“Why’s that?”
Harumi looked concerned. She took a breath and went on.
“Even if you’re just dabbling in a little real estate, you should try to sell everything off before 1990. The Japanese economy is going to tank.”
Bewildered, Kosuke gave her an interrogative look. She sounded all too confident about what she was saying.
“Sorry,” Harumi laughed awkwardly. “That must have sounded pretty weird, huh? Forget I said anything.” She looked at her watch and stood. “It was so good to see you after so long. I hope I see you around.”
“Sure,” said Kosuke, standing with her. “Take care.”
They said their good-byes, and Kosuke went back to the van. He turned the key and started off but then hit the brakes.
The Namiya General Store, huh?
That place was on his mind now. Kosuke hadn’t taken the old man’s advice and thought he was better for it, but there were people out there, like Harumi, who had taken it and still felt they were indebted to him.
Whatever happened to that old store?
Kosuke hit the gas again. He had to force himself to do it, but at the last second, he turned the wheel and drove in the opposite direction from his way home. He wanted to check on the Namiya General Store. By now, it must have closed for business. He felt that if he could see so with his own two eyes, it would be a weight off his shoulders, somehow.
This was his first time back in his hometown in eighteen years. Hands on the wheel, he summoned his memories. He didn’t think anyone would recognize him, but he took pains to avoid eye contact. A visit to his old house was not on the agenda.
The town had changed considerably. There were far more houses, and the roads had even been redone. Thanks to the economy.
But the Namiya General Store sat in the same spot with the same look. It was obviously in rough condition, and the characters on the sign were hard to read, but it was still the building he knew. It felt as though if you rolled up the rusted shutter, you’d still find the shelves well stocked.
Kosuke got out of the car and walked up to the storefront, wading through sadness and nostalgia. He thought back to the night when his worries about leaving town led him here with a letter for the mail slot.
Before he knew it, he had stepped into the alley and was walking around back. The milk bin was bolted to the wall. He lifted the lid. The bin was empty.
He let out a breath. What am I doing here? he asked himself. Enough of this.
At that moment, the door beside him opened. A middle-aged man was standing in the doorway.
He looked taken aback, too. Surely he wasn’t expecting any visitors.
“Um, sorry,” Kosuke said, letting the lid of the milk bin fall shut. “I’m not doing anything. I was just, uh…” No reasonable excuse would come to mind.
The man eyed Kosuke and the milk crate suspiciously. “Are you one of the advice people?”
Kosuke looked back in disbelief.
“You’re one of the people who wrote to my old man, asking for advice. Right?”
Caught red-handed, Kosuke’s jaw dropped. He nodded. “I am. Years ago.”
The man looked relieved. “Of course you are. If you weren’t, what would you be doing in the milk bin?”
“I’m really sorry. It’s my first time in the area in years, and I felt like I had to come by and see.”
The man waved his hand in front of his face. “No need to apologize. I’m his son. He passed away. Eight years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. So is the house…?”
“Nobody lives here anymore. I come by sometimes, to check on things.”
“Do you have plans to tear it down?”
The man groaned. “We have to keep it standing. We’re going to leave it up for now.”
Kosuke wondered what the reasoning was, but he felt it would be rude to pry.
“Did you write one of the serious letters? The way you were looking in there tells me you asked him a real question, unlike some of those neighborhood punks.”
Kosuke understood the reference.
“Yeah. I mean, it was serious to me.”
The man nodded and looked at the wooden box.
“My dad was an odd duck. I always thought if he had the time to dispense all this advice, he should be devoting it to his business. But that’s what kept him going. I think he was pretty satisfied, in the end, especially when people thanked him.”
“Did people come by often?”
“Yeah, well, basically. They sent more letters. Years of giving advice, and he started getting worried about whether any of it was any good. But I think those thank-you notes put his mind at ease.”
“So they wrote him to express their gratitude.”
“Right.” He steadied his gaze. “One person who got advice as a kid became a teacher and used that same advice to help his students. It worked great. Another came from the daughter of someone who got advice. Her mother was pregnant, with the child of a man who was already married with kids, and she was torn up about whether she should have the baby.”
“The world is full of all kinds of worries, huh?”
“So true. I thought the same thing when I read through all those thank-yous. It’s just one thing after another. My old man was a trouper just for keeping up. One day, there’d be a somber letter from a kid agonizing over whether to go with his parents when they split town to start over, and the next there’d be a kid who fell in love with their teacher, lamenting about what to do.”
“Wait a second.” Kosuke sliced through the air with his hand. “Someone asked for advice about skipping town with their parents?”
“They did,” the man mused, but his eyes were asking “And what of it?”
“Did they send a thank-you letter, too?”
“Sure did. My dad told him he should stick with his parents, and he took his advice. He said things turned out great. Him and his parents worked out a way to have a happy life.”
Kosuke knit his eyebrows together. “When was all this? When did your dad get the letter?”
The man gave him a look of trepidation. “It was right before he died. But there was a lot more to it than that. That’s not when they wrote the thank-you.”
“Meaning…?”
“To tell you the truth,” the man started off, but he pursed his lips. “Crap,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said all that. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
This was strange. The man stepped out and turned the key to lock the door.
“I need to get going. Feel free to stick around, see what you need to see. Not like there’s anything to see here.”
He hunched over to shield himself from the cold and went up the alley without looking back. Once Kosuke saw that he was gone, he looked inside the milk bin one more time.
For an instant, the box warped out of shape. Or so it seemed.
10
Kosuke noticed “Yesterday” had come on. He finished off his whiskey and asked Eriko for another.
He looked down at the pad of paper on the counter. He had racked his brain to come up with the following letter:
To the Namiya General Store,
About forty years ago, I asked you for advice. I went by Paul Lennon. Perhaps you remember me.
My problem was that my parents were planning to leave town to escape their debt and wanted to take me with them, but I wasn’t sure if I should go.
You told me that it isn’t good for families to separate and that I should trust my parents and follow them.
I tried, at least at first, to do this. When we left the house behind, we were together.
But on the road, I reached a point where I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. I lost faith in them—my dad, especially. I knew I couldn’t trust them with the rest of my life. Our bond as a family had already been broken at the time.
I saw my chance and ran for it. I had no idea what life had in store for me. I just knew I couldn’t go on any f
urther with my parents.
I’ll never know what happened to them. But personally, I think I made the right decision.
My life has had some twists and turns, but I’ve managed to find happiness. I’m at a point where I’m mentally and financially secure.
Which goes to say I made the right choice by not listening to your advice.
Just to be clear, I’m not writing out of spite. The post online said you wanted people’s input on how your advice changed their lives. I thought you might want to hear from someone who turned it down.
My philosophy is that when things get heavy, you have to carry that weight yourself.
I realize there’s a strong chance this letter will wind up in the hands of your family. I apologize for any disrespect. Feel free to dispose of it.
—Paul Lennon
A new glass of whiskey was on the counter. Kosuke took a sip.
He remembered a day in late 1988, when he met Old Man Namiya’s son. Someone had asked the old man for advice about the exact same problem. Only difference was that they’d followed the advice and, by all accounts, wound up happy.
Strange coincidence, he thought. Could there really have been another kid in that small town wrestling with the same problem?
How exactly had that kid and his parents found their happiness? Based on his own experience, that outcome was impossible. Escape was not a choice; it was an imperative. Kosuke’s parents had no other recourse, so they ran.
“Did you finish up your letter?”
“More or less.”
“You don’t see many handwritten letters anymore.”
“Yeah, I guess you don’t. It was kind of an impulse move.”
It had happened that afternoon. He was looking something up online, and he came across a post on someone’s blog. It was as if his eyes had tripped over the words the Namiya General Store, and he read the post in full:
To all who requested advice from the Namiya General Store:
On September 13, from exactly midnight until daybreak, the advice box of the Namiya General Store will be reopening for one night only. We kindly ask that anyone who has ever asked for and received advice to give us your unfiltered opinion. How did it affect your life? Did you find it useful, or was it useless? Please leave your letters in the mail slot in the shutter, just like old times. We look forward to hearing from you.
Goosebumps. Could this be true? It must’ve been someone’s idea of a joke. But why would anyone joke about this?
He traced the post back to its source. There was a site called the Namiya General Store—One-Night Special. The site had been registered by someone going by “the Namiya Family.” According to the post, this date was the thirty-third memorial service for the owner. They would be hosting a memorial service for him.
He couldn’t get it off his mind. It was impossible to focus on his work.
He ate dinner at a local Japanese diner, the usual, and went home, but he was still restless. He decided to go out again. He hadn’t even bothered to change out of his work clothes.
Since he lived alone, there was nobody to inform about where he was going.
Not sure what he was doing, he got on the train as if propelled by some invisible force.
Kosuke read through the letter he had written. He’d finally be able to tie up some of the loose threads in his life.
The song changed to “Paperback Writer.” This was one of his old favorites. He glanced at the CD player and happened to see a record player off beside it.
“Do you play vinyl sometimes, too?”
“On occasion. When one of our regulars asks.”
“Could I have a look at your collection? I won’t ask you to play anything.”
“Sure,” she said and disappeared out back.
She returned with a few LPs.
“There’s more where this came from, but they’re upstairs.” She lined the records up across the counter.
Kosuke picked one up. Abbey Road. It had been released ahead of Let It Be, but chronologically, it was the last record the Beatles ever recorded. The album cover of the four men crossing the street was legendary in its own right. Paul McCartney was mysteriously barefoot, contributing to the popular conspiracy theory that “Paul is dead.”
“Man, this takes me back,” he whispered and reached for another. Magical Mystery Tour. It had been released as a soundtrack to a movie of the same name, and he’d heard its plot was best summarized as “bonkers.”
The third record he examined was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The unshakable ziggurat of rock and roll.
Kosuke fixated on a detail of the cover. A blond woman on the far right. He used to think she was Marilyn Monroe; it wasn’t until he was older that he learned she was the British actress Diana Dors. Beside her was a black spot. The printing had been peeled away and filled in with a felt-tipped pen.
The blood in his veins coursed hot though his body. His heart was beating rapid-fire.
“Who, whose—” His voice was hoarse. He gulped and tried again. “Whose are these? Yours?”
She looked a little puzzled. “I’m looking after them now. They were my older brother’s.”
“Your brother’s? How did you wind up with them?”
She exhaled. “He died two years ago. He’s the reason I became a Beatles fan. He’d been a huge fan since we were little, and when we grew up, he was always saying how he wanted to open up a Beatles-themed bar. In his thirties, he quit his job and opened up this place.”
“…Really. Was your brother sick?”
“He had cancer. In his chest.” She patted her breast.
Kosuke looked at her business card. Eriko Haraguchi.
“Was his last name Haraguchi, too?”
“No, Haraguchi is my married name. I’m divorced, and on my own now. Changing names was a pain, so I just left it. My brother’s last name is Maeda.”
“Maeda, huh…?”
Maeda was the last name of the friend he sold the records to. Which meant the records lined up on the counter were his own. His lost collection.
He couldn’t believe it, but it really wasn’t so strange. When he thought about it, there were only a certain number of people in that town who would have opened up a bar devoted to the Beatles. When he saw the sign for Fab4, he should have anticipated that the bar would belong to somebody he used to know.
“Why do you ask?”
“No, it’s nothing.” Kosuke shook his head. “So you inherited these records?”
“Yeah, he left them to me, but they were actually from someone else. A previous owner.”
“How do you mean?”
“Almost all of them he bought off a friend in middle school. A whole collection. His friend was an even bigger Beatles fan, but out of nowhere, he called him saying he wanted to sell them off. My brother was ecstatic, even though he thought it was kind of weird—” Eriko stopped herself and put her hand to her lips. “I’m sorry; I must be boring you.”
“No, I’m interested.” Kosuke sipped his whiskey. “Please go on. Did something happen to his friend?”
Eriko nodded.
“He didn’t come back from summer vacation. As it turns out, his whole family had left town. I guess they had some egregious debt. Along the way, they must have realized there was no escape. Things ended horribly…”
“What happened?”
Eriko cast her gaze down. Her face grew somber. She looked up again slowly. “Two days after they left town, they committed suicide.”
“They did? All of them? Who?”
“I mean, the whole family, all three of them. The father killed his wife and son, then killed himself.”
Kosuke almost yelped, but he pushed it down with all his might. “How did he go about killing them? His…wife and all.”
“I don’t know the exact details, but they said he drugged them and dumped their bodies off a boat into the ocean.”
“Why were they on a boat?”
“They stole a rowboat
in the middle of the night and went out into the harbor. The father didn’t take a high enough dose. When he washed up onshore alive, he hung himself.”
“But did they find the other bodies, of his wife and kid?”
Eriko shrugged. “That, I don’t know, but the father did leave a suicide note. That must have been enough for the authorities to determine that the other two were dead.”
“Oh boy.”
Kosuke finished off his whiskey and asked for another. His head was chaos. If his senses had not been dulled by alcohol, he may not have been able to hold himself together.
Even if they’d found another body, it would have to have been Kimiko’s. If Sadayuki had written in his note that he had killed both his wife and his son, there was a low probability of the police suspecting otherwise, even if they never found the other body.
The question was: Why did Sadayuki do it?
Kosuke thought back to that fateful night forty-two years ago. The night he had absconded from the Fujikawa Rest Area, crouched among the boxes of a cargo truck.
He was sure that Sadayuki and Kimiko had been distraught when they realized he had disappeared. They could either forget about their son and proceed with the getaway as planned, or they could try to find him. Kosuke had imagined they’d chosen the first option. They had no way of finding him, even if they had wanted to.
But evidently, they’d chosen neither. Instead, they’d chosen suicide.
Another glass was sitting on the counter. He picked it up and shook it gently. Ice spun and tinkled in the whiskey.
It seemed Sadayuki had considered the option of a family suicide all along. Mind you, as a last resort. But there was no question Kosuke’s actions had pushed him to it.
No, it couldn’t have been just him. He and Kimiko must have talked it out and decided on it together.
But why go through the trouble of stealing a boat and drowning Kimiko?
There was only one reason for them to kill themselves: to make it seem as if their son was dead, too. The ocean is a big place. Sometimes bodies don’t turn up.
In the throes of suicide, Kosuke’s parents had been thinking of him. What would happen to their son if they died?
They probably couldn’t imagine how he expected to get by on his own. But they must have reasoned he would need to scrap his name. They didn’t want to stand in the way of his new identity and life.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store Page 20
