Death and the Maiden

Sonia Faleiro’s debut novel explores the lonely corners of loneliness. Not an urban loneliness but a more inevitable and universal one that can unsettle anyone, anywhere.

The Girl once had a mother, a grandmother, a greedy uncle and his family. Some left her, she the others. Her mother dies in an accident, the grandmother holds on for long and the grandfather is left to live and eventually die in a home for the elderly. ‘‘He died of old age and loneliness. He went because he had no memories left and no one to create new memories with. He left because when he spoke to himself he realized he said nothing he wanted to hear.’’

The Girl, meanwhile, finds love and work in Azul. In the hotel where she works she meets Luke, a backpacker who exudes that almost ‘‘imperceptible scent of careless fascination for change’’. And not one but twice will he leave her. The third time he will stay on, in an empty house, because the Girl with a child in her womb would have gone deep down into the sea.

Faleiro’s slim—it’s just 124 pages—novel explores the everyday Goa, one that’s not included in the bouncy ‘Go Goa’ invitation. It’s a narrative of simple complex lives in places that are not on perpetual holidays. Places of incredible beauty but for many, a haunted beauty.

There is Simon, a general store owner ‘‘twenty-six and tired of the view from his shop window.’’ His was the only shop in the village but still studiously avoided by all. The musty post-expiry date labels were destined to remain sulking on shelves till one day Simon renovates and reinvents his shop. He even convinces his mother to leave her husband and move back to Azul. And so Mama Lola starts her version of the Sad Cafe in the Village of the Dead. Then there is Father Costa, who disappears two days after the death of the Girl.

If the Girl’s relationship with Luke is one of failed possibilities, the one with Simon is an unborn one, completely in the realm of hope. It’s this twisted reality that lends The Girl its poignant moments and makes it so readable.