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Back The Woman in Red Save as PDF
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

As the ball passed from my fingertips to the boy, I thought of my own little ones back in Nizza and the future we were building for them. The small child grinned up at me before running back to his family. I smiled. “He is a good, strong boy,” I said to his parents. “Perhaps one day he will play with my children. Maybe they will call each other friends, yes? By the time they meet it won’t matter that your son is from Lombardy and mine is from Piedmont, because by the time they meet we will all be one. We will be Italy.

“My son’s namesake, Ciro Menotti, dared to dream that. He dared to stand up to the Austrians and tell them that they could not oppress us any longer. That there would be an Italy and it would be glorious. But Ciro Menotti paid dearly for that dream. The Austrians killed him, all because he wanted a free fatherland.

“We are on the brink of seeing that dream come true. We are the lucky few who can stand here today and bear witness to the creation of a country. If you are lucky enough to see the hairs on your head go white or for your bones to creak, you can sit with your grandchildren on your knee and you can tell them you were here. You can tell them that you did something that mattered, that because of you they have a future. A future that is full of hope. A future that is free.”

The crowd erupted into loud cheers. “Will you stand by and watch while others bear the burden of history, or will you rise up so that your children can go forth with pride, so that they can say, ‘This is who I am. This is where I come from.’ So that they can say, ‘I am an Italian.’”

“Viva Italia!” The crowd erupted. “Viva Italia!”

I walked back to José and the other men. “You’re welcome.” I kissed José on the cheek as he took my place at the podium.

I listened to José as he rode on the energy of the crowd. For a while, he chanted with them. “Viva Italia! Viva Italia!” He grinned like he had on the day Menotti was born. He held up his hand and immediately the crowd stilled. “My compagni, wasn’t my wife something? You can see why I stole her from Brazil, yes? As she so eloquently stated, we need unification.” He looked around the crowd. “But France has determined that Rome should be its own country. That they shall not take part in our dream of Italy. How can we be unified when we have a country within a country? If your son is missing, do you not search for him? Do you not bring him back into the fold of the family hearth?