Of all the people living in Florence, merchant Therapont’s announcement only seemed truly important to one person: Ambrogio. The young man sought out Therapont and asked him about the basis for this conclusion that the end of the world was coming in 1492. Therapont replied that this was not his conclusion but that he had heard it from competent people in Pskov. Unable to substantiate the fatal date, Therapont jokingly proposed that Ambrogio head to Pskov for clarification. Ambrogio did not laugh. He nodded pensively for he did not rule out that possibility.
After this conversation, Ambrogio began taking Russian (old Russian) lessons from the merchant. The older Flecchia had no inkling how his money was being spent. For his part, Ambrogio wisely said nothing to his father: the existence of Rus’ would have seemed even more dubious to the older Flecchia than the specifics of the 1494 war his son had once described.
It was at this same time that Ambrogio Flecchia met Amerigo Vespucci, the future mariner. Looking at Vespucci’s eyes, Ambrogio had no trouble realizing where his course lay. It was obvious Amerigo would head to Seville in 1490, where he would help finance Columbus’s expeditions through his work at Giannotto Berardi’s trading house. Beginning in 1499 and inspired by Columbus’s successes, the Florentine himself would undertake several voyages and all so very successfully that the newly discovered continent would be named for him rather than Columbus. (In that very same 1499—and Ambrogio could not help but tell the merchant Therapont about this—archbishop Gennady Novgorodsky would compile the first full Holy Scripture in Rus’, which was subsequently called Gennady’s Bible.)
Ambrogio directed Amerigo Vespucci’s attention to a strange convergence of events foreseen for 1492. On the one hand, a new continent would be discovered, on the other, the end of the world was expected in Rus’. How much (Ambrogio’s quandry) were those events connected, and, if they were connected, then how? Could it be (Ambrogio’s guess) that the discovery of the new continent was the beginning of a lengthy, drawn-out end of the world? And if that is the case (Ambrogio takes Amerigo by the shoulder and looks him in the eye), is it worth giving your name to a continent like that?
Meanwhile, Arseny’s lessons with the merchant Therapont continued. Ambrogio read a Slavonic Psalter the merchant had with him and, it must be said, understood much of it, because he knew the Latin text of the Psalms by heart. He listened to Therapont’s readings with no less interest. At his request, each Psalm was read through multiple times. This allowed Ambrogio to remember not only the words (he had already learned them during the reading) but also the specifics of pronunciation. To Therapont’s surprise, little by little, the young man became his phonic twin. The Russian originals of the words Ambrogio pronounced could not always be discerned immediately, but at times—and this happened ever more frequently—Therapont involuntarily shuddered as the purest intonations of a Pskov merchant issued from the Italian’s lips.
The day arrived when Ambrogio knew he was ready to head for Rus’. The last thing the Florentines heard from him turned out to be a prediction of a horrifying flood, fated to descend upon the city on November 4, 1966. As he pleaded with the city dwellers to be vigilant, Ambrogio pointed out that the Arno River would overflow its banks and that a body of water with a volume of 350 million cubic meters would gush onto the streets. Florence subsequently forgot about this prediction, just as it forgot about the predictor himself.
Ambrogio headed for Magnano and informed his father of his plans.
But the boundary of the inhabited expanses is there, said the older Flecchia. Why are you going there?
Perhaps on the boundary of the world, replied Ambrogio, I will learn something about the boundary of time.
Ambrogio did have his regrets about leaving Florence. A considerable number of worthy people (Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello Santi, and Michelangelo Buonarroti) whose roles in cultural history were already clear to him were passing their time there. Not one of them, however, could contribute the slightest clarity to the only issue meaningful for Ambrogio: the issue regarding the end of the world. That issue does not disquiet them, Ambrogio noted to himself, for they are creating for eternity.
In the last days of his life in Florence, Ambrogio was favored with several visions, large and small. The visions were not completely comprehensible to him and he did not tell anyone about them. They were not related to world history. The events he saw related to the histories of individual people, and it is they, or so it seemed to Ambrogio, who ultimately form world history. One of the visions—the least understandable for him—touched on the large country to the north, where he aspired to go. After some deliberation, Ambrogio decided to tell the merchant Therapont about the vision. What follows is the short version.
In 1977, Leningrad State University sent Yury Alexandrovich Stroev, who was right on the verge of becoming a candidate of historical sciences, to Pskov for an archeological expedition. Yury Alexandrovich’s dissertation, which was devoted to early Russian chronicle writing, was nearly finished. It lacked only a conclusion containing findings, but the dissertator just could not write it. Whenever he sat down to work on his findings, Stroev began thinking they were incomplete, trivialized his work, and, in some sense, nullified it. It’s possible he was simply burnt out. That is, in any case, what his research advisor, Ivan Mikhailovich Nechiporuk, thought. And Nechiporuk, as it happened, was the person who had included Stroev in the archeological expedition’s team. The professor figured the findings would fall into place on their own after Stroev got some needed rest. The professor had tremendous experience as an advisor.
The members of the expedition were housed in private apartments in Pskov. Stroev’s apartment was in Zapskovye, on Pervomaiskaya Street, not far from the Church of the Image of Edessa, which was built during the great pestilence of 1487. The apartment consisted of two rooms. A young woman with a five-year-old son lived in the large room, and they settled Stroev into the small room. They told him the woman’s name was Alexandra Muller and that she was a Russian German.
The German woman introduced herself as Sasha. Her son, who greeted the guest along with her, was Sasha, too. The boy hugged her leg, turning Alexandra’s cotton print dress into tight-fitting pants. Despite being immersed in thought about his dissertation, Stroev noticed Alexandra’s shapely legs.
Stroev liked their building. It was an old red-brick merchant’s home. In the evenings, the windows glowed with a yellowish electrical light. When he came home from the excavation for the first time, Stroev stopped at the front steps to admire their glow. This glow was reflected on the Pobeda automobile that stood in front of the building. And on the round cobblestones in the roadway, too.
When he went in, Stroev saw Alexandra was drinking tea with her son. And he drank tea with them.
What is your expedition working on? Alexandra asked.
Someone began playing the violin on the other side of the wall.
We’re studying the foundation of the Saint John the Baptist Church. It has sunk considerably over the centuries. Stroev slowly brought his palm closer to the table.
The boy’s palms also nearly touched the table. When he noticed Stroev’s glance, he began drawing his fingers along the patterns on the oilcloth. The patterns were small and complex but the boy’s fingers were even smaller. He could handle this geometry easily.