Diogo Mainardi - The Fall - A Father's Memoir in 424 Steps

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At that moment, the Narrator decides to write a book about his past life, because in order to interpret his feelings it is necessary, above all else, to transform them into ideas, to transform them into “equivalents of understanding.”

The book he decides to write is In Search of Lost Time .

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On our walks through Venice, Tito was always stumbling.

When this happened, I was filled with a sense of happiness. Preventing Tito from falling in Venice gave meaning to my life.

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The book that transforms my feelings into their equivalents of understanding is this one.

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(Picture Credit 1.18)

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In the previous image: Marcel Proust, dead.

The photo was taken by Man Ray. It dates from 1922.

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In the weeks prior to his death, Marcel Proust ate just one croissant a day.

To go back to Tommaso Rangone: the food that proved to be most harmful to Marcel Proust’s health was the croissant.

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For Marcel Proust, a walk through Venice was the equivalent of reading Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy .

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In the Divine Comedy , Dante Alighieri is always counting the number of steps or paces from one place to the next:

There were less than a hundred paces between us .

Or:

We took ten steps to avoid the sand and the flames .

Or:

We walked a thousand steps along the solitary path .

Or:

We were separated by only three paces .

Or:

Even after we had gone a thousand steps, we were as yet as far from them as a good slingsman could throw a stone .

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Walking with Tito in Venice, keeping right behind him so that I could steady him if he should fall, I counted each step he took, as if I were reciting Dante Alighieri:

Uno … Due … Tre … Quattro … Cinque … Sei …

Sette … Otto … Nove … Dieci … Undici … Dodici …

Tredici … Quattordici … Quindici … Sedici …

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When Tito stumbled — and he always stumbled — I would stop him falling and start counting again from zero:

Uno … Due … Tre … Quattro … Cinque … Sei …

Sette … Otto … Nove … Dieci … Undici … Dodici …

Tredici … Quattordici … Quindici … Sedici …

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In the previous image: Tito and I are preparing to ascend — in circular fashion — Dante Alighieri’s Mount Purgatory.

The drawing is by Sandro Botticelli. It dates from 1480.

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The sixteen steps Tito took on 28 September 2005 became, some months later, twenty-seven steps. Some months later, the twenty-seven steps became forty-four steps. Some months later, the forty-four steps became seventy-one steps. Some months later, the seventy-one steps became one hundred and eighteen steps.

Each step Tito took was complete in itself. Each step Tito took was a brief chapter of his story.

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On 11 January 2008, Tito took three hundred and fifty-nine steps.

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I commemorated this event in a column:

Edmund Hillary died on 11 January. On the same day, my son took three hundred and fifty-nine steps. Climbing Mount Everest, as Edmund Hillary did, might seem just slightly more significant than my son taking three hundred and fifty-nine steps, but for someone who has cerebral palsy, as he does, taking three hundred and fifty-nine consecutive steps without help, without falling, without smashing his teeth, is an epic event, at least in our family mythography. If my son is Edmund Hillary, then I must be his sherpa, Tenzing Norgay. He lurches from side to side, progressing slowly and uncertainly meter by meter, I remain in the rearguard, pointing out the smoothest route and saving him from falling. My son walked those three hundred and fifty-nine steps during the holidays in Venice. We are already planning our next challenges. First, we will walk three hundred and fifty-nine steps on Corcovado .

Then, three hundred and fifty-nine steps in the Acropolis. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps along the Great Wall of China. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps in the Sahara desert. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps on Mount Everest. My son and I will travel round the world on foot, three hundred and fifty-nine steps at a time .

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Tito’s steps became my unit of measurement. I began calculating all our journeys based on them.

In Venice during the holidays, the return trip to Bar da Gino took one thousand, one hundred and ninety-four steps. The trip from our house to Fondamenta delle Zattere, via Calle Querini, where Ezra Pound lived, was much shorter: five hundred and twenty-seven steps.

In Rio de Janeiro, the route from our apartment to Posto 9 on Ipanema beach was four hundred and eighty steps. The route from our apartment to the swimming pool at the Hotel Fasano was five hundred and seventy-one steps.

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In the previous image: Tito and I are walking in Venice. I am counting his steps, one by one.

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A passage from my fourth and last novel.

The protagonist, Pimenta Bueno, who has injured one foot and is unable to walk, is being carried on the back of his servant, Azor:

PIMENTA BUENO: Count the number of steps to Utiariti.

AZOR: One … two … three …

PIMENTA BUENO: I want to work out how far we are from our goal.

AZOR: … six … seven … eight …

PIMENTA BUENO: It can’t be many more kilometers now.

AZOR: … ten … eleven … twelve …

PIMENTA BUENO: We’ve been walking for more than six hours.

AZOR: … fifteen … sixteen … seventeen …

PIMENTA BUENO: According to my road map, we should have arrived by now.

AZOR: … twenty … twenty-one … twenty-two …

PIMENTA BUENO: Never trust Brazilian maps.

AZOR: … twenty-four … twenty-five … twenty-six …

PIMENTA BUENO: We always get the measurements all wrong.

AZOR: … twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty …

PIMENTA BUENO: We lack mathematical reasoning.

AZOR: … thirty-two … thirty-three … thirty-four …

PIMENTA BUENO: We lack any real familiarity with numbers.

AZOR: Is it thirty-six or thirty-seven?

PIMENTA BUENO: What do you mean?

AZOR: I’ve lost count.

PIMENTA BUENO: You’ve lost count?

AZOR: I can’t remember if I’ve taken thirty-six or thirty-seven steps.

PIMENTA BUENO: Start again.

AZOR: From zero?

PIMENTA BUENO: From zero.

AZOR: One … two … three …

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The novel was entitled Against Brazil .

It was published in 1998, two years before Tito was born and ten years before he took his three hundred and fifty-nine steps.