By Bill Littlefield

Initially, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s resonant novel seems to be the study of the moods and challenges of a man waiting for the only person who gives his life meaning.

Your Steps on the Stairs by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Translated from Spanish by Curtis Bauer. Other Press, 304 pages, $18.99

The nameless narrator of this novel has moved to Lisbon “to wait for the end of the world.” Floods, fires, earthquakes, the fall of the World Trade Center towers, and various other disasters have convinced him that the end is imminent. The fact that he has lost his job may also have something to do with his reaching that dire conclusion, and his relocation.

But he is also in Lisbon to wait for his wife, Cecilia. He’s certain that she’ll be joining him. She is a scientist who studies how the brain deals with memories associated with fear and trauma. Can she learn how to heal by applying amnesia? Her work requires lots of travel, but the narrator seems certain she’ll be home soon. Until quite recently, “home” for the two of them was New York City but, according to the narrator, they have decided there’s no longer a reason to live there.

In order to help make the transition to Lisbon as comfortable as possible for Cecilia, the narrator has done his best to recreate in that city a duplicate of the apartment they occupied in New York. He has required the help of a couple of locals, one of them an exceptionally competent handyman, essential because the narrator appears to be a klutz. Aside from his contact with these folks and with his dog, Luria, the narrator has no social life at all, except for one evening when he attends a party using another man’s invitation. Here he meets a woman who reminds him for a moment of Cecilia. Later, he finds himself getting lost on the way back home. Throughout most of the narrative he spends most of his time arranging and rearranging small details in the apartment, moving food and wine about in the refrigerator. He is determined to make Cecilia feel comfortable immediately when she arrives. He reads about Admiral Byrd at Antarctica, and identifies with him because the explorer is alone and at risk. He spends lots of time sitting by a window from which he will be able to see Cecilia’s cab arriving at the door.

The narrator acknowledges that, since losing his job, which he hated, he has devoted himself to waiting for his wife. He suggests that she is comfortable with his choice.

The literary power of Your Steps on the Stairs lies in Molina’s meticulous descriptions of everything the narrator notices, from the colors of the sky to the smells of the city to the moods of his dog. The narrator’s world seems to be unhealthily hermetic, but he insists that he is content. Molina knows otherwise. He is a patient writer, and his novel will require a patient reader.

Evidence disputing the narrator’s contentment surfaces early. He lies to the handyman about his wife’s absence. From time to time, he acknowledges from that he’s unsure whether he’s in New York or Lisbon. “Now is then and it’s also right now,” he says. “I am here and I’m there at the same time.” Is this simply because he’s so effectively recreated the ambience of the New York apartment in the Lisbon address? Is it because planes fly over each place often and loudly? Is he perhaps experiencing something like what he’s heard Cecilia describe regarding the way the brain processes fear and trauma?

Sometimes the narrator himself wonders what’s happening to him. He recalls various things Cecilia has taught him about how the brain, “locked in the darkness of its bone cave”, works so that “everything you see is a mirage.” The narrator loses track of time. He becomes reluctant to leave the apartment, because he becomes easily disoriented when he’s outside. “As hard as I try right now,” he says, “I don’t know how many days or weeks I’ve been waiting for Cecilia.”

Initially, Your Steps on the Stairs seems to be the study of the moods and challenges of a man waiting for the only person who gives his life meaning. He and Cecilia appear to be well suited to one another, in a curious way, at least according to the narrator. She’s his teacher as well as his obsession. She values a good listener. His devotion to her is absolute. But, toward the conclusion of the novel, once we’re allowed to hear Cecilia’s voice, albeit on an answering machine that may or may not be old and that may be in Lisbon and may be in New York, we learn Your Steps on the Stairs is about something else altogether.

Bill Littlefield’s most recent novel is Mercy (Black Rose Writing).