It was, not surprisingly that day perhaps, hard to observe borders, to see and unsee only what I should, on my way home. I was hemmed in by people not in my city, walking slowly through areas crowded but not crowded in Besźel. I focused on the stones really around me—cathedrals, bars, the brick flourishes of what had been a school—that I had grown up with. I ignored the rest or tried.
It is against the law to even acknowledge the existence of the other city for residents of these the cities which occupy the same geographic space. As a result of this quick of geography, both cities are always and forever present so how it is possible to be a resident of one without interacting with the other which is even supposed to exist? It is all a matter of perception and will: what you choose not to see again and again eventually reaches the point of naturally becoming invisible.
It’s not as far-fetched as the application in the novel might make it seem. For instance, without looking around, pick a spot you presumably looked at for at least a few seconds on your way to the position you are at right now. How accurately can you describe what you saw? The process of “unseeing” the constituent objects in the city in which one doesn’t live in this story is essentially the same thing. If one has enough will and desire to consciously not see something, it can actually remain unseen fairly easily.
“It’s not just us keeping them apart. It’s everyone in Besźel and everyone in Ul Qoma. Every minute, every day. We’re only the last ditch: it’s everyone in the cities who does most of the work. It works because you don’t blink. That’s why unseeing and unsensing are so vital. No one can admit it doesn’t work.”
This is really one of the key quotes explaining the overarching theme of the story as well as how the idea of borders being constructed illusions applies in the real world. What Ashil is explaining here is basically border enforcement. There is no actual border between the two cities; the enforcement of mass acceptance of this illusion is accomplished partially through fear of being punished for acknowledging the other city exists and partially through the laziness of indoctrinated. It is just as true in the real world. The border between Mexico and United States is entirely an illusion and this can be proved quite simply by the fact that so many people so support the idea of building a wall to prove it is real.
It is philosophical, of course: a border only actually exists if people recognize it as and protection of it is enforced. Failing those two qualifications, it may exist physically, but if its purpose isn’t being served it may as well not even exist in that way. The border between the two cities in the novel does not exist physically and therefore can only exist if it serves the purpose keeping them separated, but since this purpose can only be served through literally not acknowledging it exists, the border is entirely dependent upon the collective agreement of each society. Which, when one thinks about it, is exactly how most borders work in our world.
She lay near the skate ramps. Nothing is still like the dead are still. The wind moves their hair, as it moved hers, and they don’t respond at all. She was in an ugly pose, with legs crooked as if about to get up, her arms in a strange bend. Her face was to the ground.
Although wrapped in the unfamiliarity of a setting from science fiction dystopia, it is worth keeping in mind that the actual plot of this novel—and to a certain qualified extent its genre classification—is that of an investigative crime thriller. Let’s call it a mind-bending police procedural for lack of a more specific term. At any rate, the narrative centerpiece is the investigation by Inspector Borlú into the death of the victim described above. Where the twin is met between crime thriller and the strangeness of the setting lies in the fact that there is no crime worse or met with greater punishment in either of the two cities interaction between them. It is at the crossroads of the breach between the two cities that the novel explores notions about how society determines the seriousness of criminal activity and the corruption therein associated.
