Freda Lippi comes home one afternoon to find her apartment overrun by the police and her ventriloquist husband, Alberto, his dummy, and her parrot, Pierino, gone without trace.

Though distraught about Pierino, her true soul mate, Freda feels nothing short of exaltation at the thought that the husband she despises may never return.

From there, she chronicles the surreal events of the days that follow with flashbacks to her own tragic life that explain why she married Alberto; from the horrific accident that devastated her world as a teenager, to the life-changing cruise around the Mediterranean with a sinister but hilarious one-armed companion; from the funeral parlor where Freda works by day as an embalmer, to the seedy cabaret where she performs at night, unleashing her repressed passions.