The fluorescent tube overhead flickers once, a sharp cathodic blink that momentarily drains the color from the translation booth. It is 11:00 PM. Pieter de Vries slides a thick manila envelope across the desk, the paper dragging with a dry, institutional rasp against the laminate. He does not sit. He stands in the narrow doorway of Booth 4, his shadow stretching long and thin across the soundproofing foam.
Mira pulls the single transcript from the sleeve. The header is stamped in heavy violet ink: Witness B-114, Sealed Deposition, Sarajevo Intake. Her eyes track the first paragraph, searching for the standard procedural cadence, but the rhythm of the words catches in her throat. The syntax is jagged, the specific regional vowel shifts rendered phonetically by an amateur clerk, yet the voice is unmistakable. It is the exact, breathless lilt of her sister Lejla, who vanished into the smoke of the siege twenty-nine years ago.
She is alive. Mira’s fingers tighten on the margin, the paper blooming with a faint, damp crease under her thumb. Pieter watches her from the threshold, his face a mask of bureaucratic neutrality. He waits for her to confirm the assignment, to agree to the silence required of a Hague professional. Pieter's hand lingers on the brass handle of the booth door, leaning slightly back into the frame.
