The youth committee had been given one wall in the town museum and six weeks to fill it. The theme was 'Our Town at Work.' By the third meeting, we had photographs of the old harbour, a recording of a shipyard whistle, and a disagreement that would not go away.
青年委员会得到了镇博物馆的一面墙和六周时间。主题是“我们镇的工作”。到第三次会议，我们已经有了旧港口的照片、一段船厂汽笛的录音，以及一个始终无法解决的争议。
The disagreement was about 1998, when the largest employer closed and eleven hundred people lost their jobs within a year. Some of us wanted the wall to say plainly that the closure had damaged the town. Others argued that the wall should celebrate what came after: new businesses, new families, a swimming pool built on the old yard.
争议关于1998年：最大的雇主关闭，一年内有一千一百人失业。我们中有些人希望墙上直白地写：这次关闭伤害了小镇。另一些人认为，墙应该赞美之后发生的事：新企业、新家庭、建在旧厂区上的游泳池。
Both sides had grandparents in the room, in a manner of speaking. Sofia's grandfather had been a foreman. My mother had worked the packing line for six months before the end. We were not arguing about history. We were arguing about whose version of our own families would be printed in a museum.
双方都有祖父母“在场”，可以这么说。索菲亚的祖父当过工头。我母亲在包装线上干过六个月，直到一切结束。我们不是在争论历史。我们是在争论，自己家庭的那一版记忆，将被印进博物馆。
We decided to interview people rather than vote. Over two weekends we recorded nine conversations, each about an hour long. A former manager described the last year as a slow leak he could not stop. A woman who left at twenty-two described the closure as the first time anyone asked what she wanted to do.
我们决定采访，而不是投票。两个周末里，我们录了九段对话，每段约一小时。一位前经理把最后一年形容成他止不住的缓慢渗漏。一位二十二岁离开的女工说，工厂关闭是她人生中第一次有人问她到底想做什么。
The most difficult interview was with a man who had been on the committee that approved the closure. He was polite and did not defend himself. He said the decision had been made in a city four hundred kilometres away, and that he had voted against it, and that this had not mattered at all. None of us knew what to do with that.
最难的采访对象是一位曾在批准关闭的委员会里的先生。他很客气，也不为自己辩护。他说决定是在四百公里外的一座城市做出的，他投了反对票，而这完全没有用。我们都不知道拿这件事怎么办。
We listened to the recordings together in the museum's back room. The same event appeared in every conversation, and no two people described it the same way. Sofia said the wall should not try to decide who was right. I said a wall that decides nothing is just wallpaper. We were both tired enough to laugh.
我们一起在博物馆的后屋听录音。同一件事出现在每一段对话里，却没有两个人描述得一样。索菲亚说，这面墙不该去判断谁对。我说，一面什么都不判断的墙只是墙纸。我们累到都笑了。
In the end the exhibition had three sections instead of one story. The first showed the yard in its busy years. The second showed the closure, with dates and numbers and four quotations placed side by side. The third was left almost empty, with a long table, pencils, and a question printed in large letters: what should this town protect next?
最后，展览分成三个部分，而不是一个故事。第一部分展示厂区繁忙的年代。第二部分展示关闭，列着日期、数字和四条并排放置的引语。第三部分几乎空着，只有一张长桌、铅笔，和一行大字：这个镇接下来应该保护什么？
The director was nervous about the empty part. She worried that visitors would think we had run out of material. On opening night, a retired welder stood before the question for a long time, then wrote: 'The swimming pool. My grandson learned to swim there.' By closing time there were sixty-one answers on the table.
馆长对空着的那部分感到不安。她担心参观者会以为我们没有材料了。开幕夜，一位退休焊工在问题前站了很久，然后写下：“游泳池。我孙子在那里学会游泳。”到闭馆时，桌上有了六十一条回答。
The argument did not disappear. Some visitors said the wall was too soft on the company; others said it was too gloomy. But they stood in the same room and read the same quotations, and then they picked up pencils. The wall had not settled anything, which, we decided, was the most honest thing a wall can do.
争论没有消失。有参观者说这面墙对那家公司太温和，也有人说它太阴沉。但他们站在同一个房间里，读着同样的引语，然后拿起了铅笔。这面墙没有解决任何事——我们认定，这是一面墙能做的最诚实的事。