This powerhouse of religious hysteria stared at me, her eyes shrinking into suspicious slits, and said, “Which is?”

“How to nurture Christ within oneself.”

“And where did you hear such things?”

Even I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth. “At the last radeniye. I am expected again tonight.”

And this woman, who was but a crumb of her former self, said, “Well, then, you had better get your coat and come straight away with me, because we’re both late. And tardiness is the one thing ‘our own’ cannot abide.”

I was so mad at Papa that I hoped he checked and saw that my side of the bed was empty. Just let him boil in worry, I thought as I followed Madame Lokhtina through a back alley and onto a side street.

But while being devious felt like the best revenge, what was I getting myself into? What I really wanted, of course, was to be with Sasha. And yet, wiping the last tears, now frozen, from my eyes, I glanced all around and realized he was not about. I really and truly had sent him on his way. Resigned, I trudged on after my father’s most fanatical devotee.

In Russia there had never been such a thing as a conservative priest, much less a liberal one. There was only one Orthodox Church with only one liturgy, just as there was only one tsar. In fact, any Russian knew that to be anything but Orthodox was heresy and strictly punishable by beating or lifelong imprisonment or both. By law there was no deviation from any of the official church doctrines. Last year it had taken me hours to try to explain this to a girl I’d met, the daughter of an American diplomat. She claimed that in her country religious opinion could and often did vary from church to church, which I myself barely understood. Something like that could never happen in Russia. In our country, pravoslavni actually didn’t mean just Orthodox, it meant the “correct worshipers.” The Catholics and Lutherans, even the Muslims, were always from different countries and only barely tolerated here. Beneath them came pagans like the Buddhists, lower yet, of course, the Jews. And at the very bottom were the schismatics, those Russians who dared to seek another path.

Because there was officially only one God and one tsar, one orthodoxy and one Russia, anything different-any splinter group that preached a different liturgy or outlook-was called a sect. Supposedly, there were hundreds of sects scattered all across Siberia. It was only out there, at the back of beyond, that one could escape the government’s reach, build a free life, and nurture any kind of independent thought, let alone a religious one. Sometimes even Siberia wasn’t far enough. If caught, a sectarian could be whipped and lashed; in the old times, it was said, their nostrils were cut off. After Peter the Great had initiated church reforms-he placed the church under his control, encouraged men to shave, and required his subjects to cross themselves with three fingers, not four-the Old Believers broke away from the state church, fleeing all the way through Siberia and, finding themselves still hounded, across the Aleutian Islands to our most distant territory, now owned by the Americans. Other secret sects hadn’t gone so far; they could be found hidden along forgotten rivers and in distant villages. Though no one admitted to membership or even firsthand knowledge, one heard regular whispers of the Skoptsy, who believed in castration as the way to deal with sexual feelings, the Dukhobory, who were known as pacifist “spirit wrestlers,” the Subbotniki, whose religion fell somewhere between Christianity and Judaism and who, it was said, practiced necromancy, the Molokans, who rejected the divinity of the tsar by drinking milk on fast days, and many others. Not long ago I’d heard a group of women talk right in our apartment about whole villages where personal property was condemned as sinful and whose residents lived as one large family. Supposedly, the peasants owned and worked the fields jointly, and both the monarchy and capitalism were condemned. Even more shocking, there were no priests, only people of the people who conducted church services.

But while every Russian knew of the sects and swapped titillating tea-table gossip about them, no one openly admitted to being a sectarian of any kind. That was why I was so struck by Madame Lohktina’s claim of a Khlyst radeniye taking place tonight, right here in the capital. Could it really be made up of a group of princes and dukes, countesses and baronesses? As I followed her through the dark, I probably should have been afraid, but it never crossed my mind. Instead, a strange sense of exhilaration began to seep into me.

As she scurried along, Madame Lokhtina suddenly burst out, saying, “ Nazareth was not unique. No, not unique at all!”

Because no one knew what would set her off, Papa had always told me to avoid her lest she launch into some tirade. But tonight I didn’t care. In fact, I wanted to hear it all, see it all.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m talking about the birth, of course. The one there in Nazareth, when God was born a man!” She shook her head as if trying to shake away some evil thoughts. “It didn’t just happen once, you know. It couldn’t.”

Trying to keep her talking, I said, “Of course not.”

“Exactly. The birth-it’s being repeated all the time. Once you submit, once you recognize the power of the Holy Spirit, that’s when it happens. A new Christ is born! A new Christ who can heal the sick and see the future! A new Christ who can save us all on Judgment Day!”

“Yes, I’ve learned that’s one of the principal beliefs of the Khlysty-”

She spun on me like a crazed animal, grabbing me by the arm, her eyes afire. Terrified, she looked behind us for someone, anyone, who might be following us down the deserted street.

“Shh! There are things-names-you must never mention! Never!” She pulled off one of her tattered gloves, pushed up my sleeve, and sank her cracked fingernails into my naked wrist. “Never!”

“Yes.” I winced.

I tried to pull my arm from her painful clasp, but she wouldn’t release me. Indeed, she drew me closer, pressing her lips close to my ear. I cringed as her dank, steamy breath poured against my cold skin and spilled like old tea down my collar.

“Some used to call us the Cod People, but our true name is this.” She checked the street again, to make sure we weren’t being observed, and then pressed her dry, cracked lips right against my ear and whispered, “Khristovshchina,” the Christ faith, “that’s our real name, though you must never speak it.”

“Of course not.”

“It was only the dark ones, the evil priests, who changed our name. They sought to darken us, to blacken us with rumor and innuendo, so others would stay away. And yes, it was the priests who branded us with that name.” As fierce as a drowning person, she pulled me close again. “They called us the Khlysti”-The Whips, the Flagellants. “But they lie! They say terrible things and they say we cut off the breasts of virgins and eat them! The priests lie to protect their positions and keep their gold gowns and pearled hats!”

“Perhaps,” I said, as scared of her as I was of her blasphemous words.

“It is truth!” she nearly screamed.

This time it was I who firmly took hold of her. Latching my arm beneath hers, I tugged her along.

“We must hurry.”

“I tell you the truth. I do!”

“I know, I know. But we’re late and…and someone will notice us if we stand here much longer.”

Madame Lokhtina flinched at the thought and glanced furtively up and down the street, searching the deep night for secret agents.

“Look!” she gasped. “I saw something move, a shadow! Someone’s back there, someone’s following us!”

I looked carefully but saw nothing, only a deserted street. “Come on, we must keep going.”