not have anything worthwhile to return to. Aurea has been purchasing beasts of burden to venture out of the sandy trap. When the old trader dies, Áurea, following a fresh trail in the sand by herself, sets out to return her family to civilization. She finds an international scientific expedition that, for the purpose of observing the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, had come to the remote desert to verify claims made by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity concerning the curvature of space. Áurea falls in love with Luiz, a young soldier escorting the expedition, whom she also asks to request permission for her and her family to return home with the scientists. Áurea hurries back home to bring her mother and daughter to the expedition. However, when she returns to her "house of sand", the dunes have further encroached upon her house; the mother has died, the daughter (also named Maria) has found refuge with Massu—but precious time is lost: they miss the expedition. Luiz had not only told her that he wanted to join the newly established Brazilian Air Force; he had also told her that the scientists would come back in a few months to continue their studies. She and her daughter check back regularly where the expedition had established a geodesic marker since Áurea does not want to stay in the desert mainly because, as she confides to her daughter, she misses "real music", that is, the classical music she played on the piano when she was younger. The expedition returns but Áurea misses it. Massu, who saw it with his son, did not tell her about it. When Aurea realizes that she had missed her lifeline back to her world, she resigns herself to her fate and links up with Massu. As young Maria grows older, Áurea is troubled by the fact that she, out of boredom, has become a drunk and cheap prostitute for the young men of the Island, aborting her pregnancies. Their fate is fundamentally altered when, in 1942 (the year Brazil declared war on the Axis powers), a Brazilian military plane crashes in the ocean nearby. A search party is sent out that is commanded by Luiz, now a high-ranking officer with the Brazilian Air Force. Luiz, who is married, first sees Maria and is reminded by her of her mother Áurea (in fact, Maria now is played by