Laurus

It would be a shame not to enter the city when we are only a half-day’s journey away, said the pilgrim Friedrich.

Moses was fated to see the Promised Land from a distance, but he was not fated to enter it, retorted the pilgrim Wilhelm.

Do any of us really resemble Moses? asked the pilgrim Friedrich.

Everyone who seeks the Promised Land resembles Moses, said Ambrogio. Is that not so, brother Arseny?

Arseny looked silently at Ambrogio and it seemed that Ambrogio’s head had risen above his body. The head was still speaking but it obviously no longer belonged to the body. A hazy shroud had enveloped Ambrogio’s body; it first became translucent and then dissolved completely. The others’ bodies were still showing through the haze but their futures were not obvious. They began wavering, too, revealing their transparent properties, as Ambrogio’s body had. Arseny feared he would lose consciousness. But he retained it.

The caravan’s movement grew even slower. Gusts of hot wind flung sand into the riders’ eyes. The camels kept stopping to munch on camel thorn and the donkeys stopped for no apparent reason. The sky was now as yellow as the earth because the sun had filled the sky’s entire expanse. Their eyes watered from the sand and sun but their tears dried on their lashes, before they had a chance to fall on their cheeks. This is why the pilgrims took the band of Mamluks for a clump of sun and sand.

At first, the clump truly was indistinguishable from a patch of sunlight or a sandy whirlwind, and it seemed to move just as irregularly. But it only seemed that way: the whirlwind was being carried right to the caravan. This band of Palestine’s Egyptian masters rode at full gallop and it looked as if they knew what they were seeking. Once the Mamluks had come closer, the pilgrims noticed among them the Arab who had gone off to check the road. The riders surrounded the caravan.

The Mamluks were dressed in padded red robes; yellow turbans towered on their heads. This saved the Mamluks from the sun’s rays, but obviously did not save them from the heat. The stale smell of their robes could be sensed even in the open air. The pilgrims, surrounded by Mamluks, inhaled the stench. The Arabs huddled at a distance, following the proceedings and smiling. They did not make even the slightest attempt to interfere.

The Mamluks’ chieftain—his gold-embroidered sash distinguished him—ordered all the pilgrims to dismount. Only those riding donkeys could do this immediately: it turned out not to be so simple for the rest. Brother Jean from Besançon, who was sitting on a camel, attempted to climb down to the ground but could not. He hung, holding onto the camel’s hump. Brother Jean was afraid to jump and his legs swung helplessly in the air. The Mamluks and Arabs laughed loudly. One of the Mamluks struck the monk on the hands with a whip and he flopped to the ground. The camel began roaring from the unexpectedness. It began stamping its front feet, landing a hoof on the head of Brother Jean, who was lying on the ground. This evoked another outburst of laughter. Only the Mamluks’ chieftain barely cracked a smile. Perhaps his rank did not allow him to laugh using his entire mouth. Brother Jean fumbled in the dust with his hands, as if he were drunk. His gray hair quickly soaked with blood.

The camels’ masters approached. The camels dropped to their knees when their legs were rapped with sticks. The pilgrims climbed down from the camels, not without some difficulty, and stretched their numbed legs. Arseny began approaching Brother Jean but was sent reeling by a punch. Arseny felt his nose begin bleeding. The stunned monk continued his strange motions. When he tried to get up, he looked like a beetle that had fallen on his back. He genuinely did amuse the prancing horsemen, so nobody was allowed to stop the entertainment.

Arseny grew frightened when he looked at the chief Mamluk. The Mamluk’s smile had transformed to a grimace. This grimace expressed neither laughter, nor hatred, nor even disdain. A hunter’s unbridled passion for his victim pulsed in time with a swelled vein on his temple. Even when sated, a cat will pounce on a bird with a broken wing because that is how the cat and all her ancestors were made: the bird acts like a victim and the sweetness of harsh punishment for the victim is, for the hunter, stronger than hunger and more demanding than lust.

The chief Mamluk flicked his arm with a sultry wail and then a spear shuddered in Brother Jean’s chest. Brother Jean gripped the spear so it would not shudder and would not break his ribs, then he turned on his side along with the spear. He began screaming, too, and that scream drove the Mamluk to ecstasy. The Mamluk extended his hand and was given a new spear; he hurled it with a new scream, landing it in Brother Jean’s side. The monk began screaming and pounding in the dust and the Mamluk again extended his hand and again hurled a spear, landing it in Brother Jean’s back. Brother Jean did not scream this time. He jolted and breathed his last. And it seemed to Arseny that the slain man’s face was Ambrogio’s face.

They began searching the pilgrims. After Brother Jean’s death, nobody dared protest. The Mamluks divided into pairs and took the pilgrims aside, one by one. Those who had been searched were ordered to move to the head of the caravan. Habit and experience were palpable in the Mamluks’ approach to their work. They first rooted around in bags, then moved on to body searches. The Mamluks knew well where coins were hidden. They ripped open linings and the double bottoms of bags, turned cuffs inside out, and tore off boot soles. Money was not made of paper in the Middle Ages and it was not at all simple to hide.

Arseny’s turn came. The Mamluks took only his money, which they cut out of his caftan’s lining with one slice of a knife. What lay in his traveling bag did not interest them. They motioned to Arseny to move forward with his camel. Arseny did not move because he saw Ambrogio’s severed head on the ground. The head’s eyes looked intently at Arseny. The tongue was visible in the half-open mouth. Blood oozed from the nostrils. Arseny was nudged forward with a kick. Arseny made several wooden steps. He went forward, even as he continued looking back. Powerless to tear his gaze away from Ambrogio’s head.

A pair of Mamluks now took Ambrogio aside. They made him raise his hands and searched him. (Arseny pushed away the Mamluk who was escorting him and took a first step in Ambrogio’s direction.) Ambrogio calmly observed as the golden coins were cut from his caftan. They checked his traveling bag, like Arseny’s, with no particular thoroughness. They had almost let Ambrogio go when an Arab came over, exchanged glances with the Mamluk, and nodded at his traveling bag.

The Mamluk pulled the icon lamp out of Ambrogio’s bag. Its embedded stones blazed in the midday sun. Ambrogio grabbed the lamp from the Mamluk and said something to the interpreter. (Arseny moved in Ambrogio’s direction, shaking off the arms that twisted around him.) The interpreter translated, watching sunbeams play on the stones. The Mamluk reached again for the lamp but Ambrogio drew his hand away, not allowing the Mamluk to touch the lamp. Ambrogio did not see that the Mamluk in the embroidered sash had ridden up behind him, and that he raised his sword, and that Arseny kept pace with the Mamluk and grasped onto his leg with all his strength.

Ambrogio saw an angel with a cross slowly lowering himself onto the bell tower of Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. The angel hovered for a moment, gauging how to make a precise landing, then slowly submerged the base of the cross into a gilded ball on the spire. The angel was returning to his usual place after renovation and restoration work. An Mi-8 helicopter spread its blades over him, creating a downward air current. It was under these less-than-simple conditions that industrial climber Albert Mikhailovich Tynkkynen affixed the base of the cross with bolts of a particularly durable alloy. The mountain climber’s long hair blew in all directions, getting in his eyes and mouth. Tynkkynen regretted that he had forgotten his cap in the helicopter—he always put it on when installing something under a rotorcraft—before descending onto the cupola with the angel. Annoyed, he reproached himself for his forgetfulness and reproached himself, too, for the long hair that he always promised himself to cut when he was in the heavens, breaking the promise back on earth every time because he was secretly proud of his hair. He scolded himself with sincerity, though his choice of utterances did not overstep certain boundaries: he was, after all, constrained by the presence of an angel. Despite all the interference, Albert Mikhailovich could see a lot from the height of 122 meters: Zayachy Island, Petersburg, and even the country in its entirety. He could also see that an ungilded but absolutely real angel in distant Palestine was raising the Italian Ambrogio Flecchia’s soul to the heavens.