Chapter 122 — Celina

Celina made coffee the way she must once have settled passenger disputes on packet boats: without embellishment, with exact proportions, and under the assumption that time would be wasted unless somebody physically prevented it.

By the time the kettle clicked off, the table above the quay held six cups, the copied longitude file, and Celina's own headings on squared paper.

NOTICE LAUNCH DAYS WEST QUAY WARD HOME

Adaeze pointed at the third line.

"So you already think the days at sea are where they started laundering him."

Celina poured the coffee.

"No. I think the laundering began at launch. The days merely made it respectable."

She sat only after the others had.

"Packet work trains a person badly," she said. "You spend years watching people believe that if enough water lies between departure and complaint, then ownership becomes mystical. It does not. It becomes profitable."

Her phone buzzed. She answered without greeting and switched to speaker.

"Leandro."

A man's voice came through rough with engine room static and the deliberate patience of somebody still accustomed to watch schedules.

"I have ten minutes before cargo paperwork."

"Then use them cleanly," Celina said.

"Leandro Gomes," he said. "Former radio officer, reefer Santa Luzia."

Noor leaned forward.

"You were the commercial relay?"

"Yes."

Celina laid out the ship summary while he spoke.

Day 4 / 11:22 local - small migrant craft sighted west of Guinea-Bissau route 12 aboard 1 adult male critical watch on cord / repeats Binta / asks for time repeatedly

Leandro continued:

"The boat had almost no engine discipline left. One of the men near the stern was doing all the looking and all the coughing. Thin. Left brow scar. Cracked watch tied with blue line because the strap was gone. He kept pointing at the watch, then at the sun, then saying one name."

"Binta," Elias said.

"Yes."

Celina wrote Binta beneath HOME.

"Why the time?" Adaeze asked.

Leandro let out a breath that crackled in the phone.

"Because once a crossing lasts past the second night, people begin bargaining with hours as if hours can be bribed. He kept asking whether it was still the same day where his sister was."

Noor lifted the property line.

"The watch?"

"Cheap black face. One pale blue dot near eleven. I noticed because the dot kept catching light when he turned his wrist."

Celina set down one more page: a harbor tug relay from Mindelo.

received from reefer / 12 persons total / 1 critical male transferred first

Then another: a ward note copied before the hospital had learned how much time it wanted to convert into category.

patient asks day repeatedly / says Binta / refuses watch removal

Leandro heard the rustle of paper on the line and said:

"Mindelo took them after us. We kept position and count. Twelve. The count never changed. Only the paperwork grew manners."

Celina thanked him, ended the call, and drew one column of times:

day 4 sighted day 5 harbor transfer day 7 death

Micah sat by the window with the travel copy against his knee.

"Later put on longitude."

"Yes," Celina said. "And the ward gave it shoes."

She pushed a second note toward Elias. Not evidence. Her own sentence.

If the sea is long, keep the count longer.

At the bottom:

Do not let day five pretend it has forgotten day zero.

Adaeze smiled into her coffee.

"You were terrifying in passenger service."

Celina's face did not move.

"Yes."

Outside, Mindelo's harbor kept loading freight and ferry passengers under a sky too bright to be useful. On the table the file looked like one route distributed across too many calendars.