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Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. Part One
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Part Two
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Part Three
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. Thirty
  38. Thirty-One
  39. Thirty-Two
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Part Four
  51. Forty-Three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Epilogue
  63. Author’s Note
  64. Acknowledgments
  65. Discover More
  66. Reading Group Guide
  67. Discussion Questions
  68. ESSAY FROMDIANA GIOVINAZZO
  69. Antoinette’s Sister
  70. Chapter One
  71. Chapter Two
  72. About the Author
  73. Praise forThe Woman in Red

“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

Part Three

Uruguay

Twenty-Six

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.