Amina locked the door of Kalamu Stationery after two at night. The new printer had cooled, the paper was tied in bundles with rubber bands and the veranda light showed dust drifting in from the road. Tunu sat in the customer chair, expecting them to discuss Faraji’s complaint or how to arrange customers before the inspection brought forward.
Amina placed printed papers on the table.
“I wrote an offer,” she said.
Tunu looked at the heading: **PROPOSED JOINT OPERATION — 40% PARTICIPATION.** Beneath it were the names of both businesses, a sketch of the storefront and spaces for two signatures.
“When did you decide?”
“I have not decided. I came to show you.”
Tunu did not touch the papers. “Forty percent of what?”
“A shared storefront and combined service desk. Kalamu will provide printing, photocopying and pickup. Duka la Kesho will continue repairs and accessories. If my name is on the operation, it may make your file easier.”
“Easier for whom?”
Amina closed her printer invoice. “Do not make me sound greedy.”
“I am not.”
“I have a printer loan. Payments are weekly. Your frontage is near repair customers; mine has space for paper but people do not stay. If I give you forty percent, I do not only help you. I also get an income route.”
Tunu read the first clause. Amina would have approval rights over the shared counter, access to sales records and a share of profit without gross or net being defined. The words *temporary arrangement* appeared, but there was no end date.
“This is not only a name,” Tunu said.
“That is why I printed it. I do not want us to make verbal promises and fight later.”
“And if someone at the service centre sees your name, will they say my transfer is complete?”
“I do not know. We can ask.”
“I already asked. Salma said not to put another person’s signature on my file as the owner.”
Amina folded her arms. “I did not ask you to invent anything. I asked us to see whether you can continue with me.”
Tunu remembered how they had begun. Amina had lent her a roll of cable when Tunu opened the shop. Tunu once carried Amina’s printer to a technician and returned it before an invoice deadline. They had rescued each other many times without counting percentages. That was what made the offer heavy: friendship was meeting new arithmetic.
“If I give you forty percent,” Tunu said, “you receive real rights. With real rights, you can decide that we do not buy parts, where profit goes or who uses the counter. I do not want to give you ownership because I am afraid of tomorrow.”
“And I do not want you to call me a sham owner as if you are judging me.”
“I am not judging you. I am refusing a shortcut.”
Amina took a pen and underlined the profit clause. “This can be removed.”
“Even if it is removed, ownership remains.”
“Ownership is not a crime.”
“It is not. But my application is looking for a missing transfer, not a friend with a new name.”
Silence settled between them. Outside, a motorcycle passed through yesterday’s water and made a splitting sound. Amina lifted the printer invoice. “I told you the printer has a loan. If I remain alone, I need to increase wedding-card orders. With repair pickup, my cash has a better week. My offer was both help and business.”
“I knew the help part. I did not know about the loan.”
“I did not say it because I did not want you to think I was using you.”
“Now I know, and I still do not want to judge you for having a motive.”
Tunu took a blank sheet. She wrote two headings: *ownership* and *services*. Under ownership she wrote: Duka la Kesho — Tunu Sengo; Kalamu Stationery — Amina Rawi. Under services she wrote phone pickup, printing forms, copying case documents with the customer’s permission and separate accounting.
“We can begin with a services contract,” Tunu said. “If you receive a repair customer, you give them a Duka la Kesho ticket. When I need printing, I pay Kalamu as a customer. No shared cash drawer, no equity and no name of yours on the transfer file. Once my status settles, we can discuss a larger collaboration with full information.”
Amina read it. “What do I get?”
“A written pickup fee. A clear printing fee. And traffic from customers I would send to you.”
“That is smaller than forty percent.”
“Yes.”
“And safer than forty percent.”
“Yes.”
Amina walked to the printer, opened its cover and looked at the roller staining the corner of a sheet. “Do you know what hurts? If I help you with a small contract, people will say I was not a true friend.”
“People do not pay your loan.”
“And if you close, people do not pay your rent.”
“That is why we need a contract we can leave without breaking the friendship.”
Amina returned to the table. She asked Tunu to add a seven-day cancellation clause, Friday payments and a clear ownership declaration. Tunu wrote them. Amina added that customer data would not be shared without consent, even if pickup happened at her counter. Tunu agreed immediately.
When they finished the services draft, Amina placed it beside the forty-percent offer. “This does not answer the inspection question,” she said.
“The inspection will find my repair bench, my wiring and my records.”
“And it will also find that you left a customer pickup space without hiding it under Kalamu’s name.”
Tunu felt the weight of that advice. Amina was not only helping her avoid a paper shortcut; she was forcing her to appear as a real owner with real defects and abilities.
“Then tomorrow the inspection will find my shop,” Tunu said. “Not your name.”
Amina folded the forty-percent draft and said, “Then tomorrow the inspection will find your shop—not my name.”
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