The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

by Keigo Higashino

Kosuke walked up the hill, watching his footsteps. If he had watched the street instead, he would have known much sooner whether the store was still standing. But instead, he kept walking with his head down. Something made him scared to know before he got there. Even if what he’d read did turn out to be a lie, he wanted to hold on to hope until the last possible second.

  He finally came to a halt. He knew he was close. He’d walked up and down this street a thousand times.

  Kosuke looked up. He sucked in a huge breath of air and blew it out.

  The store—the Namiya General Store—was still there. This shop had played a massive role in the course his life had taken.

  He approached it slowly. The letters on the sign were grubbed up and indecipherable, and the shutter was rusted over, but the building was still standing. As if it had been waiting for Kosuke to arrive.

  He checked his watch. It wasn’t even eleven yet. He had come a bit too early.

  Kosuke looked up and down the street. No one in sight. There was no way anybody lived here anymore. Could he really trust that story? After all, it was the Internet. Perhaps he should have been more skeptical.

  But then again, what was there to gain by posing as the Namiya General Store? Only a handful of people would remember it by now.

  He decided to hang around a little while longer, just to check it out. Besides, he still hadn’t written his letter. Even if he wanted to be involved in this strange event, he wouldn’t be able to without a letter.

  Kosuke went back the way he came. Meandering through the neighborhoods, he made it to the street of shops. Most of them were closed for the night. He would have thought there would be a twenty-four-hour restaurant or someplace he could wait, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

  He did find a convenience store and went inside. He had some shopping to do. In the stationery section, he found what he needed and took it to the register. The cashier was a young guy.

  “Any places open late around here?” Kosuke asked after he paid. “A pub or something?”

  “There’s a cluster of bars up the street, but I’ve never been to any of them,” the cashier replied rather curtly.

  “All right, thanks.”

  Sure enough, not far past the convenience store, he came upon a patch of bars and pubs. None of them seemed to be doing much business. He guessed they were the type of spot where local business owners might meet up for a drink after closing time.

  One of the signs made Kosuke stop midstride: BAR FAB4. With a name like that, he had no choice but to investigate.

  He opened the charcoal-colored door and peeked inside. Before him were two tables and, at the back, a counter with stools. On one stool sat a woman with a short bob, wearing a black sleeveless dress. No one else was there. She must have been the owner.

  The woman looked at him, a bit surprised. “Here for a drink?”

  She looked to be in her midforties. Her facial features were distinctly Japanese.

  “As long as it’s not too late.”

  The woman gave him a faint smile and stood up. “Of course not. We don’t close until midnight.”

  “In that case, I’ll have just one drink, thanks.”

  Kosuke stepped inside and took the stool at the very edge of the counter by the wall.

  “No need to leave so much space,” the woman laughed wryly. She handed him a hot towel to wipe his hands. “I don’t think anyone else is coming out tonight.”

  “I’m fine, thanks. I have something I need to work on over a drink.” He mopped his hands and face with it.

  “Work? This late?”

  “Yeah, work stuff,” he mumbled vaguely. Explaining things would not have been easy.

  She didn’t probe him any further. “Well, don’t let me bother you. Make yourself at home. What can I get you?”

  “I guess I’ll have a beer. You have anything dark?”

  “Is Guinness okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She crouched behind the counter. There must have been a fridge down there.

  When she stood, she was holding a bottle of Guinness. She popped the cap and poured it into a tumbler for Kosuke. She knew her stuff, all right. At least a knuckle’s worth of creamy foam floated on top.

  Kosuke took a big gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Its familiar bitter flavor filled his mouth. “Would you care for one yourself?”

  “Why, thank you.” The woman placed a tiny dish of nuts in front of Kosuke and took down a small glass. She poured herself some beer. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” he replied.

  He reached into his bag from the convenience store and took out a pen and a pad of paper.

  The woman looked at him approvingly. “Are you writing someone a letter?”

  “Basically.”

  She nodded, her suspicion confirmed, and moved to the other end of the bar. She seemed to be trying to give him space.

  Kosuke had another sip of Guinness and had a look around the bar.

  For a bar in a desolate town, this was not a down-home kind of place. The tables and chairs were simple yet refined, and the walls were decorated with posters and drawings. They were full of depictions of a well-known quartet of young men who had taken the whole world by storm well over forty years ago. One showed a yellow submarine drawn in psychedelic colors.

  “Fab4” was a reference to “the Fab Four,” a nickname for the Beatles.

  “Is this place a Beatles bar?”

  The woman shrugged agreeably. “That’s our gimmick anyway.”

  “Huh.” Kosuke had another look around and noticed a flat-screen on the wall. He wondered what Beatles content they would show on it. A Hard Day’s Night? HELP!? Kosuke didn’t think he’d discover some unknown cinematic treasures in a local spot like this.

  “I’m guessing you were born too late to know them as a kid.”

  His question made her shrug again. “Don’t be silly. When I was going into middle school, it had only been two years since they disbanded. They were at their peak. There were all kinds of events.”

  Kosuke looked at her face.

  “This is nothing to ask a lady, but…”

  She knew what he was trying to say and chuckled dryly. “I’m too old to let that bother me. But if you insist, let’s just say I was born in the year of the pig.”

  “The pig. That means…” Kosuke blinked. “You’re only two years younger than me?”

  She sure didn’t look over fifty.

  “No—I thought you were the younger one.”

  She was obviously just saying that.

  “That’s crazy,” muttered Kosuke.

  The woman gave him her card. It said Eriko Haraguchi.

  “You’re not from around here. What brings you to town? You here for work?”

  Kosuke choked. He couldn’t think up a lie that fast.

  “Not for work. More like a trip to my hometown, in a way. I used to live here. Forty some odd years ago.”

  “No kidding,” Eriko said, eyes wide. “We must have run into each other somewhere.”

  “Maybe.” Kosuke had a sip of beer. “By the way, where’s the music?”

  “Pshhh, what’s wrong with me? Mind if I put on the usual?”

  “Sure, whatever you’d like.”

  Eriko went up to the counter and pressed a few buttons. The first notes of a nostalgic song rang out across the decades from the speakers in the wall. The song was “Love Me Do.”

  Kosuke finished his first glass. He ordered another.

  “Do you remember when the Beatles visited Japan?”

  Eriko hmmed and scrunched up her face.

  “I feel like I saw it on TV, but that might be my imagination. It might have been one of those things where I heard my older brother talking about it with his friends, and now I feel like I was there.”

  Kosuke nodded. “That happens.”

  “How about you? Do you remember?”

  “A little bit. I was young, too. But I’m certain I sa
w it with my own two eyes. It wasn’t live, but I remember seeing footage of them driving down the Imperial Highway in a Cadillac after they got off their plane. It wasn’t until much later that I found out it was a Cadillac, but I noticed that car. I also remember they had ‘Mr. Moonlight’ playing in the background.”

  “‘Mr. Moonlight,’” she echoed. “That’s not one of their originals.”

  “Right. But after they played it at their show in Tokyo, it was a huge hit. I mean, that’s kinda why they got famous here. A lot of people think they wrote that song.”

  Realizing how passionate he must have sounded, Kosuke bit his tongue. It had been a long time since he’d had the chance to hash it out about the Beatles.

  “Those were good times,” Eriko said.

  “Sure were.” Kosuke emptied his glass, and she poured him another.

  His thoughts flew more than forty years back in time.

  2

  When the Beatles came to Japan, Kosuke didn’t exactly understand who they were. All he knew was that they were a group of four musicians from overseas. That’s why he was so shocked to see his cousin crying in front of the TV set when the special broadcast of their arrival came on-screen. His cousin was in high school, but to the nine-year-old Kosuke, he was basically an adult. That was the day he learned that out there in the world were some truly amazing people. People so great that their mere arrival in Japan would make a grown man cry.

  Three years later, his cousin died. It was sudden, a motorcycle accident. His aunt and uncle had been devastated, and they wished they’d never let him get his license. At the funeral, Kosuke heard them saying that if he hadn’t been listening to that garbage, he never would have fallen in with the wrong crowd. By garbage, they meant the Beatles. “I’m going to throw those records in the trash where they belong,” his aunt snapped.

  “If you’re throwing them out,” said Kosuke, “I’ll take them off your hands.” He wanted to hear with his own ears who these Beatles were, to find out what it was that had made his cousin lose his mind that night three years ago. Kosuke was almost in middle school, just reaching the age when music really starts to take hold on a kid.

  Some relative told his parents they’d better cut him off. “He’ll go bad, just like his cousin.” But his parents didn’t listen or heed their advice.

  “Listening to pop music won’t make a boy lose his mind,” said his father, Sadayuki. “Besides, Tetsuo wasn’t a bad kid. Every high school boy has a bike these days.” He dismissed the older relative’s concerns with a laugh.

  “That’s right. Our boy’s just fine,” said Kosuke’s mother, Kimiko.

  Kosuke’s parents were hip to the scene. They had a different take from your average set of parents, who seemed convinced that growing your hair long made you some kind of criminal.

  His cousin had owned just about every Beatles record released in Japan to date, and the collection had Kosuke hooked. He had never heard anything like this. The first time he savored those melodies and experienced those rhythms, it lit up parts of him he hadn’t known existed.

  In the wake of the Fab Four’s visit to Japan, a spate of new groups swept the country’s music scene—bands of young men singing behind electric guitars. Kosuke knew these weren’t Beatles imitators. They were imposters. Before long, the fad hiccupped and died.

  When he started attending middle school, Kosuke realized that many of his classmates were Beatles fans. Sometimes he asked one to come over. When each new friend stepped into his room and got a load of his audio equipment, they always gasped. Every single time. And why wouldn’t they? In their eyes, a solid-state amp and speaker system looked like something from the future. They weren’t even used to seeing speakers in a kid’s room. Back then, even well-off families had just one cabinet-style stereo in the living room, situated like a piece of furniture. Records were for listening together as a family.

  “My dad’s always saying ‘Spare no expense for art,’” he’d tell them. “He says there’s no point listening to music if you can’t hear it right.” Kosuke’s friends would moan with envy.

  He’d let them listen to the Beatles with his state-of-the art equipment. If the record was released in Japan, Kosuke had it. That alone was baffling to them.

  “What the heck does your dad do?” they always asked when they came over.

  “I’m not exactly sure, but I know he buys and sells stuff. It’s like this. If you buy something for cheap and sell it for a lot, you make a profit, right? He has a whole company that does that.”

  “Wait, so he’s the president?”

  “I guess so,” Kosuke said. It was hard not to sound proud of it.

  But Kosuke knew he was blessed.

  The house where they lived was high in the hills. A two-story Western building with a lawn out back where they held barbecues whenever the weather was fine. His dad was always inviting his employees over.

  “Japan’s been the office boy of the world for a long time,” Sadayuki would often say to his subordinates, “and it’s high time we do something about it. We need to be the ones to call the shots. To get there, we need to know the world. These other countries may be our competitors, but they’re also potential allies. Remember that.”

  Just hearing his father’s commanding baritone voice fanned up Kosuke’s sense of pride. He believed everything his father said and thought there wasn’t a more reliable man on earth.

  Kosuke didn’t have the slightest misgiving about his family being loaded. Plastic model kits, board games, records—if there was anything he wanted, his parents bought him piles of it. They even bought him things he didn’t really want, like watches and expensive clothes.

  His parents were living the life. Sadayuki boasted a golden wristwatch and smoked the finest cigars. He always seemed to have a new car. And Kimiko had her own image to maintain: She had the department stores send salesmen for house visits and ordered practically the entire catalog from front to back.

  “Cheap things make for a cheap person” was her motto. “They don’t just make you look cheap; they make your soul cheap. They suck away at your humanity. That’s why you need to buy the best of the best.”

  Kimiko was also a devotee of beauty. There were times when she was assumed to be as much as ten years younger than the other women her age. When she showed up at the open house at Kosuke’s school, his classmates were all stunned. He couldn’t remember how many of them had told him, “Man, I wish my mom was as young as yours!”

  The sky was the limit, and the sun was smiling on them. Or so it seemed.

  But a time came when he felt the change. It was very slight at first. At the beginning of the 1970s, a dark cloud edged over the horizon.

  In 1970, the World Expo in Osaka was the talk of Japan. An entire nation came together in palpable anticipation as it reached its climax.

  Kosuke was entering his second year of middle school in April and dead set on trekking down to the Expo over his spring break. Going early gave him better bragging rights. His dad had already promised they were going.

  On March 14, Expo ’70 opened with outrageous fanfare. Kosuke watched it on TV. As the cathode-ray tube filled the screen with images of the opening ceremony, he felt that for all its garish color, there was very little substance. But it seemed like a fitting way to show the world that Japan had rebuilt its economy and returned as a contender on the global market. It was as his father always said—they were the ones who called the shots.

  Except Sadayuki had stopped talking about their trip down to the Expo. One evening after dinner, Kosuke casually broached the topic. What his father said surprised him.

  “Expo? Don’t think so. I’m busy.”

  “Well, how about in May during Golden Week?”

  His father didn’t bother to answer. He was busy making faces at the business newspaper.

  “Who cares about the Expo?” added his mother, off to the side. “It’s just a bunch of countries showing off with a few dinky rides thrown in. Haven
’t you outgrown that kind of thing? I thought you were in middle school.”

  What was there to say to this? It wasn’t as if Kosuke had a good reason for going. But he’d already gloated to his friends, and if he didn’t go now, he was going to look like a real loser.

  “It’s time for you to focus on studying. You need to do well on your entrance exams for high school. The sooner you start prepping, the better. A year goes by quick. You don’t have time to waste on expos.”

  Couldn’t argue with that, either. Kosuke kept his mouth shut.

  But this wasn’t the only time he felt a disturbance in the air. From all angles, he could detect that his life was shifting; he just wasn’t sure how.

  Take his gym clothes, for instance. He was in the middle of a growth spurt, and they didn’t fit him anymore. He was used to his parents buying him new clothes whenever he asked, but this time, Kimiko took a different approach.

  “What, these are tight already? I just got you that last fall. Make it work a little longer. If I get you another set right now, you’ll be asking for a bigger one next week.”

  As if he were doing something wrong by growing.

  There were no more barbecues. His father’s employees stopped coming by on days off, and his father stopped playing golf. The house became a battlefield of disagreements. Kosuke wasn’t positive what Sadayuki and Kimiko were always arguing about, but he knew it had to do with money.

  Sadayuki would make some pointed comment like “If only you took this more seriously,” to which Kimiko would retort, “Maybe if you’d actually done your job, I wouldn’t have to.”

  The Ford Thunderbird, his father’s most recent favorite, disappeared from the garage. Sadayuki started to commute by train. Kimiko stopped shopping. And both of them were always irritated.

  At the worst possible time, he got the news: The Beatles had disbanded. A British newspaper broke the story.

  He swapped information with his friends. Back then, there was no Internet and certainly no Mixi, the Japanese social media platform that would become popular in the future. People had no choice but to listen to the paparazzi. “I saw this somewhere,” “They said so on the radio,” “I guess some foreign paper did a story”—if you amassed enough dubious material, the rumors somehow started sounding real.