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and breathing through their mouths, heads held back, eyes closed, hands knotted together in prayer, but there was a space around the form that spun, a ring of awe and dimness between the breathing circle and the white cloth turning. It would be a man, only a man altered to become a silent turbine, just the beat of his right foot on the floor and the hiss of the edge of his smock cutting the air. The arms werestretched out, the left heel pivoted on the floor as if fixed and oiled, the smock billowed up, and he spun, too fast to see his face, though Mutz believed it was Balashov. The smock and breeches were eyeburning white, turning so fast it seemed like a shimmer standing still, a spinning seed caught between the tree and the ground, held there whirling in a meeting of winds.
    A woman fell to the floor, crying out words in a language Mutz didn’t know, and lay there twitching and shaking her head from side to side. A man Mutz recognised from the street stepped forward and began to turn like Balashov. The breathing began to fall into time with the beat of Balashov’s foot as he spun. The assembly breathed louder, filling and emptying lungs to their limit in a second. Two more people fainted and a man screamed about the spirit. The second spinner collapsed on the floor, shook his head, got to his feet, staggered like a drunk, and prepared to spin again. Balashov whirled on, then he fell, and was caught by two worshippers. He lay in their arms. His eyes were open, but very far away.
    Gradually the breathing and the talking in tongues lessened and, without speaking, the celebrants walked to and fro across the warehouse, embracing and kissing each other on the cheek. Some drank tea. The movement began again. One after another, like Balashov, they began to spin, and the whisper of the hems in the air and their breathing and the gentle beat of their moving feet were like a crowd of children running through a wheatfield, trying not to be heard. Balashov rose and spun again, drifting to the middle of the room. An eagle-like woman, with a heavy brow, hooked nose and broad shoulders, was beside him and one by one the others fell or fainted or stopped spinning and stumbled back to the edges. After a time only Balashov and the eagle-like one were left, their faces and bodies half transparent, fogged with speed, spinning with the handsof their outstretched arms crossing, like wheels of a marvellous engine, joined but not touching, in unity and harmony. A sharp sound came from the eagle-like one, arcing out into the roofbeams, and she spun away from Balashov and began to slow down until she stopped and stood still, upright, bright with sweat, hair slicked and wild like a egret, dress sticking to her flat, smooth chest. Was she a woman?
    ‘Brothers and sisters, Christ that you are,’ said the eagle. ‘I have flown to a high place, in an emerald aeroplane, to the eyes of God. Angels dressed me in a coat of leather, white as snow, and diamond pilot’s goggles, and a leather helmet, like pilots wear, only white. I flew for many hours through the darkness until I could see, far away, the great, bright eyes of God burning, like two Londons in the night. As I grew closer I could see the million electric lamps of heaven, millions upon millions of shining lights, and the sound of angels singing from a hundred thousand gramophones. God’s words pass to earth through telephone wires as thin as spiders’ silk, my friends, as numerous as all the hairs on all the heads in Russia, and the angels most favoured of the Lord drive golden cars, with tyres of pearl, and horns of silver. I flew my emerald aeroplane across the face of God, and far below, on a green hill, by a river of electricity, I saw Jesus Christ our Saviour talking to our Christ, our angel, our brother Balashov. I see him returning now, brothers and sisters, I see Gleb Alexeyevich returning from heaven, with his news, with his messages from God. He is coming back! He is here!’
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