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A foreign academic once did a study on the statistics of crosshatching, tallying the balance by quarter, neighborhood and street, types of building, even down to the species of tree in the parks. Unsurprisingly, the resulting monograph was banned in both cities because of the evidence it brought to light about areas which, in the 16th and 17th centuries, were allegedly crosshatched, and yet are not so in the cities of today.
Nonetheless citizens in either city would readily tell you – their conclusions based on intuition rather than study – that apart from Copula Hall, places of worship are almost the only buildings in the cities with crosshatched interiors.
Take, for example, the magnificent Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on KarnStrász in Besźel and the Cathedral of the Transfiguration on Ul Maidin in Ul Qoma, both located some 500 metres from Copula Square.
Both are grand buildings, the fruit of the nineteenth-century Byzantine revival in Eastern Europe. Although their main domed nave is crosshatched, the dome is supported by monumental pillars, breaking up the edges of the space into subsidiary chapels that are mostly total in one city or the other. The mosaic of the Theotokos over the main entrance to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was designed by one of the artists responsible for the Church on the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg; a small but steady stream of Ul Qomans visit Besźel to admire it. By contrast, the glorious Pantocrator of the dome is total in Ul Qoma, in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration alone. There is no option for Besź worshippers weary from a long liturgy to tilt their heads back and gaze up at the ceiling, lest they be tempted to let their eyes drift into focus – and therefore breach.
The iconostasis is crosshatched, a riot of icons blended (or so it might seem to the visitor) promiscuously together. In fact each icon is strictly located in one city or the other, and their inhabitants have no difficulty whatsoever in recognising that fact. In their colour, style, subject matter and script, they are all distinct. When Vrubel was creating the mosaic of the Theotokos in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, it reportedly took him several months to paint an initial study that was distinctly Besź enough in style to satisfy his commissioners, who recognised the dangers inherent in designing for such an intensely crosshatched space.
One chapel in the cathedrals, unusually, is claimed by neither city. It remains dark, its brickwork unrelieved by icons or by the play of candlelight. When asked about it by the foreign media – always fascinated by these things – the Archbishop of Besźel only smiles and says, "it belongs to heaven."
Occasionally unifs – or perhaps worshippers of Orciny – leave small offerings, a flower or two seemingly fallen by accident onto the gritty tiles at the edge of the liminal zone by the unclaimed chapel. Or, if greatly daring, a tealight flickering at the corner of the wall. These are cleared away quickly and without comment by a babușca in the same way she plucks candles unsentimentally out of the sand of the brass candle stands once they have melted down to a lump of guttering wax.
***
While the Besź Orthodox Church is an autocephalous archbishopric, the Ul Qoman Orthodox Church is an exarchate, more strictly referred to as the Metropolis of Ul Qoma. Like the Metropolis of Hav, it exists somewhat anomalously under the Archbishopric of Ohrid.
The Ul Qoman Orthodox Church is, of course, somewhat less prominent than its counterpart in Besźel. In Ul Qoma, churches – whether Orthodox or Greek Catholic – are slightly outnumbered by mosques and synagogues, and vastly outnumbered by the temples of the native-grown Cult of the Light. Some Ul Qomans still think of their Eastern Orthodox neighbors as migrants – generations back – from Besźel. The Besź naturally disagree. So, for that matter, do the Ul Qoman Orthodox.
Yet the increasing secularisation of Ul Qoma – coming in tandem with the rise of the New Wolf economy – has perhaps had the greatest impact on the practice of Orthodoxy in the two cities.
Even in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration during Holy Week there are gaps between the thronging Ul Qoman worshippers, visible floor tiles amidst the skirts and newly shined shoes even as their Besź compatriots are packed shoulder to shoulder. As the whole of the interior is crosshatched, an outsider might expect to see Besź and Ul Qoman worshippers mixed promiscuously together, but most people still instinctively leave some space between themselves and their grosstopic neighbors, guarding themselves in little ways against the threat of breach.
Many smaller churches have their services conveniently, coincidentally arranged at different times from those of their grosstopically adjacent neighbors. Different churches, in different cities, mesh themselves together in their eagerness to remain apart. Ul Qoman worshippers drift away at the end of a service, chatting and still carrying pieces of antidoron, on their way home or out to the great market on the Maidin, while in Besźel the bells (easily distinguishable by their tone) ring furiously in the call to worship and women pause outside, adjusting their headscarves and crossing themselves before entering.
Yet many of the larger churches, and all of the cathedrals, have schedules too full and complex for informal diplomacy – and formal diplomacy is out of the question.
So services press together like tesserae, together making up a mosaic as intricate as those that decorate the walls and arches and ceilings of the churches. In this arrangement the native worshippers find nothing confusing. Even in a single city, in a single church, Divine Liturgy is an intricate ballet. Litanies are chanted, the bishops and priests and deacons make their processions, icons are censed, worshippers light candles and cross themselves and prostrate themselves on the tiled floor.
"We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth," reported the delegation sent by Prince Vladimir of Rus to Constantinople, after they had attended Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sophia. Yet worshippers are always certain whether they are in Ul Qoma or Besź.
According to ancient tradition the colors of the vestments are slightly different in the two cities, as are the colors and styles of icons. Worshippers themselves make their own informal distinctions. The Besź tend to wear drab colors; women fold their headscarves in triangles and tie them loosely at the back of the head, often letting their hair fall loose beneath the scarf. Ul Qoman women wrap their headscarves more tightly, in spirals echoing Ul Qoman traditional dress, and the bright colors of the fabric they choose is often set off by sequins. Besź and Ul Qomans dye their eggs different colors on Easter and they bake their prosphora into different shapes. There is, in short, no danger of confusion.
There is an art to unseeing, a grace inherent in the avoidance of those who dwell so close but remain untouchable. Orthodox tradition holds that angels enter the sanctuary along with the priests, that the Sanctus is chanted alongside 'thousands of Archangels and ten thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring aloft.' So perhaps it does not seem so strange to the worshippers of Besź and Ul Qoma that others hover nearby at the edge of their vision, like angels present but unseen.
There is a saying in Besźel, Rain and woodsmoke live in both cities, but the same is not true for incense. Ul Qoman incense is more heavily scented, redolent with cinnamon and musk, and the priests cense it more generously. Clouds of smoke drift across the faces of Besź worshippers in the cathedrals and one can occasionally see them blink, consciously unsmelling, afraid of breaching where they stand.
Besź have been known to incautiously grumble about Ul Qoman incense even though they have never visited Ul Qoma. The wind, so another saying goes, wafts smells a long way.
***
In America or Western Europe, Besź and Ul Qoman immigrants sometimes worship together. In small towns this is usually in the local Greek or Russian church. In cities there is often a jointly owned Besź/Ul Qoman church, its schedule of services eloquently symbolising, in its linguistic notes, the story of a compromise between two communities.
17 Thurs The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Matins (B) & Liturgy (B+E+I).
19 Sat Vespers (E).
20 Sun The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. Matins & Liturgy (E).
26 Sat Saturday of the Departed. Liturgy (I). Vespers (I).
27 Sun Pentecost. Sunday of the Holy Trinity. Matins & Liturgy (B). Vespers with Kneeling Prayers (B+E).
(These days, to accomodate converts and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants, many churches hold the majority of their services in English anyway.)
Meanwhile, immigration to Ul Qoma itself has helped to swell the ranks of the Orthodox faithful in recent years. The Easter vigil at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration is a riot of different languages, a congregation all proclaiming the good news. Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Христос воскресе! Hristos a înviat! Krisztus feltámadt! ქრისტე აღსდგა! Christ is risen!
Yet for fear of impropriety, crosshatched Ul Qoman churches never give the Paschal greeting in Old Church Besź. The same is true of Besźel churches and Old Illitan.
And when Christ is Risen! is shouted in Ul Qoma, no one in Besźel hears – for they are cities apart.