There was nothing in Bwana Tunu's room that Salim could later point to and say, *That was where I should have known.*
There was no altar. No strange pictures on the walls. Not even the heavy smell of incense Salim had prepared himself to mock in silence.
There was a wooden desk, three chairs, a small fan turning with a scraping sound, and a window overlooking the roofs of the stationery shops below.
Bwana Tunu himself wore a short-sleeved shirt and an ordinary watch. Salim guessed he was somewhere in his mid-forties. His voice was calm enough to make other people lower theirs without being asked.
“Kassim says you have a business,” he said.
“I run a repair shop.”
“Phones?”
“Phones, radios, chargers, speakers. Small things.”
“And things have become heavy.”
Salim leaned back.
“Kassim told you that.”
Tunu didn't deny it.
“When a friend sends someone to me, he usually already knows what that person is going through.”
“Then if he told you everything, what am I doing here?”
Tunu smiled faintly.
“You came because what he told you wasn't enough.”
Salim almost answered too quickly, then stopped himself.
He had closed his kiosk for ninety minutes in the middle of the day to come here. Before leaving, the screen supplier had confirmed receiving his deposit but said delivery would be delayed until evening. The phone customer had already messaged twice.
Nuru had sent one too:
**Don't forget we're looking at the ledger after dinner today.**
Salim slipped the phone into his pocket.
Tunu asked, “What's your biggest problem?”
“Cash flow.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“Most people say money because money is what they can see.”
Salim frowned.
“If my business doesn't have money, then money is the problem.”
“And why doesn't it have money?”
“Defective parts. Customers paying late. Rent going up.”
“Three different things happened to you at almost the same time.”
“Yes.”
Tunu nodded slowly, as though Salim had confirmed something.
“And before that?”
“Before what?”
“Were things going well?”
“It's not like I was rich.”
“But you knew how you were going to reach the end of the month.”
Salim didn't answer immediately.
That was true.
A few months earlier he had complained about business like every small trader did, but he had never woken in the night to calculate three times whether a customer's deposit could pay a supplier without touching household money.
Tunu said, “Sometimes a person thinks he has many problems because they arrive under different names. Rent. Supplier. Customer. Home. But they may all meet at one point.”
“What point?”
“That's what we begin by looking for.”
Salim gave a short nasal laugh.
“You haven't said anything specific.”
“I didn't promise I'd say something that would make you happy in five minutes.”
“You told me I'd pay once.”
“I told you the fee for the first session.”
“And after that?”
“After that, you decide whether you want to continue with anything.”
Salim studied him.
That sentence was what kept him in the chair.
He didn't want somebody saying *you must*. He wanted an exit.
Tunu took a blank sheet of paper and divided it into three sections.
“Tell me,” he said. “What started first?”
Salim mentioned the box of screens.
“Why did you buy it?”
“The price was good.”
“Did you already have orders?”
“Some.”
“How many is some?”
Salim felt irritation rise.
“Is this an audit?”
“You said money is the problem. Money has behavior. I want to see the behavior.”
For the next twenty minutes, Tunu said nothing strange. He asked about customers who owed Salim. The supplier. The rent. Nuru. Whether Salim was sleeping properly. Whether he had begun making faster decisions since the business started shaking.
Some questions were so ordinary that Salim wondered why Kassim had made the man sound mysterious.
Then Tunu asked, “What scares you more: the shop closing, or your wife finding out you don't know how to save it?”
Salim went still.
The fan scraped above them.
“Nuru knows the business is struggling.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Salim shifted in his chair.
“Do you do this with everybody? Search for one sentence that will hit them?”
Tunu didn't get angry.
“If you tell me I'm wrong, I'll write down that I'm wrong.”
Salim looked at the paper.
Tunu had written only a few words. *Stock. Debts. Rent. Home.*
There was no secret there.
But the question had entered a place Salim didn't want to look at.
He had hidden the loss in the ledger not because Nuru wouldn't understand business. He had hidden it because he wanted to have an answer by tomorrow, before Nuru discovered that he didn't have one.
Tunu put down his pen.
“Some people come here wanting me to tell them that money will arrive tomorrow at ten. I don't do that.”
Salim felt his guard lower a little.
“Then what do you do?”
“I help you remove the things that keep you circling the same place. Sometimes a person needs structure. Sometimes he needs to let go of fear. Sometimes there's another step.”
“Is that ‘other step’ the part you charge for?”
Tunu smiled.
“Today's session has the fee we agreed on. Nothing else today.”
Salim took out his phone.
The amount wasn't as large as he had feared. It was large enough to make him think of a week's food, but small enough for him to defend it as the price of advice.
He opened mobile money.
The recipient's name was ordinary.
He hesitated.
“If you walk out without paying,” Tunu said, “no one will chase you.”
Salim looked at him.
“You know that sentence makes me want to pay more?”
“Then don't pay because of the sentence. Pay if you've decided.”
Salim pressed the button.
His phone confirmed the transfer.
For one second he felt purely foolish.
He hadn't bought a screen. He hadn't paid rent. He hadn't returned a customer's deposit. He had paid for a conversation, much of which he could have had at the table with Nuru for free.
Tunu wrote the date on the paper.
“For two days, don't make any big decision out of fear. Watch what comes in, what goes out, and who owes you. Then, if you want, call me.”
“Nothing else?”
“What did you want?”
Salim laughed, embarrassed.
“I don't know.”
“That's a better answer than inventing one.”
Salim stood.
When he went downstairs, the afternoon sun was harsh. In front of the stationery shop, a child was arranging notebooks in a cardboard box. Two motorcycles passed, horns sounding.
Nothing in the world looked different.
Salim walked back toward the arcade, scolding himself for the money he had spent.
At the first corner, his phone vibrated.
He assumed it was the screen customer.
It was a number he hadn't seen in nearly a month.
**Mzee Juma — HOTEL BAHARI.**
Juma had collected two speakers Salim repaired for his restaurant, paid part of the bill, and promised the balance “next week.” Next week had become four weeks.
The message read:
**Salim, sorry I've held your money this long. I got paid today. Send me the right number and I'll send your balance this evening.**
Salim stopped in the middle of the walkway.
He read the message twice.
Then a third time.
His first thought said: *Finally.*
His second said: *Coincidence.*
But before he reached the shop, a third thought had already begun making room for itself.
He opened the payment message he had sent Bwana Tunu.
The time was displayed beneath it.
Twenty-seven minutes later, Juma had messaged him.
---