Doto did not invite Salma into his office.
He told her to sit on a plastic chair in front of the hardware counter, where workers carried sacks of cement and roofing sheets while customers passed close by.
“If you want to ask whether I’m in debt,” he said, “ask me here.”
Ambassador Kenga sat beside Salma. He did not take out his notebook until Doto himself said, “Write. I know that’s your job.”
Salma placed her phone on the counter without recording.
“We won’t record unless you agree.”
“I don’t.”
“Fine.”
Doto studied her.
“You’ve changed.”
“How?”
“When you were little, you asked the same question until a person got tired and answered you.”
“I still do that.”
“That’s why I say you haven’t changed.”
Kenga said, “We’re here about financial pressure that may be connected to use of the plot. We are not auditing your entire business.”
Doto laughed.
“Financial pressure. A polite way to say a man owes money.”
Salma did not soften the question.
“Do you have a debt due within two weeks?”
Doto looked straight at her.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“That is not school business.”
“Did you seek a valuation of the plot where the school stands?”
His expression shifted slightly.
“Who told you?”
“We’re verifying the fact, not naming who told us.”
“Then verify it without me.”
Kenga said, “Doto, you may refuse. But if that valuation exists and later enters the mediation record, you will have less opportunity to explain its context.”
Doto was silent.
A customer came to ask the price of nails. Doto called an employee to help him, then turned back to them.
“My biggest supplier wants the balance before the twenty-third,” he said. “I have orders customers haven’t paid for. The bank won’t increase my facility without security.”
“And the plot?” Salma asked.
“I wanted to know its value.”
“For collateral?”
“For options.”
“The valuer’s email said collateral assessment.”
Doto frowned.
“So you already have the email.”
“We have a copy.”
“Then why are you asking me?”
“Because the copy does not explain what you were thinking.”
Doto gave one short laugh.
“And now you care what I was thinking?”
“Yes.”
“I was thinking that if my business closes, twelve people lose their jobs. I was thinking the family has land everybody treats like charity, but nobody pays the cost of owning it. I was thinking the school has sat there for eighteen years under paperwork nobody understands. I was thinking that if we developed the frontage for rental, we could create income without closing the school.”
“The two classrooms were at the rear, not the frontage,” Salma said.
“That is why I keep telling you I did not order anyone to demolish classrooms.”
“But you started the contractor process before the standstill.”
“For clearing the rear sheds and creating frontage access.”
“And after the standstill?”
“I’ve already told you. I told Juma to hold.”
Kenga said, “The call log confirms a call from you to Juma. The content of that call has not yet been independently verified.”
Doto slapped his palm on the counter.
“That is your problem. Everything I say comes with a footnote.”
“Everything everyone says comes with a footnote,” Salma replied.
Doto stared at her for several seconds, then smiled without amusement.
“Your grandfather would have hated this job.”
“Grandfather is the one who taught me to keep receipts.”
“He didn’t teach you to use receipts against your family.”
“A receipt doesn’t know family.”
Kenga coughed, perhaps to hide a laugh.
Doto leaned back.
“The valuation was an option. It was not a demolition order.”
Salma nodded.
“We haven’t said it was an order. But it shows that before the standstill you were exploring a use of the plot that could help with your debt.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without defense.
Salma felt her anger lose its easiest place to land.
She had expected another denial.
Instead, Doto opened a drawer and took out two sheets of paper.
“Supplier statement,” he said. “Don’t photograph the account number.”
Salma looked at it. The balance was many times larger than the school’s reserve. The due date was twelve days away.
“May we record the amount range without the account details?” Kenga asked.
Doto agreed.
“And the valuation?” Salma asked.
Doto opened his laptop. The email was there, dated four days before the standstill.
Subject:
**Indicative valuation — Kito plot / possible security use**
The valuer had written that the assessment was preliminary and that title and use documentation would need review before any formal collateral process.
Salma pointed to the line.
“Documentation issue.”
“Yes,” Doto said. “That is what I have been saying from the beginning.”
“The school’s land-use paper?”
“That paper was never a full lease.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was at the family meeting when it was issued.”
“Eighteen years ago?”
“I was an adult, Salma.”
“And the school has operated under it all these years.”
“Because nobody wanted to fight children.”
Kenga said, “Ownership and enforceability are not questions we are deciding here.”
Doto turned to him.
“But everybody talks as if the school holds title.”
“I have never said that,” Salma replied.
“Rukia has.”
“Rukia is not the records office.”
Doto breathed heavily.
Then he said, “Ask Nuru.”
Salma shifted in her chair.
“What?”
“Ask Nuru why the renewal never happened.”
“Nuru says the family was still discussing it.”
“Ask whether she knew the old paper had expired.”
Something dropped inside Salma’s stomach.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“That is not in the copy we have.”
“Because the copy everyone is carrying around is the use memorandum, not its complete attachment.”
Kenga stopped writing.
“Do you have the attachment?”
Doto shook his head.
“No. Nuru was secretary of the family committee when renewal was last discussed.”
“You said years ago. What renewal?” Salma asked.
“The temporary use arrangement had a review period. People kept postponing because the school was doing well and nobody wanted to look like the person evicting children.”
“Then why didn’t you raise this in mediation earlier?”
“I did,” Doto said bitterly. “Nuru said we should wait for the old copies. Then everyone started calling me the man who wanted to sell the school.”
Salma looked at Kenga.
“Did you know?”
“I knew there was a dispute about whether the land-use documents were complete. I did not have an attachment proving expiry.”
“And the standstill?”
“The standstill prevented physical changes while the documents were being located. It did not depend on who held title.”
Doto pointed at Kenga.
“On that, I agree with him. That is why I said hold.”
“But the classrooms were demolished,” Salma said.
Doto’s face hardened again.
“And I still don’t know who turned hold into go.”
They left the hardware shop after an hour and twenty minutes.
Outside, the sun was hard and road dust settled on Salma’s shoes.
“You found motive,” Kenga said.
“Pressure.”
“And an admission that the plot valuation was for possible security.”
“But not a demolition instruction.”
“Correct.”
“And now Nuru.”
Kenga said nothing.
Salma stopped walking.
“Do you know more about the land-use paper?”
“Only what I saw in the mediation file. A memorandum copy, incomplete old minutes, and a request to search the archive.”
“Doto says Nuru knew about the expiry.”
“That remains an allegation until you ask Nuru and see a document.”
Salma looked at him.
“Could you say something different just once?”
Kenga smiled.
“You hired the wrong man.”
They did not return to school together. Kenga had another mediation, and Salma went straight to Nuru.
Nuru was behind the house washing pots at an outdoor sink. Amina was still at school for science club.
“You came from Doto,” Nuru said without greeting her.
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he has debt. That the valuation was a collateral option. And that you knew the school’s land-use paper had expired.”
Water kept running from the tap.
Nuru’s hands stopped moving.
Salma turned off the tap.
“Is it true?”
Nuru wiped her hands on her kanga.
“The paper was not that simple.”
“That is not an answer.”
“The family issued a use agreement when the school began. Later there was supposed to be a review. Nobody came and said the children should leave.”
“When was the review due?”
Nuru looked toward the fence.
“Six years ago.”
Salma felt anger return, cleaner this time.
“You knew.”
“I knew the document needed renewal.”
“And you didn’t say so?”
“I said it in committee.”
“To the school?”
Nuru sat on a stool.
“Salma, if you tell parents the paper hasn’t been renewed, tomorrow the rumor becomes that the school has no land. Parents withdraw children. Teachers start looking for jobs. Doto gains leverage before the family finishes its discussion.”
“So you decided which records people were allowed to know.”
“I decided to protect the school.”
“By hiding a weakness?”
“By not shouting about a weakness while we were trying to repair it.”
Salma sat opposite her.
“Was renewal actually being pursued?”
Nuru hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Evidence?”
Nuru looked at her.
“There are minutes.”
“Where?”
“In the old cooperative file. We restarted discussions two months ago.”
Salma felt anger and relief collide.
“Why aren’t those minutes in the mediation file?”
“Because I wanted the family to agree on wording first.”
“Minutes are not the wording of a future agreement. They are a record that a discussion happened.”
“I know.”
“Then I want them tomorrow.”
Nuru nodded slowly.
“You’ll put them in the record?”
“Yes.”
“Even if they show the school’s paperwork was weak?”
“Yes.”
Nuru laughed bitterly.
“Doto was right about one thing.”
“What?”
“You don’t choose family.”
Salma stood.
“I choose not to let adults make secret decisions that children have to pay for.”
Nuru did not answer.
At the gate, Salma met Amina returning from school with a project board tucked under her arm.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mama angry?”
“A little.”
“And you?”
“A little more.”
Amina studied her, then went inside without asking anything else.
Salma walked toward the road.
That morning she had gone looking for a reason Doto wanted the plot to change.
She had found one: debt, a squeezed business, a valuation, a collateral option.
But a reason was not an order.
And instead of becoming easier to hate, Doto had opened another door.
Nuru had known there was a gap in the land-use paperwork.
Tomorrow Salma would see the document her aunt had withheld in what she believed was an effort to protect the school.
For the first time since the wall fell, Salma understood that the truth was not dividing the family into people for the school and people against it.
It was dividing each person according to what they were willing to hide to get what they wanted.
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