The Maria Pension

Cairo Publishing

The Maria Pension

Sometimes it really must be fate that has it in for us. Celestino and Piera have been married for thirty years, they’ve worked all their lives like mules and now when they should be enjoying a well-earned rest in their little farmhouse in Alzano Lombardone, the law declared by a weeping female minister together with the complicity of a blood-sucking bank has reduced them to poverty. Thank God Pio and Emilia, their two beloved children, have decent jobs… or at least that’s what mum and dad believe. So, after a life-time of working like busy little ants, the couple – one without a pension, the other forced into retirement – must come up with a way to make things meet. Without a doubt, Cele and Piera are good people, but when she accepts a cleaning job in the prison at Opera, everything changes. Thus begins the Aiello’s epic deeds as criminals by chance, who apply the seriousness of a lifetime of hard work to cultivating and selling marijuana. Reliable and punctual, the two oldsters build up a vast clientele in the flourishing Milanese open air drug market under the noses of the real gangsters by offering a unique product at zero kilometres and with an unmistakeable homemade flavour. And finally, the money comes in, rivers of money. But perhaps the Aiello’s criminal adventure, like everything else, is not destined to last forever…