Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary

Wide-ranging Chapter 6 opens in August, 1939, with shipping between Cochin and England on hold for fear priceless cargo will perish at sea. Aurora, as heiress to the Gama Trading Company's enterprises, storms to the docks to investigate the situation. There, in the spice-rich atmosphere of the warehouse, she meets and falls instantly in love with the duty manager, a handsome young Jew named Abraham Zogoiby.

Abraham goes to the synagogue to inform his mother Flory about his intentions. Mother and son lock horns over what she considers betrayal of his heritage. Between them, with fury and tears, fly the facts of the history of the local Jewish community, drawn in successive waves over millennia from Babylon, Palestine, and Spain.

The narrator next sketches the story of Flory Zogoiby, "Epifania da Gama's opposite number, her equal in years": her pugnacious childhood, marriage to...