Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

  It was Goro, unless she was mistaken. Goro, who was meant to be in America, was there before her eyes. She really had returned to the past. She understood the puzzlement on his face. There was no doubt that she had returned to a week ago. The inside of the cafe was just how she remembered it.

  The man called Fusagi had a magazine spread out on the table closest to the door. Hirai was sitting at the counter, and Kazu was there. And opposite her was Goro, at the same table where they had been. But just one thing was wrong – the seat in which Fumiko sat.

  A week ago, she had been sitting facing Goro. Now, however, she was in the seat of the woman in the dress. She was still facing Goro, but they were now one table apart. He’s so far away. His puzzled look was completely justified.

  But unnatural or not, she couldn’t leave her seat. That was one of the rules. But what if he asks why I am sitting here? What should I say? Fumiko gulped at the thought.

  ‘Oh gosh, is that the time? Sorry, I have to go.’

  Goro may have looked perplexed, but despite their now unnatural seating positions, he had said the exact words she had heard a week ago. This must be an unspoken rule when travelling back to the past.

  ‘Ah, that’s OK. That’s OK. You don’t have any more time, do you? I don’t have much time either.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  They weren’t on the same page and the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Although she knew the moment she had returned to, Fumiko was still confused – it was, after all, the first time she had returned to the past.

  To give herself time to settle, she took a sip of the coffee while looking up from under her brows to observe Goro’s expression.

  Oh no! The coffee is already lukewarm! It will be cold in no time!

  Fumiko was dismayed. At this temperature, she could already have gulped it down. This was an unexpected setback. She scowled at Kazu. She hated the way Kazu permanently wore such a deadpan expression. But that was not all . . .

  ‘Ugh . . . So bitter.’

  The taste was even bitterer than she had anticipated. It was the bitterest coffee she had ever drunk. Goro looked confused at hearing Fumiko’s strange utterance.

  Rubbing above his right eyebrow, Goro looked at his watch. He was worried about the time. Fumiko understood that. She was in a hurry too.

  ‘Um . . . I have something important to say,’ she said hurriedly.

  Fumiko shovelled sugar into her cup from the sugar pot placed in front of her. Then, after adding a fair amount of milk, she clinked and clanged her cup with her spoon with her vigorous stirring.

  ‘What?’ Goro frowned.

  Fumiko wasn’t sure if the frown was because she was adding too much sugar, or because he didn’t want to talk about anything important just then.

  ‘What I mean is . . . I want to talk about this properly.’

  Goro looked at his watch.

  ‘Hang on a sec . . .’ Fumiko took a sip of the coffee that she had sweetened. She nodded in approval. She hadn’t drunk coffee until she met Goro. It had been the pretext of buying him a coffee that led to their dates. The curious sight of Fumiko, who hated coffee, frantically adding a tremendous amount of sugar and milk earned her a wry smile from Goro.

  ‘Hey, this is a serious situation, and you’re just smirking at me drinking coffee.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘You blatantly are! You can’t deny it, I can tell by looking at your face.’

  Fumiko regretted interrupting the flow of the conversation. She had gone to the effort of returning to the past, and now it was going the same way as a week earlier. She was again chasing him away with her childish talk.

  Goro got up from his seat, looking agitated. He called to Kazu behind the counter.

  ‘Excuse me . . . How much, please?’ He reached for the bill.

  Fumiko knew that if she didn’t do something, Goro would pay and then leave. ‘Wait!’

  ‘It’s fine, let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘This isn’t what I came to say.’

  ‘What?’

  (Don’t go.)

  ‘Why didn’t you talk about it with me?’

  (I don’t want you to go.)

  ‘Well, that’s . . .’

  ‘I know how much your work means to you. I don’t necessarily mind if you go to America. I won’t stand in the way.’

  (I thought we were going to be together for ever.)

  ‘But, at least . . .’

  (Was it only me thinking that?)

  ‘I wanted you to discuss it with me. You know, it’s pretty despicable just deciding without talking about it . . .’

  (I really, truly . . . )

  ‘That’s just . . . well, you know.’

  ( . . . loved you.)

  ‘It makes me feel forgotten . . .’

  ‘. . .’

  ‘What I wanted to say was . . .’

  ‘. . .’

  (Not that it’s going to change anything . . . )

  ‘Well . . . I just wanted to say that.’

  Fumiko had planned to speak honestly – after all, it wouldn’t change the present. But she couldn’t say it. She felt that saying it would be to admit defeat. She would have hated herself for saying anything like, Which do you choose – work or me? Until she had met Goro, she had always put work first. It was the last thing that she wanted to say. She also didn’t want to be talking like a parody of a woman, especially to a boyfriend three years her junior – she had her pride. She also was perhaps jealous that his career had overtaken her own. So she hadn’t spoken honestly. Anyhow . . . it was too late.

  ‘Fine then, go . . . Whatever . . . It’s not as if anything I say will stop you going to America.’

  After saying this, Fumiko gulped down the rest of her coffee. ‘Whoa.’

  When the cup was empty, the dizziness started again. She was once more swallowed up by a wavering and shimmering world.

  She began pondering. (What did I come back for, exactly?)

  ‘I never thought that I was the right man for you.’

  She didn’t know why Goro would be saying this.

  ‘When you invited me for coffee,’ he continued, ‘I always said to myself that I mustn’t fall for you . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because I have this . . .’ He ran his fingers through his fringe, which had been combed down to cover the right side of his forehead. He revealed the large burn scar that spread from his right eyebrow to his right ear. ‘Before I met you, I always thought women found me repulsive, and I couldn’t even talk to them.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Even after we had started dating.’

  ‘It never even bothered me!’ shouted Fumiko, but she had become one with the vapour and her words didn’t reach him.

  ‘I thought that it was only a matter of time before you started liking other, better-looking guys.’

  (Never . . . How can you think that!)

  ‘I always thought that . . .’

  (Never!)

  It was a shock for Fumiko to hear him confess this for the first time. But now that he mentioned it, it seemed to make sense. The more she loved him, and the more she thought about marriage, the more she could sense some kind of invisible barrier.

  When she asked if he loved her, he would nod, but he never said the words I love you. When they walked down the street together, Goro would look down sometimes, almost apologetically, and stroke his right eyebrow. Goro had also noticed that men walking down the street were always gawking at her.

  (Surely he hadn’t been hung up on that.)

  Yet, as she thought that, Fumiko regretted her own thoughts. While she saw it as his little hang-up, for him it was a painful, long-standing complex.

  (I had no idea he felt that way.)

  Fumiko’s awareness was fading. Her body was engulfed in a wavering, dizzy sensation. Goro had picked up the bill and was making his way to the cash register with his bag in his hand.

 
; (Nothing about the present is going to change. It’s right that it is not going to change. He made the right choice. Achieving his dream is worth much more to him than I am. I guess I have to give up on Goro. I’ll let him go and wish him success with all my heart.)

  Fumiko was slowly closing her bloodshot eyes when—

  ‘Three years,’ Goro said with his back to her. ‘Please wait three years. Then I’ll return, I promise.’

  It was a faint voice, but the cafe was small. Although now only vapour, Fumiko could clearly hear Goro’s voice.

  ‘When I return . . .’ Goro touched his right eyebrow out of habit and, with his back to Fumiko, said something else that was too muffled to hear.

  ‘Huh? What?’

  At that moment, Fumiko’s awareness of that place became shimmering steam. Just as she was slipping away, Fumiko saw Goro’s face as he glanced back before leaving the cafe. She saw his face for only a split second but he was smiling wonderfully, just like the time when he had said, ‘Perhaps you could buy me a coffee?’

  When she came to, Fumiko was sitting in the seat, alone in the cafe. She felt as if she had just had a dream, but the coffee cup in front of her was empty. Her mouth still had a sweet taste in it.

  Just then, the woman in the dress returned from the toilet. When she caught Fumiko sitting in her chair, she swooped silently up to her.

  ‘Move,’ she said in an eerily powerful low voice.

  Fumiko started. ‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ she said, standing up from the chair.

  The dreamlike sensation had still not dissipated. Had she really returned to the past?

  Going back in time didn’t change the present, so it was only normal that nothing felt different. The aroma of coffee drifted from the kitchen. Fumiko turned to look. Kazu had appeared carrying a fresh cup of coffee placed on the tray.

  Kazu walked past her as if nothing had happened. When she got to the woman in the dress’s table, she cleared Fumiko’s used cup and placed the fresh cup of coffee in front of the woman in the dress. The woman gave a small nod of acknowledgement and began to read her book.

  Returning to the counter, Kazu asked casually, ‘How was it?’

  On hearing these words, Fumiko finally felt sure that she had travelled in time. She had returned to that day – one week ago. But if she had . . .

  ‘So I’m just thinking . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It doesn’t change the present, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But what about the things that happen later?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying.’

  ‘From now on . . .’ Fumiko chose her words. ‘From now on – what about the future?’

  Kazu looked straight at Fumiko. ‘Well, as the future hasn’t happened yet, I guess that’s up to you . . .’ she said, revealing a smile for the first time.

  Fumiko’s eyes lit up.

  Kazu stood in front of the cash register. ‘Coffee service, plus late-night surcharge, that’s four hundred and twenty yen, please,’ she said quietly.

  Fumiko gave a big nod and went towards the cash register. She felt light-footed. After paying 420 yen, Fumiko looked Kazu in the eye.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and bowed her head low.

  Then, after looking around the entire cafe, she once again bowed, not to anyone in particular, more to the cafe itself. Then she walked out of the cafe without a care.

  CLANG-DONG

  Kazu started entering the money into the cash register, with her deadpan expression, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The woman in the dress gave a slight smile as she quietly closed the book, a novel titled The Lovers.

  II

  Husband and Wife

  The cafe has no air conditioning. It opened in 1874, more than a hundred and forty years ago. Back then, people still used oil lamps for light. Over the years, the cafe underwent a few small renovations, but its interior today is pretty much unchanged from its original look. When it opened, the decor must have been considered very avant-garde. The commonly accepted date for the appearance of the modern cafe in Japan is around 1888 – a whole fourteen years later.

  Coffee was introduced to Japan in the Edo period, around the late seventeenth century. Initially it didn’t appeal to Japanese taste buds and it was certainly not thought of as something one drank for enjoyment – which was no wonder, considering it tasted like black, bitter water.

  When electricity was introduced, the cafe switched the oil lamps for electric lights, but installing an air conditioner would have destroyed the charm of the interior. So, to this day, the cafe has no air conditioning.

  But every year, summer comes around. When midday temperatures soar to above 30 degrees Celsius, you would expect a shop, even one that is underground, to be sweltering inside. The cafe does have a large-bladed ceiling fan, which, being electric, must have been added later. But a ceiling fan like this one doesn’t generate a strong breeze and simply serves to make the air circulate.

  The hottest temperature ever recorded in Japan was 41 degrees Celsius at Ekawasaki in Kochi Prefecture. It is difficult to imagine a ceiling fan being at all useful in such heat. But even in the height of summer, this cafe is always pleasantly cool. Who is keeping it cool? Beyond the staff, no one knows – nor will they ever know.

  It was an afternoon in summer. It was only early in the season but the temperature outside was as high as on any midsummer day. Inside the cafe, a young woman seated at the counter was busy writing. Next to her was an iced coffee diluted by melting ice. The woman was dressed for summer, in a white frilled T-shirt, a tight grey miniskirt, and strappy sandals. She sat with her back straight, as her pen raced across cherry-blossom-pink letter paper.

  Standing behind the counter, a slender woman of pale complexion looked on, her eyes filled with a youthful sparkle. It was Kei Tokita, and the contents of the letter had no doubt piqued her curiosity. Occasionally she would take sneak peeks with a look of childlike fascination on her face.

  Apart from the woman at the counter who was writing the letter, the other customers in the cafe were the woman in the white dress sitting in that chair, and the man named Fusagi, who was sitting at the table seat closest to the entrance. Fusagi once again had a magazine opened on the table.

  The woman writing the letter drew a deep breath. Kei followed by taking a deep breath herself.

  ‘Sorry for being here so long,’ the woman said, inserting her finished letter in an envelope.

  ‘Not at all,’ Kei said, fleetingly glancing down at her feet.

  ‘Um . . . Do you think you could pass this to my sister?’

  The woman was grasping the letter-filled envelope with two hands, and presenting it to Kei politely. Her name was Kumi Hirai. She was the younger sister of the cafe regular Yaeko Hirai.

  ‘Ah. Well, if I know your sister . . .’ Kei thought the better of continuing, and bit her lip.

  Kumi tilted her head slightly and gave Kei an inquisitive look.

  But Kei simply smiled as if she meant nothing by it. ‘OK . . . I’ll pass it on to her,’ she said, looking at the letter Kumi was holding.

  Kumi hesitated a little. ‘I know she might not even read it. But if you could . . .’ she said, bowing her head low.

  Kei assumed a correct and polite stance. ‘Of course I will,’ she said, acting as if she was being entrusted with something extremely important. She received the letter with both hands and made a courteous bow while Kumi moved to the cash register.

  ‘How much?’ Kumi asked, handing Kei the bill.

  Kei carefully placed the letter on the counter. Then she took the bill and began punching the keys of the cash register.

  This cafe’s cash register had to be a contender for the oldest one still in use – although it hadn’t been in the cafe right from the beginning. Its keys were much like those of a typewriter, and it was introduced to the cafe at the beginning of the Showa period, in about 1925. This was a very solidly built cash re
gister, designed to prevent theft. Its frame alone weighed about forty kilograms. It made a noisy clank each time a key was punched.

  ‘Coffee and . . . toast . . . curry rice . . . mixed parfait . . .’

  Clank clank clank clank . . . clank clank. Kei rhythmically punched in the amounts of each order. ‘Ice-cream soda . . . pizza toast . . .’

  Kumi certainly seemed to have eaten a lot. In fact, not everything fitted on one bill. Kei began punching in the orders of the second bill. ‘Curry pilaf . . . banana float . . . cutlet curry . . .’ Normally it’s not necessary to read out each item, but Kei didn’t mind doing it. The sight of her punching in the amounts resembled a child happily immersed in playing with a toy.

  ‘Then you had the Gorgonzola gnocchi, and the chicken and perilla cream pasta . . .’

  ‘I sort of pigged out, didn’t I?’ said Kumi in a rather loud voice, perhaps a little embarrassed at having everything read out. Please, you don’t have to read it all out, was probably what she wanted to say.

  ‘You certainly did.’

  Of course, it wasn’t Kei who said this – it was Fusagi. Having heard the order being read out, he had muttered this softly while he continued to read his magazine.

  Kei ignored him, but Kumi’s ears went a rosy pink. ‘How much?’ Kumi asked. But Kei had not finished.

  ‘Ah, let’s see . . . then there was the mixed sandwich . . . grilled onigiri . . . second curry rice . . . and er . . . the iced coffee . . . comes to a total . . . of ten thousand, two hundred and thirty yen.’

  Kei smiled, her round sparkling eyes showing nothing but kindness.

  ‘OK then, here you go,’ Kumi said, and she quickly pulled out two notes from her purse.

  Kei took the notes and counted them efficiently. ‘Receiving eleven thousand yen,’ she said, and again she punched the keys of the cash register.

  Kumi waited with her head hung low.

  Cha-ching . . . The cash drawer opened with a jolt and Kei pulled out the change.

  ‘That’s seven hundred and seventy yen change.’

  Smiling once again, with her round eyes sparkling, Kei gave Kumi the change.