The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The protagonist and his girlfriend take turns visiting each other, spending time at a café in the city and walking along the water in the boy’s town. Their relationship is dominated by conversation, and the boy enjoys their discussions. That summer, the town is all they talk about. He asks questions and she explains its layout. The boy writes every detail down and wonders if the town is real or if she creates it within herself.

It is autumn in the walled-in town and the protagonist waits for the Gatekeeper to blow the horn. When he does, the unicorns, with their golden fur, march toward the north gate, where the Gatekeeper lets them out. The beasts are a mystery, docile most of the year except for the one week they mate, when the male beasts become violent.

The narrative moves back in time to the point at which the protagonist and his girlfriend first meet. The protagonist’s girlfriend once had a grandmother she loved to spend time with. The protagonist is not a great student, though he loves to read. They meet early in high school, when they both win prizes for an essay contest. The protagonist’s essay is about his cat, and the girl’s is about her grandmother. At the ceremony, they compliment each other’s writing, and before they leave, the protagonist, feeling he must keep speaking with the girl, asks her to send him letters.

The protagonist finds the library on his third day in town, and there he finds his girlfriend. He asks to read dreams and shows her his eyes to prove that he can. To enter the town, he has altered his eyes, and now he cannot be outside during the day because of the light. He asks if they’ve met before, and she says no. He is not surprised; he is now a grown man while she is still 16. She makes him tea to heal his eyes, and he prepares to read dreams.

The protagonist and his girlfriend write letters to each other every two weeks. While the protagonist writes about his everyday life, the girl writes about her dreams. The protagonist can never remember his dreams, but his girlfriend keeps a record of her own. Later in life, the protagonist wonders if the girl was always honest in her letters about her dreams.

The protagonist visits the wall with the Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper says nothing can bring the wall down, because the bricks fit perfectly together. Every night, the protagonist goes to the library to read dreams. He struggles, as the images the dreams evoke are unclear, and the words they speak are hushed. On the third night, he asks the girl to let him walk her home. As they walk, the girl asks the man about where he came from, saying she was born within the walls and has never been outside them. The man tells her that people in his world have shadows.

In a letter to him, the protagonist’s girlfriend ponders her relationship to dreams, admitting that she struggles to distinguish dreams from reality. When she has a dream that includes him, she writes to him about finding herself in a bathtub. She is naked and pregnant, and she cannot cover herself when a man walks into the bathroom toward her. Suddenly she is on a couch, with weeping eyes in the center of her palms. She cuts off the letter before telling the boy how he was involved, and she forgets to finish the story in the next letter.

In the walled-in town, no one has a shadow. When the protagonist arrived, the Gatekeeper took his shadow, promising him that his shadow would have a place to stay and work. The Gatekeeper assures the protagonist that he will forget his shadow, and warns that once he enters the town, he can never leave. On his walk home with the girl, the protagonist explains how people keep their shadows in his town. She explains that, because she was born in the town, her shadow was ripped away early and sent outside the walls, where it likely died. She assures him that once the shadow dies, so too do dark thoughts. After dropping her off, the protagonist feels that he is no longer alone, but he nonetheless feels lonely.

In the walled-in town, the protagonist lives in the Officials’ District, a largely abandoned place. His apartment is lightly furnished, without modern technology like a gas or electric stove. During the day, when he cannot go outside, he lets his mind wander. He continues to go to the library, but his skills as Dream Reader do not improve. The girl assures him that it will take time.

The protagonist takes the train into the city to visit his girlfriend, who is forty minutes late. He believes that something is wrong. When she arrives she is quiet and seems upset. Without warning, she begins walking, and the boy follows, wordlessly, as they wander around the city. He wonders if he did something wrong but cannot think of anything. When they return to the park, she begins crying, and he comforts her, accepting her sadness and realizing she trusts him.

The protagonist sets out to draw a map of the town. The outskirts of the community, near the wall, are run down, with abandoned houses still filled with furniture. Though the protagonist follows the wall, the wall’s shape keeps changing, frustrating him. After he completes the map, the protagonist comes down with a horrible fever. An old man comes to take care of him, telling the protagonist that he was injured in a war and went to an inn to recover. Every night the old man saw the ghost of a beautiful woman in his room. After he recovers, he realizes he only ever sees one side of her face. He goes back to the inn, and looks at the other side, horrified. He cannot describe what he saw, but warns the protagonist never to look at such a thing.

After she finishes crying in the park, the girl tells the protagonist that she sometimes feels her heart go rigid and struggles to move or do anything, sometimes for days. She only made it to the park because she wanted to see him. The protagonist is patient and supportive, though he does not experience the same feeling. She likes that he listens, and she tells him that she wants to be one with him, though she still needs some time. She tells him that sometimes she feels like a shadow of someone else living in another place. She mentions that her real self lives in a town surrounded by a wall. It is the first time she has mentioned this walled-in town.