Synopsis

A magnificent journey into the daily life of the Milanese PCI in the 1970s: a party bureaucracy spread across the territory, managing to organize and control everything and everyone—districts, production sectors, and unions—with an amusing meticulousness that went so far as to appoint officials from prostitutes, gravediggers, and even the fashion industry. 1977. Bruna Calchi is found murdered in her flower stand near Milan's monumental cemetery. The Italian Communist Party is experiencing a moment of maximum electoral expansion and power amidst a wave of national solidarity, while Italy is gripped by Red Brigades terrorism. Calchi is a PCI militant, a member of the Sempione branch; she is active, controversial, and combative. Could this be a political murder? The investigation by Inspector Modena, a democratic police officer with left-wing sympathies, begins cautiously. These are tense years, and facile simplifications must be avoided. The Party's part is equally cautious and far more secretive, entrusted to the chairman of the arbitration committee, Dondi, and his deputy, Cavenaghi. Nothing must remain unexplored: Bruna's private life, which was beautiful and sought after, is thoroughly investigated, as is her home, where a substantial bearer passbook is discovered among the books. When it emerges that the murder weapon is an old German-made Machinen pistol, the arbitration committee becomes alarmed, as the weapon could be part of a consignment of submachine guns from the Second World War, later hidden by the partisans in the section's cellar. At that point, they hastily cover up the whole thing, moving the section to prevent police discoveries that could compromise the democratic credibility of the Communist Party, and, thanks to the party's widespread presence throughout the city, they are able to anticipate the police's every move. In concentric circles, like the city of Milan, the investigation expands ever further. Numerous leads are pursued, and even as they fall one after another, they allow investigators—and readers—to discover a gallery of fantastic characters, from obscure militants to petty opportunists, from powerful intellectuals to high-ranking officials, populating the Milanese PCI as we traverse an evocative area of ​​historic Milan, the Fiera Sempione, scrutinized in its most hidden corners.