Italy, 1943–1944
Cesira is thirty-five years old; she is a native of Chocharia, a mountainous area south of Rome. As a young girl, she married a shopkeeper, moved to Rome, gave birth to a daughter, and at first she was very happy - until she revealed the true face of her husband. But then he became seriously ill and died (Cesira looked after him as befits a loving wife), and again she felt almost happy. She had a “shop, an apartment and a daughter” - is this not enough for happiness? Cesira barely knows how to read (although he thinks money is not bad) and is not interested in politics. There is a war going on, but it really does not know who is fighting with whom and why. The war is even profitable so far: trade is going faster than in peacetime, because they and her daughter are trading in the black market and successfully speculating in food. She is firmly convinced that no matter the circumstances, Rome is not in danger, since "Pala lives" there.
However, Mussolini will soon return, the Germans will come, the streets are full of young men in black shirts, and most importantly, the bombing and hunger will begin, and Cesira decides to wait out this “bad time” in the village with his parents. She herself is a strong woman and is not afraid of anything, but her daughter, eighteen-year-old Rosetta, is timid, sincerely religious and very sensitive. Cesira proudly believes that Rosetta is embodied perfection, “almost holy,” however, she will soon come to the conclusion that perfection, based on ignorance and lack of life experience, crumbles like a house of cards in contact with the dark sides of life. In general, despite the fact that Cesira is a simple, almost illiterate woman, she is endowed with a realistic natural mind and observation, insightful, sees through people and is prone to a kind of philosophical generalization. Unlike most peasants, for whom nature is only a habitat and an instrument of production, she sees and feels the peculiar beauty of the Italian mountains, now covered with emerald grass, then scorched to the whit by the hot sun.
Cesira intends to spend no more than two weeks in the village, but the journey drags on for a long nine months, full of adversity, deprivation, bitter experience. They are unable to get to the parents of Cesira, because they, like the rest of the villagers, fled from the impending war. The town of Fondi, which Cesira remembered so noisy and lively, the doors and windows boarded up, as if a plague had passed through the streets, and the surrounding crops were abandoned. In the end, two women find refuge in one strange family, of course not for free (Cesira has hidden a huge sum by peasant standards - one hundred thousand lire). Here, for the first time, Cesira is convinced that war, violence and lawlessness reveal the most unsightly qualities of a person, those who are customary to be ashamed of in peacetime. Concetta, her silly husband and two deserter sons, without a twinge of conscience, steal and sell property abandoned by neighbors because. these things, in their opinion, "do not belong to anyone." Concetta is ready to sell the innocent girl Rosetta to the local fascists in exchange for the safety of her sons. At night, Chezira and her daughter flee to the mountains, where many refugees from Fondi are already hiding, remove the old shed from the peasant, which has stuck to the rock, and stock up on food for the winter.
Accustomed to prosperity, Cesira is struck by the incredible poverty in which the peasants of Sant-Eufemia live (they even use chairs only on holidays, the rest of the time they sit on the ground, and the chairs hang from the ceiling), and the respect that they have for money and people, having money. Refugees from Fondi - merchants, artisans - are richer, they have not run out of money and products, so they spend all their time eating, drinking and endless conversations about what will happen when the British arrive. These ordinary people do not hate either their own or the German fascists and do not understand why they “root” for the allies. The only thing they want is to return to their usual life as soon as possible. The most amazing thing is that everyone is sure that with the advent of the Allies, life will be much better than before.
Only one person, Michele, understands what is really happening in the country. Michele is the son of a merchant from Fondi. He is an educated person and unlike any of those with whom Cesira had ever met. What impresses her most is that Michele, brought up under the fascist regime, hates fascism and claims that Mussolini and his minions are just a bunch of bandits. Michele is only twenty-five, there have been no significant events in his life, and therefore, because of the simplicity of his soul, Cesira believes that his beliefs arose, perhaps, simply from the spirit of contradiction. She sees that Michele is an idealist who does not know life, and his love for peasants and workers is more likely theoretical. In truth, practical, cunning, down-to-earth peasants do not particularly favor him, and his own father calls him a fool in the face, although he is secretly proud of him. But Cesira understands what a pure, honest, deeply decent man he is, she loves him as a son and is hard going through his death (he dies when the end of the war is near, blocking the peasants from the shots of the brutalized Germans).
The life of Cesira and Rosetta in St. Eufemia is poor in events, but the war is approaching, the first meeting with the Germans takes place, which immediately convinces the locals that nothing good should be expected from them (the refugee, who was robbed by Italian fascists, seeks help to the Germans, and they ultimately take the stolen goods to themselves, and they send him to the front to dig trenches). Cesira sees with her own eyes that Germans, Italians, deserters, her neighbors all behave like dishonest people, and it crossed her mind again and again: in order to recognize a person, you need to see him during the war, when everyone shows his inclinations and nothing not holding back.
Winter passes, Sant Eufemia experiences German raids and English bombing, famine and danger. In April, refugees are happy to learn that the British broke through German defense and are advancing. Cesira and Rosetta, together with the rest, descend to Fondi and find a pile of ruins on the site of the town, and from the balcony of the surviving house, American soldiers throw cigarettes and lollipops into the crowd of refugees. It turns out that Rome is still occupied by the Germans and they have nowhere to go. Here in Fondi, under the sound of American cannons, Cezira falls asleep and sees in a dream a room full of fascists, the faces of Mussolini, Hitler, sees how this room flies up into the air, and feels wild joy, realizes that it must have been without knowing it , always hated fascists and nazis. It seems to her that everything will be fine now, but the war is not over yet, a new ordeal is ahead: in a remote village Moroccan soldiers rape her daughter, they rape her in the church, right at the altar, and soon Cesira realizes that these few minutes have changed Rosetta beyond recognition . "Almost holy" becomes a libertine. Cesira returns to Rome, as she had dreamed, but in her soul reigns not joy, but despair. On the way, the robbers kill Rosetta's friend, and Cezira, completely disgusted with herself, takes his money, but this death rips off the mask of callousness from Rosetta’s face, she cries “about all people maimed by war”, and in Cesira’s soul, hope is revived.
