Your Steps on the Stairs – Preparing for the Apocalypse
Islands are being swallowed up by the oceans. Species of animals and birds are becoming extinct. Air is toxic and water poison. It’s the third hottest year on record. President Trump is blaming environmental laws for the fires raging in California. Trump, and other dictators, are asserting power wherever they can. The wealthy are building underground bunkers to survive when disaster hits. The end of the world is here.
A man (we learn later in the novel that his name is Bruno) and his partner, Cecilia, lived in New York City during 9/11. Before that terror attack, the couple overlooked the difficulties, and oftentimes, the insults of living in Manhattan – the rats, crowded subways, streets piled with garbage, homeless people occupying park benches, the smell, oh, yes, the smell. When Bruno looses his job, summarily dismissed without a pension or a thank you, they decide to leave. They have an apartment in Lisbon and that city presents the best option for waiting out earth’s remaining days.
Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Your Steps on the Stairs is a fever dream based on reality. While the world is a long way from melting down (we hope!), we can easily believe that unless major changes are made in the way we take care of the planet and each other, the clock is certainly ticking. The narrator, Bruno, is trying his best to take care of himself, Cecilia, and their dog, Luria. While Cecilia, a neuroscientist, closes up her lab in New York, he works to set up their Lisbon apartment to look exactly like the one they had on the Upper West Side. He enlists a local handyman, Alexis, to help, although at times he resents the man’s interference.
His days settle into a routine – shopping, walking Luria, watching planes take off and land from the nearby airport. He often muses about Cecilia’s work with rats, how she set up cardboard mazes, embedded electrodes into their brains, and conducted experiments to measure their fears. His isolation begins to resemble what those rats must be feeling, prisoners with no way out.
Although he worries that his memory is failing, he can easily recall what he and Cecilia did in New York, the plays they enjoyed, the restaurants that became favorites, the museums they visited. He can visualize how Cecilia looked at special moments, what she wore, how she moved her hands when she spoke. He can hear her voice and her laughter, although there are no phone calls from her and their Lisbon landline has saved no voicemails.
As time wears on, Bruno’s grip with reality loosens. He obsessively reads a book detailing Captain Cook’s disastrous expedition to Antartica, relating to the explorer’s plight. Even Luria senses the changes in her master’s demeanor, huddling in a corner when before she might have come bounding out for a greeting. The ending, although we sense it coming, is still jarring.
Molina is a beautiful writer. He has the talent for describing mundane tasks and ordinary days that make these encounters seem fascinating and special. New Yorkers, especially West Siders, will recognize some of the places he notes, even including special dishes that he and Cecilia enjoyed.
Your Steps on the Stairs will resonate with many who share Bruno’s fears for where we are now and where we are headed. Let’s just hope it’s not too late.
Your Steps on the Stairs
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translation: Curtis Bauer
Top photo: Bigstock
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