I watched from behind a pillar as Senhora Silva kissed the palm of his hand. “You will never let us be in that position.” Such a simple act, that kiss, but it filled me with immense jealousy. I wanted someone whose palm I could kiss in the middle of a busy street. Someone I could give little affections to, not caring who saw. Someone I could trust. I wanted a partner. My basket handle creaked under my tightening grip.

A few days later Manoel sat at our table, stinking of stale ocean and the pungent sour smell of iron and mud that comes from gutting fish. He wiped a dirty hand over his tired face as he watched me finish making supper. I dropped the plate of pan-fried fish and rice in front of him.

“Why do we have to eat this slop again? I know we have no money, but we don’t have to eat the same food every day.” He knocked the plate off the table with a swipe of his arm. “Pick that up and make me something else.”

“No.”

Manoel quickly stood up, throwing his chair back. “You will obey me! I am your husband and it is your duty to do what I say. I am tired of you defying me. Because of you I am an embarrassment! Now pick that up and make me something else.”

“You can eat it off the floor for all I care. I am not your slave!” He reached his hand back to hit me. I stared at him without flinching. “Go ahead.”

He lowered his hand without taking his eyes off me. “Why do you hate me so much? Why can’t you be a good wife?”

“Because you picked the wrong woman. You are weak and pathetic.” My eyes narrowed, taking in his hangdog expression. “Look at you…You make me sick.” I spit.

He stormed out of our house without saying a word. He was going to find comfort at the bottom of a bottle. I looked around me at my meager home, which I hated, living with a man I hated even more. This wasn’t the life I wanted to live. It was time I made a change, even if it ruined me. I packed a bag and left the apartment, never to look back.

Five

February 1839

The disputes of the rich are the burden of the poor. The magistrates of Rio Grande do Sul, the state south of Santa Catarina, decided to break away from Brazil, led by General Bento Gonçalves. A former friend of Dom Pedro I, the great Portuguese king who had liberated us from colonial rule, Gonçalves considered himself a proud monarchist. He had stood by Dom Pedro’s side when he declared, “I am staying!” in the face of the colonialist nobility that wanted to keep Brazil from moving forward. Gonçalves had escorted the Queen Regent Leopoldina to the historic meeting on that sunny September day in 1822, where she signed the declaration of independence keeping us from becoming a colony again.