The 55 year old coroner's clerk Mario Cornejo is infatuated by his neighbor, the burlesque dancer Nancy Puelmo. After a show at the night club Bim-Bam-Bum, he offers her a lift in his car. In a street they drive straight into a protest march. Nancy recognizes her friend Victor and leaves the car. In the evening Victor and other activists have a meeting in Nancy's home. She gets bored of them and goes over to Mario's place. They have sex, Mario invites her to a restaurant and asks her to marry him, which she rebuffs with a laugh.
Some days later Mario finds Nancy's house demolished, and no one there. When he arrives to the autopsy clinic, where he works, all rooms and corridors are filled with dead bodies, and soldiers posted everywhere. Mario is commanded by a captain to carry in more and more corpses, as they arrive. Some hours later Dr. Castillo, the aide Sandra Carreno and Mario are taken to another building, where they are told to carry out a post mortem examination of the dead president Salvador Allende.
Back home Mario helps Nancy hide in a small room behind a big cupboard. He brings food to her, but when he suddenly finds Victor there, making love with Nancy, he feels betrayed.