Paloma was a street painter. At the end of a narrow alley there was a blank gray wall, and one morning she painted a door on it. It was green, with a round brass handle that she made shine with a few strokes of yellow and white, and a letter slot. Children on their way to school knocked on it and waited, pretending, with great seriousness, that it would open.
Three weeks later Mr. Duarte, a city councillor of fifty-five, signed an order. On Monday the wall would be painted gray again, because a door that does not open is "a lie on a wall".
But on Saturday morning Paloma found notes pushed into the painted slot. "Good morning, door." A boy's drawing of a cat. Someone had fixed a real red mailbox under the painted slot, and by Sunday night it held forty letters with wishes, thank-yous and drawings, all addressed "To the Green Door", as if the wall, once given a way in, had been waiting all along for company.
On Monday Mr. Duarte came to watch the painters work. Out of curiosity he opened the mailbox, and among the letters he found one addressed to himself, written in crayon: "Dear Mr. Duarte, please don't close the door. Sami, age seven." He read it twice, folded it carefully and told the painters to go home. Paloma, who had been watching from the end of the alley, said nothing; she went to the market and came back with a real doormat, which she laid in front of the door.
The next morning there was one more letter in the box. It was from the councillor: "Dear door, I am sorry I almost closed you."
