Writing
A professor saves the life of a wounded hitman who, in exchange, promises to find and kill his enemy. Even though the professor says he has no enemies, the killer goes on a mission and transforms the professor's life.
Salvo was five when his father Vincenzo was arrested, practically before his eyes. Seven years later Salvo lives with his uncles and his cousin a controlled and peaceful existence in the Turin area, but his father returns and claims his son for four days. Vincenzo has to carry an important load to Bari and brings Salvo (nomen est omen) with him as insurance: a child is better than a gun, he says, because his presence in the event of a possible police detention can have a distracting effect . This however is not the only reason why Vincenzo wants Salvo with him, and the "Salv-atore" child will prove to be a potential vehicle of redemption for that messed up father, but not entirely devoid of feelings and attentions.
75-year-old Giuseppe De Metrio has spent 30 years in Geneva, as foreign worker for the Broyer company. Upon retirement, he returned to Puglia, Italy, where his family had continued to live. His only grandchild, 7-year-old Carla, is blind. The whole family looks forward hopefully to the day when Carla's sight can be restored by means of a cornea transplantation. After a heart attack, Giuseppe decides to wait no longer and returns to Switzerland to ask his former boss Mr. Broyer for the money necessary for the operation, as an old promise binds the two men. Intended as a 48-hour trip, Giuseppe and Carla's visit in Switzerland becomes a journey that both grandfather and granddaughter never dreamt of...
Athens, 1943. An apartment is requisitioned to provide accommodation for a German officer. In the apartment live the Helianos, a middle-aged couple who used to be well-off. He is an intellectual, moderate and patient. She is an anxious housewife. They have a ten-year old son who is filled with melodramatic revenge fantasies and a twelve-year old daughter. With the arrival of Captain Kalter everything is wiped out. The methodical, ascetic, cruel Kalter is a military god who inflicts terror. And the Helianos give in, submissive. They are now servants, with no identity other than their acquiescence...
