The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

by Keigo Higashino

  Atsuya always had a bruise somewhere, but he tried to cover up. If they’d found out at school, it would cause a commotion. And he was sure that would only make things worse for him at home.

  That man was arrested for gambling when Atsuya was in the second grade. A gang of detectives came to see them at home. When they showed up, Atsuya was in a tank top, and one of the detectives saw the bruises on his body. They pressed his mother for an explanation, but the excuse she gave was so weak they caught her in the lie almost instantly.

  The precinct contacted Juvenile Affairs, who sent over a case agent.

  When the agent came by to ask him a few questions, his mother insisted she could raise him on her own. To this day, Atsuya didn’t understand why she’d said that. He’d heard her lamenting over the phone about how much she hated being a parent, how she wished she had never had a kid, over and over again.

  The agent left. Now it was just Atsuya and his mom. No more getting beat up at home, he thought. But while that was true, there was frequently no one home at all. More often than not, his mother didn’t come home at night. But it wasn’t as if she prepped his meals or left him money for food. Before he knew it, school lunches were the only thing keeping him alive. Atsuya told no one of his miserable existence. He wasn’t sure what was holding him back. Maybe he didn’t want their sympathy.

  The season changed to winter, and Atsuya spent Christmas alone. It was winter vacation, and school was closed. His mother hadn’t been home in over two weeks. There was nothing left in the refrigerator.

  On December 28, Atsuya was caught stealing a chicken skewer from a street stand. He was famished. He had no memory of how he’d been eating since the start of winter break. Honestly, he didn’t even really remember stealing the skewer. They had caught him in the act. He was apprehended swiftly, since he’d collapsed as he was about to make his escape. Anemic shock.

  Three months later, Atsuya entered Marumitsuen.

  3

  Dear Dubious Doggy,

  Thank you for your second letter.

  It’s clear to me you aren’t working as a hostess just so you can live a life of luxury.

  Your ambition to own your own business is commendable.

  Still, I can’t help but suspect that after two good months of working as a hostess, you’re a little tipsy on the glamour and easy money.

  How are you going to go about saving the money to start a business? Do you have a timeline for your savings? And how will you proceed from there? To run a club, you’ll need to hire a lot of people. Where will you get the experience you need to manage everything? Do you think you’ll figure it out just from working as a hostess?

  Are you confident that your plan will be enough for you to succeed? If so, what are you basing that on?

  I think it’s admirable that you want to have financial independence. But don’t you think it’s just as admirable to marry someone with money and win yourself some security and stability? Even when a woman doesn’t have a job, providing support for her husband gives her a certain kind of independent status.

  You mentioned wanting to do something to show your gratitude toward your parents, but money isn’t enough to pay them back. You need to make yourself happy, comfortable. You know, settle down. Once you do, your parents will be satisfied, and I think they’ll feel gratified, too.

  You said I could ignore your letter if I disagreed with your lifestyle, but I couldn’t overlook your situation. I had to write back. Please share your honest thoughts.

  —Namiya General Store

  “Looks good to me,” agreed Atsuya. He handed the letter to Shota.

  “Now it all depends on what she says. Whether she writes back with a solid plan.”

  He shook his head at Shota. “I’m not banking on it.”

  “Why not? If you’re gonna be dismissive, at least back it up.”

  “Even if she has a plan or whatever, I wouldn’t expect it to be more than a daydream. Like getting some celebrity or baseball player to be her sugar daddy.”

  “Hey, that could work.” Kohei piped up with an endorsement.

  “Shut it, numbskull. That’s never gonna happen.”

  “Anyway, I’ll be right back.” Shota slipped the letter in an envelope and stood.

  They watched Shota exit through the back door and listened to him opening the lid of the milk bin and letting it slam shut. Atsuya wondered how many times they’d heard that exact sequence of sounds that night.

  Shota came back inside and shut the door behind him. A second later, they heard the shutter rattling. “I’ll get it,” Kohei volunteered, and he ambled into the storefront.

  Atsuya looked at Shota. Their eyes met.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  “Dunno.” Shota shrugged.

  Kohei came with another envelope. “Can I read it first?”

  “Go ahead,” Shota and Atsuya both told him.

  Kohei began to read the letter. At first, he seemed to be amused, but gradually, his expression shifted into something ominous. He started chewing his thumbnail. Atsuya gave Shota a look. Kohei had a habit of doing that when he was panicking.

  There were more pages than last time. When Kohei was done, Atsuya snatched the letter from him.

  To the Namiya General Store,

  Your second letter made me feel the same dissonance again.

  Frankly, I was insulted by your suspicion that I’m merely drunk on what you call “the glamour and easy money.” Who in their right mind would do this job for fun?

  But when I cooled down, I realized your choice of words was sensible. It’s to be expected that you’d be skeptical about a nineteen-year-old girl who writes to tell you she wants to start a business.

  I decided I wasn’t helping anyone by being secretive. I figure I might as well clue you in on everything now.

  As I’ve mentioned again and again, I want to be a financially independent person. And I’m not talking about making a modest living. I want to make the big bucks. But I don’t want to make it for myself.

  To tell you the truth, I lost both my parents when I was very young and spent six years, up through elementary school, living in a children’s home. A place called Marumitsuen.

  But I was one of the lucky ones. Just when I graduated elementary school, some relatives were able to take me in. It’s thanks to them that I made it as far as high school. In the children’s home, there were all too many kids who had been abused by their parents. There were kids taken in by foster parents who pocketed the child support and fed them close to nothing. After seeing their misfortune, I was able to understand how blessed I was.

  Which is all the more reason that I want to do something to repay my guardians, as soon as I can. I’m running out of time. They’re elderly, and since they aren’t working anymore, they’re scraping by on their meager savings. They don’t have anyone but me to help them. And I can’t earn enough money making tea and copies all day long.

  And by the way, I do have a plan for starting my own club. Saving up is a major part of it, but I also have an adviser who will help me get things started. He’s one of our customers, but he has a hand in a bunch of other businesses in the food industry and owns a spot himself. He told me that when I decide to go off on my own, he’ll help me cover all the bases.

  But I bet you think my plan is dubious at best. Why can I be so sure that this guy will help me out?

  This part I need to confess. Lately, this man has been asking me to be his lover. If I say yes, he’ll give me a monthly allowance. And I don’t mean pocket money. I’m seriously considering this. He’s not a bad guy, and I don’t dislike him.

  That should answer all your questions. I hope I’ve made it abundantly clear that I am not working as a hostess for the heck of it. Or did you find this letter lacking in direction, too? You’ll probably call it all a fairy tale, la-la land, a little girl’s misunderstanding of the big wide world. If that’s the case, please point out whatever it is I’m missing. I would ap
preciate the guidance.

  —Dubious Doggy

  4

  “I’m heading up to the shops by the station,” Harumi told Hideo, her great-aunt. She was at the stove, her back to Harumi. The air was fragrant with the smell of bonito flakes.

  “All right.” Hideo nodded her good-bye over her shoulder. She had just scooped some broth into a dish and was giving it a taste.

  Harumi stepped out and hopped onto the bicycle parked by the gate. She started pedaling nice and easy. This was only the third time that summer that she’d gone out early in the morning. Hideo must have known something was going on, but she didn’t pry because she trusted Harumi.

  She rode the familiar route at a familiar pace. Before long, she was at her destination.

  The Namiya General Store was surrounded by a light mist, the aftermath of last night’s rain. She made sure no one was around and walked down the alley alongside the house. The first time, she’d been really nervous, but she had since gotten used to the system.

  Around back was a second entrance, and bolted to its wall was a beat-up milk crate. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and lifted the lid. Inside, like all the other times, she found an envelope.

  She let out a long exhale in relief.

  Out from the alley, she hopped back on her bike and headed home. What would the third letter have to say? She pedaled hard; she wanted to be home as soon as possible, to open it and see for herself.

  Harumi Muto had come back home on the second Saturday in August. She had lucked out that her day job and her side gig at the club in Shinjuku had set their Bon break for the same week. If the two breaks had not perfectly overlapped, she may not have been able to make the trip.

  At the company, she couldn’t expect to get time off before or after Bon. They would probably deny her request. The club, on the other hand, had no problem with her taking extra days, as long as she gave them enough notice. But Harumi didn’t want to take any days off; she wanted to work every day she could.

  To call this place her home wouldn’t tell the whole story. This wasn’t where she was born. The family placard on the front gate read TAMURA.

  When she was five, Harumi lost her parents in a car crash. It was an uncanny collision; a truck crossed over the median into their lane. Harumi was in preschool, rehearsing for a school play. She had no recollection of when she heard the news. She was sure she’d been overwhelmed with sadness, but the memory had slipped free in one clean piece. The same goes for the six months she supposedly went without speaking to anyone. She knew about this only from what she had been told after the fact.

  It wasn’t that she had no relatives, but she barely ever saw them. She wouldn’t have expected anyone to rush to take her in, but that was when the Tamuras held out their hands and welcomed her in.

  Hideo Tamura was the sister of her maternal grandmother, which made her Harumi’s great-aunt. Harumi’s grandfather had died during the war, and her grandmother had fallen ill and passed away soon after. Like an angel sent from heaven, Hideo rescued Harumi and treated her as her own when there was no one else to count on. Harumi’s great-uncle was just as kind and good.

  But those happy days would not last for long. The Tamuras had only one daughter, but she showed up unannounced with her husband and their children one day to live at home. Later, she heard that the husband had lost everything in a business venture and accumulated an exorbitant amount of debt, and they lost the house they lived in.

  Just before entering elementary school, Harumi was given over to the children’s home. “I’ll come and get you soon.” That’s what her great-aunt said the day she dropped her off.

  Six years later, she came as promised. Her daughter’s family had finally moved on. On her first day back, Harumi saw her great-aunt kneeling before the family altar and praying.

  “It feels like a huge weight has been taken from my shoulders. I can finally face you again,” she whispered to a picture of her sister.

  Diagonally across from their house lived the Kitazawas. They had a daughter, Shizuko, who was three years older than Harumi.

  When Harumi had lived here previously, Shizuko had played with her fairly often. Now that she was back, ready to go to middle school, Shizuko was entering high school. When Harumi saw her for the first time in ages, Shizuko had something mature about her that Harumi didn’t have yet.

  From that day on, the two of them were practically inseparable. Shizuko doted on Harumi like a little sister, and Harumi thought of her as the older sister she never had. With their houses so close, they could hang out anytime they liked.

  Even now, she was looking forward to seeing Shizuko when she came home.

  Shizuko was a fourth-year student at a college specializing in physical education. She had been fencing since high school and became strong enough to vie for a position on the Olympic team. Most of the time, she commuted to college from home, but once she became an elite athlete, her practice regimen went into overdrive; it wasn’t odd for her to be away from home for weeks on end with frequent travel overseas.

  But this summer, Shizuko was just hanging around the house. The Moscow Olympics had finally been boycotted by the Japanese government. When Harumi heard the news, she worried Shizuko would be devastated, but it turned out that her worry had been groundless.

  Shizuko was in good spirits when Harumi saw her during Bon. There was no avoiding the topic of the Olympics, and Shizuko didn’t try to change the subject. She told Harumi she had failed to make the final cut for the Olympic team, but she was lighthearted about it all. “I feel sorry for the athletes who did get picked,” Shizuko said in a lowered voice. She had always been kind.

  It had been about two years since Harumi had last seen Shizuko. Once slender and svelte, her friend had bulked out considerably and exuded the latent energy of an athlete. Her shoulders were broad, and her biceps were more developed than most of the rail-thin guys around town. To qualify for the Olympics, thought Harumi, you have to have a special kind of body.

  “My mother’s always saying the room gets cramped when I walk in,” joked Shizuko. She squinted a little, making a wrinkle just above her nose. She was always doing that.

  Harumi first heard about the Namiya General Store one night when they were walking home from a Bon dance in town, dressed in festive yukata robes. They were talking about their dreams for the future and marriage, when Harumi asked Shizuko, “Hey, if you had to pick one, which would it be—fencing or romance?” She had meant to get a rise out of her. It worked.

  Shizuko stopped dead and looked Harumi straight in the eye. The light in her eyes was full of sincerity. She began to weep.

  “Hey, wait, what’s wrong? Did I say something to upset you? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she apologized hastily.

  But Shizuko shook her head and wiped her tears on the floral sleeve of her yukata. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I scared you. It’s fine. I’m fine.” She shook her head and started walking.

  They were quiet after that. The walk started to feel very long.

  Then Shizuko stopped short again.

  “Hey, Harumi, want to take the long way home?”

  “The long way? Sure. But where’re we going?”

  “You’ll see when we’re there. Don’t worry; it isn’t far.”

  Shizuko led Harumi up a few streets to a small, old shop. They stood outside. The sign read NAMIYA GENERAL STORE. The shutter was down, but it was hard to say if the store was closed for the night or closed for good.

  “Do you know about this place?” asked Shizuko.

  “Namiya… I feel like I must’ve heard that name before somewhere.”

  “‘Let me answer your questions! Namiya!’” Shizuko sang.

  “Oh, right, Namiya!” she cried. “Yeah, I remember people saying that in school. So this is where it came from…”

  She’d first heard rumors in middle school, but she’d never been by until now.

  “The store itself went out of business, but the
y’re still doing the advice thing.”

  “Whoa, really?”

  Shizuko nodded. “I mean, just the other day, I got some good advice.”

  Harumi looked at her wide-eyed. “No way.”

  “I haven’t told this to anyone else, but I know I can tell you. I mean, you’ve already seen me cry tonight.”

  When she said it, her eyes teared up again.

  Shizuko’s story caught Harumi off guard. She was surprised enough to hear her friend had fallen in love with her former fencing coach and was considering marriage, but what shocked her most of all was hearing that the man was no longer alive, and that Shizuko had trained for the Olympics knowing he was about to die.

  “There is no way I could have done that,” Harumi admitted. “I mean, when the man you love is dying, I don’t see how you can spend all your time on sports.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how things were with us,” Shizuko said. Her face and tone were at peace. “He knew his life was almost over, but that made him want to spend what little time was left on prayer. Praying that my dream, his dream, would come true. Once I understood that, I didn’t worry anymore.”

  Shizuko said her worry had gone away thanks to the Namiya General Store.

  “He’s an amazing guy. No tricks, no bullshit. I mean, when I told him about my problem, he practically bopped me on the head. But he forced me to figure things out and see that I was getting in my own way. He’s the reason why I was finally able to stop worrying and throw myself into the training.”

  “Really…”

  Perusing the battered shutter of the store, Harumi was overtaken by a curious observation. It didn’t look as though someone could have possibly been living here.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Shizuko, “but it is real. I don’t think anyone is here most of the time. He must come by at night to collect the letters. Once he has his answer, he leaves it in the milk crate. It’s there by morning.”