In a remote patch of Italy at the mouth of the Po river, there is a small town: a few isolated houses that a crane seems to have strangely set down in that flat, desolate countryside. The encounter between Hassan and Mara is drawn over this empty scenario. He is a Tunusian mechanic who has earned esteem and respect with years of hard honest work; she is a young schoolteacher, brought there by a temporary teaching job, while waiting to leave for Brazil on a cooperation project. Giovanni, eighteen years old and an aspiring journalist, spends a lot of time fixing an old motorbike in Hassan’s shop and he is something more than a witness to the love story between them. The story begins in an atmosphere of unrest, with Hassan who spies on Mara at night in the isolated house she took lodging in, and she, after chasing him away, establishes a relationship with him. Yet Hassan isn’t the only one attracted by Mara. Giovanni spies on her in his own way. Using his computer skills, he enters Mara’s e-mail and reads the messages she sends and receives. And before the tragic, unexpected turn the affair takes, even Giovanni turns his back on Hassan. Yet life is more contorted and painful than it appears…