This is a copy of an outside source. It is a duplicate, left with the council, of the entry ledger kept at the pass between 1941 and 1945 — the Tulem Simen, the Closed Page. Who was admitted and who was turned away stands on these pages; how many stands where the ink can no longer be read.

One reading holds that the gate was shut to keep the valley out of the war, and that the ledger records a shelter. Another reading holds that the same ledger carries the names of those turned back at the threshold, and that what is called shelter is a shutting-out. Both readings face the same page and point to the same line.

The council does not write which is true. The ledger is closed; the closed page stays closed. The record keeps the contradiction, not the verdict. No answer has come.