The mural on the community center wall had been fading for years. Its river had turned the color of weak tea, and the faces of the farmers had worn down to pale smudges. Older neighbors still stopped in front of it to argue about which house was theirs. Ana's cousin Beto said the wall was a museum nobody had to buy a ticket for.
社区中心墙上的壁画，已经褪色多年。画里的河变成了淡茶的颜色，农人的脸磨损成苍白的印子。上年纪的邻居仍会停在墙前，争论哪一幢房子是自己家的。安娜的表哥贝托说，这面墙是一座不用买票的博物馆。
Then someone painted a jagged black shape across its middle. Nobody admitted to doing it. The center director called a meeting, and thirty people sat in chairs. One wanted the wall painted white. Another wanted the police. Mrs. Rivas, who was ninety-one, waited until the shouting thinned. “We did not build that wall to be clean,” she said. “We built it to be ours.”
后来有人用黑色颜料在壁画中间画了一道参差的痕迹。没人承认是自己干的。社区中心主任召集开会，三十个人坐在椅子上。有人想把墙刷白，有人想叫警察。九十一岁的里瓦斯太太等到吵声稀下去，才说：“我们画这面墙，不是为了让它干净。我们画它，是为了让它属于我们。”
Ana expected the meeting to end in nothing. Instead Mrs. Rivas sent everyone home with a question: What should a person who moves here next year be able to see? A boy wanted the bus to his grandmother's town. The baker wanted the old oven, not the new one. Beto wanted the empty lot where he learned to ride a bike.
安娜以为这场会什么也开不出来。可里瓦斯太太让每个人带一个问题回家：明年搬来这里的人，应该能看见什么？一个男孩想要那辆开往外婆镇上的公交车；面包师想要旧烤炉，不要新的；贝托想要那片他学会骑自行车的空地。
On Saturday, twelve people arrived with buckets and brushes. They divided the wall into three panels: the river, the market, and the empty lot that would become a garden. Ana was given the smallest brush and the job of painting the sky. Beto stood behind her without speaking. “If you make a mistake,” he said, “we can paint over it. That is the whole point of a wall.”
星期六，十二个人带着桶和刷子来了。他们把墙分成三幅：河、市场，还有那片将变成花园的空地。安娜分到最小的刷子和画天空的活儿。贝托在她身后站了一会儿，没有说话。“要是画错了，”他说，“我们可以盖掉重画。墙的好处就在这里。”
The mural was finished on a Sunday, in heat that sharpened the paint's smell. From the street it looked like the old one, which disappointed her until she stood close. There was her sky, uneven at the edges. There was the bus, the oven, the empty lot, a bicycle in the grass. Mrs. Rivas touched the river and said the blue was wrong. The wrong blue, she added, was better.
壁画在一个星期日完工，热得颜料的气味发冲。从街对面看，它和旧的那幅很像，安娜有点失望，直到她走近。那是她画的天空，边缘不太齐。那是公交车、烤炉，还有草地上靠着一辆自行车的空地。里瓦斯太太摸了摸河，说蓝色不对，接着又说，不对的蓝色更好。
That evening someone sprayed a black star in the corner. On Monday, Ana's stomach dropped. Then she saw it was not a scribble but a signature, the way travelers once marked walls. Beto brought a ladder, and they painted a thin white circle around it. “We are not fixing it,” he said. “We are adding it to the story.”
那天傍晚，有人在角落里喷了一颗小小的黑星。星期一，安娜的心一下子沉了下去。随后她发现那不是乱涂，而是一个签名，像从前旅人留在墙上的记号。贝托搬来梯子，他们在星星外面画了一个细细的白圈。“我们不是再修一次，”他说，“我们是在把它加进故事里。”