The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

by Keigo Higashino

  Atsuya thought this through and liked it enough to clap his hands. “Shota, you know what? You’re a genius. Let’s do this. It’s the perfect plan. Her boyfriend only has half a year to live. She can lie without him ever finding out.”

  “Okay!” Shota sat down at the table, ready to write again.

  Atsuya felt as if this time, they’d be good. It wasn’t clear when the boyfriend had been diagnosed, but judging from the letters, it probably wasn’t too many months ago. He got the sense that their lives had been normal up to that point, meaning they were most definitely having sex. Even if they’d used protection, there was always the possibility of one getting through, and there were ways to talk around the details.

  Much to their chagrin, the letter that fluttered through the mail slot did not sound so convinced.

  I’ve read through your letter. I was surprised by your idea. I would have never thought of that myself, but it struck a chord. Giving him something new to dream about is definitely one way to go about this. He’d never go so far as making me have an abortion for the sake of getting to the Olympics. He’d want me to have a healthy baby.

  But I’m afraid there are a few problems with this plan. The first is the timeline of the pregnancy. The last time we slept together must have been at least three months ago. At this point, it would raise questions if I suddenly announced I was pregnant. What am I supposed to do if he asks me to prove it?

  If he did believe me, I know he’d tell his parents. Of course, we’d need to tell my parents, too. I’d imagine word would spread to all our relatives, and everyone would know. But there’s no way I can tell them all that the baby is a lie. I’d have to explain why I would lie about it in the first place.

  I’m not good at acting, and I’m an even worse liar. Everyone is going to get incredibly excited when they hear I’m pregnant, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hold it all together. I’d need to fake a baby bump, since people would notice if my belly stayed flat, but I’m sure I can’t pull that off, either.

  There’s another serious problem. If his condition progresses slower than anticipated, there’s a chance he’ll be alive on the due date of our fictional child. What then? If I don’t give birth on schedule, he’ll see the lie for what it is. It hurts me to imagine how disappointed he would be.

  I think it’s a wonderful idea, but I hope you understand why it won’t work for me.

  I’m so thankful for all the advice you’ve given me, Mr. Namiya. I got exactly what I needed, and I’m nothing but thankful. But I’ve realized that this is a problem I have to solve on my own. Don’t worry about responding to this letter. I’ve taken so much of your time already.

  —Moon Rabbit

  “What is this crap?” Atsuya tossed aside the letter and stood. “We’ve stuck with her all the way, and in the homestretch, she tells us, ‘No thanks, I’m good, I don’t need another letter!’ Makes you wonder if she ever even wanted our opinion to begin with. I mean, she pretty much ignored everything.”

  “She has a point,” admitted Kohei. “It’s hard keeping up an act.”

  “Shut up. How can you go easy on her when her boyfriend’s on his deathbed? If you face death head-on, you can do anything.” Atsuya sat down in front of the kitchen table.

  “Do you want to write back to her yourself?” asked Shota. “The handwriting would change again.”

  “I just gotta lay it all out on the table now, or I’ll go crazy.”

  “All right. Go ahead,” said Shota, sitting across from him. “I’ll write exactly what you say.”

  Dear Moon Rabbit,

  Are you an idiot? No need to reply—I already know the answer’s yes.

  I’ve told you exactly what you need to do. Why didn’t you just follow my lead, huh?

  How many times do I have to spell it out? Forget the Olympics.

  All this training? Trying to make it on the team? Yeah, it’s all pointless.

  You’ll never make it. Quit now. It’s a waste of time.

  But the ultimate waste is worrying about what to do. If you have time to spare, go spend it with your boyfriend.

  You think he’ll cry if you drop out? Think his tears will make him sicker?

  Quit screwing around. So what if you don’t make it on the team? It doesn’t matter. Trust me.

  In case you didn’t realize, there’s a war going on. There’s a bunch of countries in no position to be playing games. Japan can’t turn a blind eye to this. You’ll see soon enough.

  You know what? It doesn’t matter. Do what you like. Do whatever you want. Just be ready to regret it.

  Oh, and on a final note: You’re an idiot.

  —Namiya General Store

  6

  Shota lit a new set of candles. Their eyes had adjusted to the dark, and a few flickering flames were enough to see all the way to the outer corners of the room.

  “Still no mail,” said Kohei. “This is the longest it’s ever taken. Maybe she doesn’t want to write to us anymore.”

  “I don’t think she’s writing back,” said Shota, trailing off into a sigh. “She got her ass handed to her. She’s either going to be butt-hurt or pissed. Either way, I can guarantee she won’t feel like writing anymore.”

  “What the hell, man?” Atsuya glared at him. “You saying I’m the bad guy here?”

  “No. I felt the same way as you did. I think it was good to write that. But now that you’ve said all you wanted to say, you can’t complain if she doesn’t write back.”

  “…Cool.” Atsuya looked away.

  “Makes you wonder what happened, doesn’t it?” Kohei said aloud. “Like, did she keep on training or what? Did she get picked for the Olympic team? All that work, just for Japan to boycott the whole thing. She must have been devastated.”

  “If that’s what happened, serves her right,” Atsuya snapped. “She totally deserves it for ignoring us.”

  “What happened to the boyfriend?” Shota asked next. “How long did he live? Did he last to hear about the boycott?”

  Atsuya was quiet. An awkward silence settled over the room.

  “Hey, how long are we gonna do this for?” Kohei inquired. “The back door’s still shut. Time’s never going to pass.”

  “Yeah, but if we open it, we’ll cut off our connection to the past. Even if Ms. Rabbit sent us a reply, it’d never arrive.” Shota looked to Atsuya. “What should we do?”

  Atsuya bit his lower lip and began cracking his knuckles. Once he’d cracked all five fingers on one hand, he looked at Kohei.

  “Open the door.”

  “You sure?” asked Shota.

  “What do we care? Forget about Little Miss Rabbit. She’s nothing to us. Go on, Kohei.”

  Kohei stood just as a knocking sound came from the store.

  The three guys froze. They looked at one another and then out into the shop.

  Atsuya stood with great care and tiptoed toward the shop with Shota and Kohei tailing him close behind.

  Again, the gentle knocking came on the shutter, the little tap-tap-tap of someone checking whether anyone was home. Atsuya stopped dead in his tracks and held his breath.

  A letter fell through the mail slot.

  Sorry to bother you. Does a Mr. Namiya still live at this address? If not, and someone else is reading this, please stop and burn this letter without reading any further. I don’t have anything important to say, and you won’t gain anything by reading it.

  The rest of this letter is intended for Mr. Namiya:

  It’s Moon Rabbit. It’s been so long since my last letter. I wonder if you remember me. We exchanged a series of letters toward the end of last year. It’s hard to believe six months have passed. How have you been?

  I’m very thankful for all you did for me. For the rest of my life, I won’t forget your kind advice. Each letter was so full of sincerity.

  There are two updates I’d like to share with you.

  The first is that Japan has decided to officially boycott the Olympic
s. I’m sure you’re aware of this. I’d done my best to brace myself, but when they actually made the announcement, I was stunned. I already knew I wasn’t going, but it tore me up inside to think of my friends who thought they were on their way.

  Sports and politics… I thought they were totally different things, but in a conflict between nations, I guess it’s hard to draw the line.

  The second thing is about my boyfriend. He fought as long as he could, but a few months back, on February 15, he breathed his last. I was off that day and got to the hospital just before it happened. I held his hand tight and saw him off to the other side.

  His last words: “Thank you for letting me dream.”

  He clung to his wish for me to play in the Olympics until the very end. I like to think that it gave him something to live for.

  After that, I threw myself back into training. Sure, it was almost time for the Olympic team to be selected, but going all-out felt like the right way to pay homage to him.

  I hinted at this earlier, but I wasn’t selected to represent our country. I just wasn’t good enough. But I had given it my all, and I have no regrets.

  And even if I had been chosen, I wouldn’t have actually gone to the Olympics. Regardless, I still wouldn’t think I’d made a mistake.

  It’s thanks to you, Mr. Namiya, that I can think this way.

  I’ll confess that when I first wrote to you for advice, I was leaning pretty heavily toward giving up on the Olympics. A big part of me wanted to quit so I could stay beside the man I love and care for him until the end. But there was more to it than that.

  For a while, I’d been facing a mental block. Every day, a new failure. I pushed and pushed but always fell short of my standards. I was painfully aware of my physical limitations. I was tired of competing with my rivals, and I was beginning to buckle under the constant pressure. I wanted to escape.

  That was when we learned about the cancer.

  I can’t deny that I saw this as a way out of the brutal competition. When your true love is suffering from an incurable disease, you have to go and care for them. No one could blame me for my decision. And most importantly, I could forgive myself for doing it.

  But he knew my weaknesses all too well. That’s why he kept on telling me to never back out of the running, no matter what happened. Don’t take away my dream, he said. He would never have said something so selfish before.

  I became conflicted about what to do. The desire to care for my sick boyfriend, the desire to escape from the Olympics, the desire to make his dream come true—they all spun around my head into a big mess. I even lost sight of what I really wanted for myself.

  When I was fed up with worrying alone, I wrote you my first letter. But I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t entirely honest. I hid from you the fact that deep down, I was trying to run from the Olympics.

  But, Mr. Namiya, you saw right through my attempts to deceive you, didn’t you?

  After we went back and forth a few times, you cut the crap and said, “If you love him, stay beside him to the end.” When I read over that line, those words hit me like a hammer to the brain. My intentions weren’t that pure at all. I was indulging petty, ugly, insincere thoughts to worm my way out of my responsibilities.

  You followed up with more crystal-clear advice.

  “This whole thing is only a game.”

  “The Olympics are just a bigger version of a field day.”

  “The ultimate waste is worrying about what to do. If you have time to spare, go spend it with your boyfriend.”

  Honestly, I was perplexed. What made you so confident in your convictions? Then it hit me: You were testing me!

  If you told me to give up on the Olympics and I did exactly that, it would mean I wouldn’t have made the team anyway. In that case, it would be best for me to quit and spend all my time with my boyfriend. But if I couldn’t bring myself to quit, no matter how many times you insisted, it would prove how much the Olympics meant to me.

  It was like I was suddenly myself again.

  I’ve always been deeply connected to the Olympics. I’d dreamed about the games since I was little. I couldn’t just toss it aside.

  I told my boyfriend how I felt.

  “I love you more than anyone,” I said to him, “and I want us to be together as long as we can. If quitting would make life better for you in any way, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But as long as it won’t, I don’t want to give up on my dreams. This is what made me who I am, and this is who you fell in love with. You’ll never leave my thoughts when I’m out on the field, not even for a moment. Just let me chase my dreams.”

  He burst into tears right there in his hospital bed. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for you to say that. It’s been so hard to see you suffering because of me. To me, dying is less painful than the idea of making the woman I love give up on her dreams. Even when we’re far apart, I know our hearts are one. We have nothing to worry about. I want you to chase your dreams, no regrets.”

  From that day on, I threw myself headlong into my training without any misgivings. I’d finally realized that sitting beside someone’s sickbed isn’t the only way to care for them.

  In a matter of weeks, he was gone. His last words—“Thank you for letting me dream”—and the contented look on his face were my two greatest rewards. I may not have made it to the Olympics, but I came away with something far more valuable than a gold medal.

  Mr. Namiya, I’m so grateful to you. If we’d never corresponded, I would have forfeited a massive part of me and carried the weight of that loss for the rest of my life. I have nothing but the deepest respect and gratitude to you for your insight.

  I’m afraid you may not live here anymore, but I hope this letter finds its way to you somehow.

  —Moon Rabbit

  Shota and Kohei were both speechless. Atsuya assumed they couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say aloud. That was how it was for him, anyway.

  This last letter from Moon Rabbit was wholly unexpected. She hadn’t given up on the Olympics after all. She stuck it out until the end, even though she ultimately wasn’t chosen for the team, and Japan had decided to forsake the games entirely. And yet, she harbored no regrets at all. According to her, she was actually happy for gaining something much more valuable than a gold medal.

  She went so far as to say she believed it was all thanks to the Namiya General Store. She was convinced that Atsuya’s letter, a rant penned in a fit of anger and frustration, had steered her in the right direction. It didn’t seem as though she was writing out of scorn or irony. If she were, she wouldn’t have been compelled to write so much.

  A smile crept over Atsuya’s face. This whole situation was so absurd. Little spasms in his chest gave way to snickering, which became an audible whimpering that broke into an uproarious cackle.

  “Come on, isn’t this hilarious? We tell her to forget the Olympics, and she just hears what she wants to hear. And because things worked out all right, she thanks us for our ‘insight.’ As if we had anything to do with it.”

  Shota’s face relaxed. “Is that such a bad thing? Things worked out, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it was kinda fun,” volunteered Kohei. “I’ve never had the chance to give anyone advice before. Whether it’s a fluke or not, I’m glad she asked us for advice. Aren’t you, Atsuya?”

  Atsuya screwed up his face and scratched under his nose. “Well, I can’t say I feel any worse.”

  “See? I knew it.”

  “I’m not as psyched as you two are. Okay? Come on, I’ve had enough of this. Let’s open up that back door. Otherwise we’ll literally be here forever.”

  Atsuya walked over to the back of the house. He had his hand on the knob, ready to turn it, when Shota yelled out at him, “Wait a sec!”

  “What now?”

  Shota didn’t reply and made his way to the shop.

  “What is it?” Atsuya asked Kohei, but he only cocked his head and shrugged.
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  Shota came back into the kitchen. He had a grim look on his face.

  “What’s going on?” Atsuya asked.

  “We’ve got another one,” said Shota, and he raised his hand to show him. “Looks like it’s from someone else.”

  He was pinching a brown envelope between his fingers.

  CHAPTER 2

  MIDNIGHT BLUES

  1

  At the check-in desk for visitors sat a scrawny man, who looked well over sixty and who definitely hadn’t been here last year. He had the demeanor of someone who’d worked his entire life at some administrative job, only to retire and start working at this one.

  Katsuro was uneasy when he told the man his name.

  “Katsuro who?” the man asked, just as he’d predicted.

  “Katsuro Matsuoka. I’m here to play the concert. For charity.”

  “Charity?”

  “For the Christmas show…”

  “Ah yes, the assembly.” The man finally put it together. “I’d heard we were going to have some kind of musical performance. I guess I was expecting a band. But it’s just you, huh?”

  “Ah, yeah. Sorry.” Katsuro heard himself apologize.

  “One moment please.”

  The man picked up the phone and dialed an extension. He exchanged a few words with the person on the line and told Katsuro, “Someone will be right with you.”

  A woman with glasses came down the hall to greet him. He remembered her face. She was in charge of the party last year. She seemed to remember him, too, and approached him with a genial smile.

  “Welcome back. Thanks for coming.”

  “Thanks for having me again.”

  “Our pleasure.”

  She led him to a waiting room outfitted with a few chairs and a table.

  “You’ll have forty minutes onstage. Would you mind choosing the set list, like you did last year?”

  “No problem. I’ll mostly be playing Christmas music. Plus one or two originals.”

  “Interesting.” She flashed him half a smile, as if trying to remember the originals he’d performed the year before.