Everything but not the Duce, not the "young Italian" marching under the scorching sun of summer Saturdays. Gelsomina was the desperation of the whole family. All disciplined fascists, they found themselves at home with that demon who, as small as a bird, fearlessly proclaimed that she was a communist, that she would not marry, that she wanted to study and work, that she did not really think about bringing up ten bratty children and staying at home mending socks ... but where had she heard those things? When the war broke out Gelsomina took advantage of it and, conscientiously, she too enlisted, but in the ranks of the women who frequented the casinos all over Italy. She wanted to be free and it seemed to her that belonging to so many men was like belonging to no one. Her battle name was Mimì and she was a woman with a great spirit who, thanks to the constant travels imposed by the tour of "La Quindicina", carried the messages of the Resistance that was being organized all over Italy. When the Americans entered Italy she felt that she, too, had made history.
"La Quindicina" Until 1958 in Italy prostitution was legal but it was however practiced exclusively in small houses or brothels, where prostitutes were subjected to medical and legal control by the state. By law, however, a prostitute could not stay in a brothel for more than fifteen days. Hence the name of fifteen, which was a group of prostitutes who, every fifteen days, migrated from one casino to another, going around the brothels of Italy