The municipal service centre was a single-storey building behind the market, near the minibus station. Its entrance carried sheets listing services, but none said that shops of a certain kind would be closed. Tunu read the two sheets she could reach, then joined the queue holding the old green folder and her resident identification inside its cover.
The queue curled around the first window. A man with a yellow envelope was telling everyone that his friend had been closed the day before. The woman behind Tunu listened to an angry voice note. Tunu did not ask for the phone. She knew that if she began carrying every voice, she would leave with more fear than she had brought.
After forty minutes she reached a desk marked *Trader Continuation and Records*. Bi. Salma Teri was arranging forms in three trays. Reading glasses hung from a blue cord, and her pen was attached to a clipboard.
“I want to know whether there is a closure order against Duka la Kesho,” Tunu said.
Salma did not open the folder. “Notice number?”
“I have no notice.”
“Then the trader name and address.”
Tunu gave them. Salma entered the name, asked for the plot code and read the screen in silence. A clock behind her was six minutes slow.
“You have heard the rumor?” Salma asked.
“Yes.”
“A voice note is not a notice. Is there a closure order with your name?”
“I want confirmation.”
Salma turned the screen toward Tunu without showing other people’s names. “I do not see an immediate closure order on this account. I do not see an instruction to close the shutter today.”
Tunu felt breath leave her, but she did not smile. “So I am fine?”
“I did not say that. I said there is no immediate closure order in the record I can see.”
Salma took out a gray form. “There is a twenty-one-day compliance window for accounts whose status requires continuation verification. Within that window, a trader may continue operating with a case receipt and while completing the checklist. A private person has no authority to put a closure sticker on a shop.”
“Am I in that group?”
“I will know after I open the file.”
Tunu opened the folder. Receipts came out in layers: rent receipts, renewal papers, supplier statements, tax slips and an old lease. Salma did not touch all of them. She first asked for the current registration copy, proof of occupancy and the record of the previous trader. Tunu took out three papers.
“This is the current renewal,” Tunu said. “I have paid every year.”
“And this?”
“My lease.”
“Previous trader?”
Tunu hesitated. “Pili Sava. She was a co-owner at the beginning. She left seven years ago. We started following the transfer, but the business continued and the renewals stayed under the shop name.”
Salma looked over her glasses. “Was the transfer completed?”
“I thought the receipts were enough.”
“Receipts show that you paid. They do not answer who changed the registration.”
Salma entered Pili’s name in the old field. The system showed a last date, then the transfer box remained empty. She pressed an icon and read a short note: *continuation accepted pending prior trader update*. The date was six years earlier.
Tunu held the edge of the folder. “What does that note mean?”
“It means an old application continued through renewals, but the transfer field was never closed.”
“Why did I never receive a letter?”
“I cannot answer without seeing the old file.”
“I have worked for seven years without anyone telling me.”
“I can hear your anger, but I cannot turn it into a record.”
The sentence was not harsh, but it placed a desk between them. Tunu looked at the queue behind her. People had started watching; perhaps they thought she had brought news of closure. She did not want to feed their eyes.
Salma handed her a form. “Fill in the continuation application. Attach current residence evidence, the lease, your latest receipts and a statement from the previous trader. If you cannot reach Pili today, write that contact is being sought. Do not invent a signature.”
“How many days do I have?”
“Twenty-one days from the date your case receipt is issued.”
“If I apply today?”
“The clock begins today if the file is acceptable for intake. The checklist will show what is missing.”
Tunu sat on a plastic bench to complete the form. Her name was easy. The address brought her back to the problem of the plot code, written in two ways on the lease and rent receipt. She called Juma the landlord, but the phone rang unanswered.
When she reached the question about the previous trader, she stopped. Beka sent a message: *We are finishing two charging ports. The screen customer is waiting.* Tunu wrote Pili’s name without adding facts she did not have. In the signature box, she signed her own name.
Salma received the forms and checked them line by line. “Is this current renewal number for your account?”
“Yes.”
“The lease has a different plot code.”
“Juma has more receipts. I will bring him.”
“Bring them within the window. Today I can receive the application as incomplete evidence if you show intent to correct it.”
Tunu lifted her head. “That sounds like I have submitted and have not submitted.”
“It is an application received for review, not an approval.”
Salma printed a receipt with a case number, today’s date and the date of day twenty-one. She also wrote by hand: *No private closure action; keep receipt available.*
Tunu took it with both hands. She had come for a simple answer. She now had an official clock, an old defect and the task of finding a person who had left without a new number.
“Bi. Salma,” she said, “if someone puts a closure sticker up, what do I do?”
“Photograph it. Do not tear it down until you have saved the evidence. Call us with the case number. A person frightening you is not the same as an office inspecting you.”
Tunu closed the folder and stood at the door. The sun had climbed. On the checklist page, Salma had circled one box in pen: **TRANSFER OF PRIOR TRADER — NOT FOUND.**
---