Monday began before the sun climbed over the corrugated roofs of Mavuno Street. Tunu Sengo unlocked the shutter, pushed it up with both hands, then crouched to count the screws she had left on the repair mat the night before. Three lay beside the electrical tester. One had hidden under a cleaning cloth. When she picked it up, Beka Nuru arrived carrying two cups of tea in a paper bag.
“You started with counting before tea?” Beka asked.
“If a screw goes missing, tea cannot bring back a motherboard.”
Beka placed his cup beside the soldering iron, which was still switched off. Duka la Kesho was small, but everything had its place: chargers on two hooks at the left, cables tied by color, screen protectors in a drawer lined with old paper, and the repair mat in the middle like an operating table. Tunu knew where everything was even when the power failed.
She had come to finish a weekend customer’s phone, replace a charging connector for a mother, and receive cartons of accessories from the supplier before noon. An ordinary day had its familiar noise: motorcycle horns, people at the bus stand calling out loudly, and traders in the corridor arguing over room for a sack to pass. Tunu liked that noise because it meant people were working.
Before she turned on the front light, a girl in a blue jacket stopped at the doorway holding a phone with a cracked screen.
“Did you keep it?” the girl asked.
“I did. The screen arrived yesterday evening. Beka, bring me the envelope for this model.”
The girl smiled nervously. “Before we start, is there any truth that shops like this will be closed this week?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“In the mothers’ group for our building. They said there is a new list. People with a certain kind of residency will not be allowed to continue trading.”
Beka glanced at the shutter as if the words had been written on it. Tunu took the customer’s phone and turned it carefully so the morning light would not strike the glass.
“Before we begin the repair,” she said, “we can record it as a normal inspection. The deposit is for parts, and if you leave the phone I will give you a receipt.”
“What if you are closed tomorrow?”
“You have not shown me a notice.”
“I did not ask about a notice. I asked whether it was possible.”
Tunu knew the question was not only about a phone. The customer did not want to lose money at a shop that might disappear. Tunu handed the phone back.
“Many things are possible,” Tunu said. “But I do not want to charge you for fear I have not verified. Let us begin with the condition of the phone. If you prefer to wait, that is fine.”
The girl looked at the cracked screen, then at the doorway. “I will come later.”
She left without paying a deposit. Tunu wrote in the ticket book: *customer postponed because of unverified closure rumor*. She wrote it because she knew the difference between a record and a verdict. Beka saw the line.
“Will you write down everyone who hears it?”
“If it changes their decision, yes.”
“But you do not know whether it is true.”
“That is why I am recording that I do not know.”
Two hours later, a customer who had ordered six chargers arrived with cash in his hand. He was an older man in a cloth cap, and he had a picture of the order on his phone.
“I came to collect,” he said, “but I will take only two. First I need to know whether you will work tomorrow.”
“The order was for six.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I understand. These are not goods that require a long reservation. If you come back, I will give you the same price for the remaining ones if we have stock.”
The man moved one charger to his side. “Do not be angry. When someone borrows money from you, you also ask whether their business will still exist.”
Tunu wanted to say that she had opened this shop for eleven years, never run away from rent, and that her supplier could ask her directly. Instead she said, “I am not angry. I have recorded a new order.”
After the man left, Faraji Lelo appeared on the veranda of his shop while arranging earphones on a rack. He was three doors down, but his eyes travelled far. He passed while speaking loudly enough that no answer was required.
“The market does not like waiting for answers, Tunu. It likes a person who knows tomorrow.”
“Whose tomorrow?” Tunu asked.
Faraji lifted his chin. “If you know it, you will stay ahead.”
Beka watched him. “Does he know something?”
“He may only know what he wants.”
By midday, three voice notes arrived on Beka’s phone. The first said some people had been given seven days. The second claimed stickers had appeared in distant areas. The third was a man’s voice saying, “Do not wait for an officer; if you hear you are listed, close early.” There was no date, case number or office name.
Beka put the phone on the counter. “We should listen to people. Many people cannot all be wrong.”
“Many people can repeat one person,” Tunu said. “Tomorrow I will go to the municipal service centre. Today the shop works.”
“And if they say it is true tomorrow?”
Tunu looked at her apprentice. Beka needed his weekly wages and had sent money to his mother two days earlier. Tunu did not want to tell him not to be afraid when she herself felt cold beneath her ribs.
“Then we will know what we have to do,” she said. “Closing because of the voice of a stranger does not give us an answer.”
Near evening, Amina Rawi from Kalamu Stationery came with printer receipts in her hand. She had been Tunu’s friend since they started selling goods from one table near the bus stand. Now her shop had a new printer that complained whenever a sheet jammed.
“Juma the landlord called me,” Amina said. “He asked whether you had been told to leave.”
“I have not been told.”
“I told him that. But he asked twice.”
Tunu closed the cashbook and placed it beneath the repair mat. “Have you seen a notice?”
“No. I have seen people searching for a simple answer.”
As night approached, Tunu counted the sales. They were down by enough to buy only two parts, not the cartons she had planned. She closed the remaining tickets, gave Beka the inside key, and stood before the shutter.
“Are you really going tomorrow?” Beka asked.
“I will go before the queue becomes long.”
Tunu picked up the charger that had remained on the counter and returned it to a customer who had been waiting. The customer did not open the bag. He put the charger on the counter and said, “I will come back when I know you will still be here tomorrow.”
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