Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary

In Chapter 2, we begin getting to know Aurora and are introduced to "the legends of the battling da Gamas of Cochin." A brief vignette of Aurora as a tall, thin, thirteen year old, living in her grandmother's household suggests the family's troubles. Outwardly, the perfect child, she is depicted as a mutinous, inventively vicious prankster, at odds with her grandmother Epifania. The teen relishes Epifania's torment by mosquitoes that she admitted to the house by night, and by toying with her uncle Aires and father Camoens by committing acts of petty thievery and vandalism. We learn that Aurora wants to "killofy," clandestinely, the fiery, ruthless, unbalanced matriarch Epifania, whose nature she has inherited. We begin to fathom the dysfunction that has affected the family for generations, in glimpses of Aires' homosexuality and Camoens' superstitions (Aurora's pranks convince him that the house...