I fantasmi si vestono nudi

There is no fog tonight. The portico of St. Luke’s is a winding play of light and shadow, echoing with the echo of a procession: at this hour? Strange. Santo, seventeen years old, faces the steep climb to the basilica on Colle della Guardia on foot: mute, thoughtful, disappointed with the way his life is going. He dreams of being a cyclist but, for now, his father’s friend and former partisan comrade, Arci, has landed him a job as a printer’s apprentice. Which is a tight fit even before he starts it and which – although he doesn’t know it yet – will soon get him into trouble with the law. But on this very doubtful and unsatisfied night, destiny has a surprise in store for Santo: as he stops to catch his breath, he meets Chrysanthemia, a beautiful, sweet, blond… and naked. And dead. When? A decade earlier, in 1945, just a few hours before the Liberation of Bologna. Where? There, in the orphanage on the bend not for nothing called ‘delle Orfanelle’. How? She does not remember, but it was a violent death. Santo thus finds himself in the unusual role of investigator, much to the concern of his widowed mother and his friend Biella. Comrade Arci, on the other hand, is willing to lend him a hand, although he is not so willing to believe that he is engaged to a deceased girl.