Reviewed by Amalia Clarice Mora
Title: The Delicate Balance of Little Lives
Author: Jessica Faleiro
Self-Published, 2018 (supported through a grant from the Government of Goa’s Directorate of Art and Culture)
The Delicate Balance of Little Lives is a short story collection by Jessica Faleiro, the award-winning Goan author of the Afterlife: Ghost Stories from Goa.
This collection offers a glimpse into defining moments of five women whose lives intersect. The proximity of defeat is a central theme in all the stories; the women are close to falling off the edge of their lives but, somehow, never do. Instead, they navigate through the solemn and unexpected and even the catastrophic (rather than overcoming “triumphantly”). They enjoy the small mercies and secrets that prevent them from losing their hold on stability, but which are also the reason they have to cling so desperately to this stability in the first place.
There is Suzanne, a once well-known concert pianist whose fame and musical confidence have waned with age. Alcoholism is her stealth, insidious disease, but alcohol is also an elixir that provides her with the confidence to play at her only gig as a hotel lobby musician. Liquor dulls “the sharp edges of her feelings”, the cruelty of a lover who keeps her at bay, and the memory of a past lover, Rohan, who had asked her to quit the drinking — and the piano playing that necessitated it — but who was unwilling to give up a vice of his own.
The doorbell interrupted Kiara’s flow of thoughts. She moved towards the door and looked through the peephole. Instantly she had a smile on her face. She opened the door halfway to see Rishi in his business suit holding his laptop bag and a takeaway package which she knew contained her favourite sandwiches from a stall near his office.
“Sir, could you repeat that?” The female voice on the phone asked.
Do you have a story to spare?
To Die in Benares*, (2018) translated from the French by Blake Smith, is a collection of seven stories, which have this cathartic effect. I will illustrate this by analysing the first story “A Paper Boat in the Ganges”, which centres on the life of Fougerre who has to confront Aristotlean obstacles in his life; colonialism, mythological gods, and fate. Set in Pondicherry at a time when it was still under French occupation, the story covers almost fifty years and presents a compressed montage of brisk, vivid scenes each with intense gesture and detail.It opens with these weighty lines:
