up with the child?”
I laughed. “You mean just walk in with a baby in my arms? ‘Oh, look what I found at the market today.’ I have a feeling she will notice before then.”
José rested his chin on the top of my head. “We could say that you are becoming more voluptuous due to all of this wonderful Italian food.” I elbowed him. “All right, we will tell her soon, but for now I want to savor this moment.” I leaned my head back against his broad chest as we watched the water gently ripple around us.
I dreaded telling Mamma Garibaldi. She already hated me for ruining her son. There was only one way that she would take this. José formed a plan. We took her out to dinner at a local restaurant with crisp white tablecloths. Crystal water goblets sparkled with the reflections of the large gold chandeliers that were scattered around the ceiling.
When the chef found out that the Great Garibaldi was a patron of his restaurant he personally came out to greet us. Dressed in a fine black suit, the portly man bowed deeply. “What a lucky man to have such beautiful women by his side. I want you to know that you can order whatever you want. It is my pleasure to serve you at no cost.”
“Sir, that is too kind,” José tried to protest.
“No, no, my pleasure. I shall be able to say that the wonderful Garibaldi has eaten at my restaurant. It’s very good for business.”
The food was heavenly. Pasta in a decadent pesto sauce as well as roasted beef so tender that it melted on my tongue. All the while José poured wine for his mother. The more she drank, the more he filled her cup. When her cheeks grew as rosy as the wine she consumed, José said. “Mamma, Anita and I have some important news to tell you.”
Mamma looked up at José with bleary eyes and whispered rather loudly, “Are you sending her back to the Americas?” She hiccupped.
José cast a worried glance at me before continuing. “No,” he said slowly. “Anita is pregnant. You are going to have another grandchild.”
Mamma Garibaldi looked over at me as if I had the plague. “Why do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you.” The words flowed easily from my lips, unburdening me of their power. Regardless of what she said and did, she was José’s mother. Hating her would be like hating a piece of my husband.
Mamma Garibaldi’s watery blue eyes shimmered as tears began to flow down her sagging cheeks. “I have failed. I have failed as a mother. I don’t know how I can go on living.”
“Mother, you are overreacting.”
“Overreacting. Overreacting! I have done everything that I was biblically supposed to. I go to mass every Sunday. I made you go to mass. I have done my duty by God. Why does he punish me as if I were Job?” She moaned loudly. I looked around the restaurant, which had fallen silent as people began to watch us. “Your father is turning over in his grave. He would never have wanted this.”
“You act like such a fool.” José’s tranquil face grew dark and stormy. “What my father would have wanted was for me to find fulfillment, which I have indeed found.” Mamma Garibaldi opened her mouth to speak, but José lifted a hand, stopping her. “Whether you like it or not, this woman is my wife. I don’t care what you say or think. She is my wife. You will learn to accept her, or you will lose your son.”
Mamma Garibaldi sniffled, bringing her tears to a halt. She stared at her son in wide-eyed disbelief as he added, “I will not continue to indulge your hysterical delusions.”
“Very well,” she whispered, setting her napkin on the table.
The next morning as I placed the children’s breakfast in front of them, Mamma Garibaldi wobbled as she made her way into the kitchen. Forgoing her usual fruit and toast, she chose to only drink coffee. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the thick black liquid. Menotti and Teresita, usually very lively, cast furtive glances at each other, unsure of what was happening and how to proceed. José, no longer caring what his mother thought, had slept in the bed with me during the night but left shortly after the sun rose to work, and to avoid his mother. He came into the dining room with a newspaper under his arm and a box of cookies in his hands. He set the box down in the middle of the table and shoved the paper under my nose. “You were right.”
“Well, it’s kind of you to acknowledge the obvious,
husband, but I need more specifics,” I said, taking the paper from him.
“Austria attacks Milan!”
I snatched the paper from him. Austrian forces had gone back into Milan. They had jailed every member of the provincial government and declared martial law.
“The Austrians have undone everything that the rebel forces put together.” He smiled as he pushed a cookie into his mouth.
“You sound all too happy about this,” I said, bringing the pan back into the kitchen while the children, abandoning their breakfast, descended on the box of sweets in the middle of the table.
“I am!” José called to me. I walked back into the dining room, handing him his tea. “This means that all the dusty old tactics that those archaic politicians clung to didn’t work. I can show them that they can’t operate that way any longer, not if we are going to win this. They have to listen to me now,” he said with his mouth full.
“Does this mean that you are going to Milan?”
“No, it’s pointless, Austria has dug itself into the city.” José guzzled the remaining tea. “Contrary to popular belief, tesoro mio, I have not been vacationing here in Nizza. I have a plan. We are going to the Alps!”
“The Alps? Are you mad? You’ll be taking the fight directly to their door.”
“Precisely.” One corner of his mouth lifted in amusement. “I’ll be cutting off their supply line while simultaneously drawing them away from Milan. It’s going to be brilliant!”
I took his head in my hands. “If you go off and do this, promise me that you will do things your way. You won’t let them influence you like they did before.”
“Believe me, I will.”
“No, José, I mean it. It’s time to put your red shirts back on. Forget what the nobility says, you do what you think is right.”
José kissed me in response. “I have work to do.” And with that he left for the day, ignoring his mother.
* * *
As our time progressed in Nizza, more of our comrades appeared at our doorstep, including our dear Paolo, carrying with him Teresita’s dollhouse and plenty of other toys for the children. Standing a short distance behind him was a man with a messy crop of black hair and a well-trimmed beard.
“Anita, may I present Giacomo Medici.” The man bowed before entering the apartment. A descendant of the famed Medici family, he felt the burden of a legacy that was built long before he came into existence. Giacomo swore to do the one thing the Medicis had failed to do, unify Italy. His legion, named for his family, adopted José’s red shirts as a sign of unity.
Every evening more and more officers gathered at the Garibaldi house as they made their preparations. Mamma Garibaldi’s moodiness came in waves. Some days she enjoyed having José’s friends over. It reminded her of Peppino’s younger days. She fussed, making sure everyone had full bellies.
Other times she complained there were too many people in her house. She’d poke her head into the dining room, where they focused over maps and planned their strategy. She’d mumble something about wanting to be able to have her supper and then shuffle off to her bedroom.
The men gathered their provisions together, including making new red shirts. The night before they left, I slept with José on his ship. They were leaving the fleet here in Nizza for their march to the Alps. Using uncharted roads, they hoped to surprise their enemy.
“Remind me again why we can’t have a home of our own?” I asked him.
“Because being a patriot sometimes means sacrificing a salary that would help me take care of a growing family.” He kissed my forehead. “Anyway, it is good for the children to know their grandmother.”
I grumbled as I nestled closer to him. I hated living with his mother, but I knew our welfare was at the whim of kind benefactors, at least for now. “Promise me that once this is all over, we will have our own home.”
José stroked my hair. “Of course. We’ll have the villa we always talked about. A little farm with horses and an olive grove.”
“I want orange trees,” I said with a smile. “The olives will be for you, but the oranges, they’ll be for me. I love the scent of fresh orange blossoms in the morning.”
“I will plant a whole grove of oranges just for you.”
I lay there for a moment, dreaming of this piece of paradise that we would rest in once this battle was over, but there was one thing that it needed. “We need a tree.”
He chuckled. “There’ll be no shortage of those.”
“No, there has to be one tree whose only purpose is climbing.”
He turned his head, raising an eyebrow to question me.
“When I was a child, I climbed every tree I could, much to my mother’s dismay.” I laughed at the memory of my parents pulling me from a tree after mass. “Children, especially our children, need to have adventures of their own design. They need to be allowed to climb trees.”
José kissed my head. “Whatever you want, tesoro mio.”
* * *
Weeks passed, and I hadn’t heard anything from José. Every waking moment left me wondering what was happening to my husband and his men. There was hardly any news in the papers. I was going to go mad from either the lack of information or the forced solitude brought on me by my mother-in-law. When a messenger arrived at our door one morning, I pushed Mamma Garibaldi out of the way as I grabbed the letter he clutched in his hands. Furiously, I tore open the letter to find a note from Paolo. José was gravely ill with a fever and unable to leave his bed.
“I am going to José. I will be leaving the children here with you. The nurse will be here daily to assist you,” I said to my mother-in-law as she sat in her chair embroidering.
“Battlefields are no place for a woman. Besides, you don’t like me tending to your children.”
“Your son is sick. He could be dying. I would move heaven and hell to get to him, battlefield or not.”
Her shoulders sagged. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning before dawn.”
The next morning, I crept into the children’s bedroom. Teresita and Menotti were already awake and sitting up in their bed together. Menotti would soon be leaving for school in Turin, at nine years old, my little boy becoming a man. Ricciotti still slumbered in his crib. I kissed Menotti on the forehead. “Be brave, my love.”
Teresita wrapped her arms around my neck, burrowing her little face into my hair. “Mamãe, no go.”
“I have to, my darling. Papai is sick.”
Tears spilled out of her eyes. “No” was all she could say.
I wiped her black hair from her face. My four-year-old daughter, never afraid to speak her mind or push the boundaries. She and I were a lot alike, and because of that I worried for her. Teresita’s life would not be easy. “My darling, I promise you I will return. Until then, be a good girl.”
I pried her hands from around my neck and left for the north to be with José.
As we rode through the rolling hills of the northern Italian countryside, the messenger grumbled, “The rebel camp is no place for a woman.”
“I can assure you I have seen far worse.”
The young man looked at me sideways. The gray early light obscured his features. “My commander is going to have my head.”
“Don’t worry about your commander. I’ll personally see to it that you are properly rewarded for your efforts.”
The scoff coming from his direction told me that he didn’t believe me. I paid him no mind as I turned my attention to the fairy tale cottages that we passed. This land was truly as beautiful as José had promised. In my time here, I began to see why he loved it so much.
When night fell, my companion grew nervous. “Madam, it’s not safe. We should find an inn for the night.”
“Don’t be silly. You said the camp is in the mountains? We’ll easily make it there before dawn.”
“There could be thieves. Most definitely wolves.” The boy shuddered. “Madam, I must implore you.”
I turned m
y horse to face him. “We all must grow up sometime, young man. Now, show me where the camp is and maybe you can be worthy of that stubble you call a beard.”
He rode on without a word. The moon was high and clear, leading our way.
The men had taken shelter in an abandoned castle. Half of the building had crumbled, stone scattered everywhere as the earth attempted to reclaim it. Many of them were in tents dotted among the ruins. I rode through looking for José’s tent, watching as men came out to see who this strange woman was.
“Anita? Anita, what are you doing here?” I looked down from my horse at Paolo. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, his suspenders hanging from his waist, his face only half-shaved.
I hoisted myself from my horse. “Paolo!” I was relieved to see him. “Where is my husband?”
“He has a room in the tower, but I didn’t intend for you to come here.”
“What did you expect when you told me he was sick?”
I started to walk past him, but he grabbed me by the elbow and hissed in my ear. “No one knows that I sent word to you.”
I placed my hand on his. “And they won’t.” It went without saying. I was a woman and therefore not wanted on a military campaign regardless of who I was married to.
As I walked through the crumbling building, I removed my gloves and riding cloak, tossing them to the side. Medici stood up from a table. “Madam, what are you doing here?”
“My husband. Where is he?”
“Mrs. Garibaldi, this is no place for a lady.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Medici, I have seen worse. I ask you again, where is my husband?”
His lip twitched. He closed his eyes for a moment, composing himself. “This way.” He led me through the common area and up the stairs. I pushed past Medici as he opened the door to José’s room. Instantly I was hit with a warm breeze that smelled of sweat and sick. “Who has been tending to him?”
“I have—” Medici began.
“It’s a wonder he isn’t dead,” I grumbled as I threw open the shutters. “You.” I pointed to a servant. “Douse that fire.” The servant looked from me to Medici, who gave the subtlest nod of encouragement.
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