Soviet Union. Emilio Guarnaschelli, a young 23-year-old communist from Turin, is arrested and sentenced without trial to three years of exile in Pinega, a remote village in Karelia, beyond the Arctic Circle. Emilio Guarnaschelli used to use irony at meetings with comrades in Moscow, which did not bring him luck. Irony like, “The horizon is an imaginary, unattainable line. Now I understand why Comrade Stalin says socialism is on the horizon!” His girlfriend, Nella Masutti, travels by train, then by boat, and finally by sleigh to join him, in that forgotten place, which will become their love nest for three years. Then Emilio will discover, as often happened, that he has been sentenced to another sentence, this time five years of forced labor in Central Asia, while Nella is expelled from the USSR. Emilio will never be heard from again. Nella, repudiated by her father for being with a traitor to communism, emigrates to France and for years tries to convince her brother-in-law to hand over her husband Emilio’s correspondence. She finally succeeds, and in 1979, the letters are published in France (Une petite pierre) and are also required reading in French public schools. In 1939, the fascist Italian government and the Soviet Union conclude a secret prisoner exchange agreement. At the specific request of the Italian consul regarding Emilio Guarnaschelli, a Soviet official sends a brief telegram declaring that Emilio Guarnaschelli died on April 14, 1939, in Kazan, of peritonitis. But is this true?
