The first customer handed Nasma the invoice back without properly opening it.
Across the top corner, in red pen, someone had written:
**WE'LL PAY AFTER THE WEEKEND.**
It was the same note she had seen the week before.
And the week before that.
“Mr. Lameck,” Nasma said, “this is the third time.”
The owner of the spice and general-goods shop raised both hands as if surrendering.
“Nasma, I'm not denying the debt.”
“But you're not paying it.”
“I'm waiting for people to pay me too.”
Kasawe market roared around them: sacks scraping over concrete, traders fighting over prices, handcarts squeezing through narrow lanes, vendors shouting louder than the stalls beside them. Cloves, dried fish and cooking oil crowded the air.
Nasma stood at Lameck's counter with a folder of invoices under her arm.
“This payment was supposed to close part of our payroll gap.”
His face softened. “I'm sorry again about your mother.”
“Thank you.”
“That's why I don't want to lie to you. If I pay you in full today, I can't buy tomorrow's stock.”
“How much can you pay?”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty percent?”
“Yes.”
“Half.”
“Thirty-five.”
Nasma wanted to tell him to stop playing games. But the past few days had taught her something: anger did not put money into an account.
“Forty today. Thirty in three days. The balance next week.”
Lameck shook his head. “I won't manage.”
“If I cut your supply, where will you get stock?”
“Would you really cut me off?”
Nasma went quiet.
That was the problem. She was close to making a threat she wasn't sure she could afford to carry out. KVK needed this customer almost as much as he needed KVK.
She put the invoice back on the counter.
“All right. I won't threaten something I haven't decided. Thirty-five today. Thirty within four days. The balance on a date we write here. If you're late, the next order goes cash-on-delivery until the debt comes down.”
Lameck stared at his calculator.
“Thirty-five and twenty-five.”
“Thirty-five and thirty.”
“Twenty-eight.”
Nasma laughed for the first time that morning. “You bargain over two kilos even when we're talking about an invoice.”
“That's why I'm still in the market.”
They finally agreed: thirty-five percent today, another thirty within four days, and a fixed date for the balance. Lameck made the partial payment and signed the revised schedule.
It did not close payroll.
But it was real money.
Outside, Yusuf had parked the van near the loading bay.
“Did you get it?”
“Part of it.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-five percent.”
He frowned. “You're letting him hold our money.”
“Our money is inside his business until he pays.”
“That's why you have to be hard.”
“Go to the second customer. Be hard intelligently.”
Yusuf took his folder. “I know what I'm doing.”
“Don't give a discount without recording it.”
“Nasma.”
“And don't threaten to stop an account without knowing the impact.”
“I said I know.”
They split up.
Nasma went to a small restaurant near the minibus stand. Its owner, Mama Zuwena, was arranging chairs when she arrived.
“Nasma, I can't today.”
“You've only just seen me.”
“I've seen the folder.”
“I want a plan.”
Mama Zuwena invited her to sit.
“Saada used to give me seven extra days without shouting at me.”
Once again, Nasma felt her mother's name being spent like currency.
“And after seven days?”
“I paid.”
“This is day eleven.”
Mama Zuwena sighed. “Last month I lost a large event order. The person who was supposed to pay the deposit didn't.”
“I understand.”
“So—”
“But my workers can't be paid with understanding.”
Mama Zuwena looked at her. “What do you want?”
“A payment schedule. Even twenty-five percent today. Another payment in three days. The balance on a date you know you can meet.”
“And supply?”
“Continues while you keep the schedule.”
Mama Zuwena poured two cups of tea.
“Nasma, your mother understood that business is people.”
“Yes.”
“Don't turn everything into numbers.”
Nasma held the cup. “And I don't want everything to remain a feeling until payroll arrives.”
A small smile appeared on the older woman's face. “Saada would have been angry at that sentence.”
“She would have been angry, then asked me for the amount.”
They both laughed. Then a smaller silence settled between them.
Mama Zuwena paid a portion and fixed a date for the balance.
Nasma left with a second receipt.
At one o'clock, Yusuf did not answer his phone.
At one-thirty, he sent a single message:
**I'm at Mtoni Foods. I'll explain.**
Nasma did not like the last two words.
She reached the place herself twenty minutes later.
Mtoni Foods was a larger restaurant supplier than the previous customers. They bought cartons of chilli blend, ginger and seasoning for three kitchens.
When Nasma arrived, Yusuf was standing in front of the manager's desk.
“I don't understand,” he was saying. “You've held our invoice for two weeks and now you're telling us you're waiting for a quality review?”
“Quality and delivery reliability,” Mr. Chacha replied.
“You've never returned the product.”
“We didn't say all the product was bad.”
“Then pay us.”
Nasma stepped in. “Yusuf.”
He turned. “Sister, now they've come up with another story.”
Chacha greeted Nasma respectfully. “I'm very sorry about Mama Saada.”
“Thank you. Let's start with the facts.”
Yusuf exhaled hard.
Chacha brought out delivery records.
“Two batches last month were late. One by two days, one by four.”
Nasma knew that. Saada had been going in and out of hospital. Nasma had been trying to run the floor and get home at night. A few orders had slipped.
“And the quality issue?”
“One batch had inconsistent colour. We didn't reject it, but our kitchen complained.”
“Report?”
Chacha produced a printed email.
Nasma had never seen it.
“Who was this sent to?”
“Saada and the general office.”
“Mama was sick,” Yusuf said.
“I know,” Chacha replied. “That's why we didn't escalate it.”
“Is that why you're holding our invoice?” Nasma asked.
“Partly. We've also reduced our volume.”
“By how much?”
Chacha did not answer immediately.
Yusuf planted his hands on the desk. “This is an excuse.”
“Yusuf, sit down,” Nasma said.
“Don't tell me to sit in front of them.”
“Then stand. But let's not lose a customer because we want to win a sentence.”
He went silent, jaw tight.
Nasma turned back to Chacha. “What will you pay today?”
“Forty percent.”
“And the balance?”
“After we receive a corrective sample and the next delivery arrives on date.”
“What date?”
Chacha told her. Nasma wrote it down.
“And volume?”
“That depends on the sample.”
Yusuf cut in. “So you're holding money for goods already delivered until you get another order?”
“No,” Chacha said. “Forty today. The balance of the old invoice within five days if reconciliation shows no discrepancy. The new order is separate.”
“Write that down,” Nasma said.
Chacha did.
Outside, Yusuf yanked the van door open.
“You gave them too much.”
“I got forty percent today and a written date for the balance.”
“They turned it into a quality problem.”
“There is a quality problem.”
“They could have said it earlier.”
“Yes. And we were late too.”
Yusuf gave a humourless laugh. “Everywhere we go, you find a reason for the other side.”
“I find the reason that changes the cash.”
“You want to say I nearly lost the customer?”
“I want to say that if you threaten before you understand your leverage, you can destroy a relationship that makes money.”
He slammed the van door. “And if you're too soft, people eat our money.”
“That's why we need terms, not volume.”
They drove in silence for several minutes.
Before they reached KVK, Nasma asked, “What did you tell them before I arrived?”
“I said if we didn't get payment, we'd review supply.”
“Good. That's true.”
Yusuf glanced at her. “Were you waiting for me to make a mistake?”
“No.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Because you didn't answer your phone and you wrote, ‘I'll explain.’”
A reluctant laugh escaped him. “Fair.”
Nasma handed him the revised collection form.
“Tomorrow you confirm the schedule with Chacha yourself. I won't call behind you.”
“You trust me?”
“I want the system not to depend on me.”
Yusuf went quiet.
That evening, back at the factory, Nasma spread all the receipts across the desk.
Cash had increased.
But not enough.
There was still a payroll gap.
The supplier invoice was still there.
And now they had another problem: a major customer had reduced its orders.
Khalfan came in an hour later and studied the papers.
“The collections helped,” he said.
“But?” Nasma asked.
“But if Mtoni Foods has reduced volume, receivables aren't the whole problem. Revenue itself has fallen.”
Yusuf sat down. “It's temporary.”
“Maybe,” Khalfan said. “But we need to see the trend.”
Nasma remembered the way the family had talked about machines, the van and stock as if the company were a box of value waiting to be divided.
No one had asked whether the customer placing those orders every month was still buying the same amount.
The next day, Nasma returned to Mtoni Foods alone to deliver the sample schedule.
Mr. Chacha opened the order ledger in front of her.
He put a finger on a line from three months earlier.
“Before your mother got sick, I took sixty cartons. Last month I took twelve.”
---