Two brothers grow up in a loveless house with their father, after the unexplained death of their mother. Miguel, the elder brother, copes by wandering restlessly, until one day he stows away on a cargo ship to Greenland. Leaving his brother, Jorge, to absorb the tantalizing tales of the servant woman Adia, whose stories and infallible memory give him a vivid picture of his mother when she was alive, of the golden age of their fading city, once a Spanish port town in the Pacific, where Vasco da Gama's great flagship the San Gabriel strayed long ago on its voyage to India, met disaster and sank. None of Adia's seemingly inexhaustible stories can explain her strange connection to Jorge's family or why she ended up raising the two boys. Obsessed by with his mother's death, Jorge strives to understand the past. His search takes him to the capital, where he learns of his family's struggles through war and politics. There he also discovers that Adia's enchanting tales have concealed her own role in the family's tragedy. A poetic story about love, heartbreak, and the curative wonders of childhood.