Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot).
Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold.
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot).
Genre: Fiction, fantasy, time travel.
Country: Japan.
Language: Japanese.
Publication Date: 2015.
Summary: In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. The novel introduces four characters, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe's tine-travelling offer, in order to confront the lover who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has begun to fade, see their sister one last time, and meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold... The story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? Would you time-travel if you could not change anything? And, more importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ The man who had worried about time didn't wait for the woman to look up. "Now, look..." he started.
No longer muttering, he sounded collected and together.
But as if she was actively trying to stop short his next words, the woman said, "Why don't you just go?" She didn't look up.
The woman who wanted an explanation now refused to hear it. The man sat motionless as if time itself had stopped.
♥ "So your boyfriend chose work, then?" Hirai had a gift for getting to the heart of the matter.
"No, that's not right!" Fumiko protested.
"Eh? But that is right, isn't it? He went to America, didn't he?" Hirai said. She was having a hard time understanding Fumiko.
"Didn't you understand when I explained?" Fumiko said vehemently.
"What bit?"
"I wanted to scream out don't go but I was too proud."
♥ If Hirai had been in Fumiko's place, she would have just broken down in tears. "Don't go!" she would have screamed. Of course, they would have been crocodile tears. Tears are a woman's weapon. That was Hirai's philosophy.
♥ "You can go back. It's true... you can go back, but..."
"But...?"
"When you go back, no natter how had you try, the present won't change."
The present won't change. This was something Fumiko was totally unprepared for - something she couldn't take in. "Eh?" she said loudly without thinking.
Kazu calmly continued explaining. "Even if you go back to the past and tell your... um, boyfriend who went to America how you feel..."
"Even if I tell him how I feel?"
"The present won't change."
.."Why?" Fumiko asked Kazu, her eyes begging for answers.
"Why? I'll tell you why," Kazu began. "Because it's the rule."
There tends to be, in any movie or novel about time travel, some rule saying, Don't go meddling in anything that is going to change the present. For example, going back and preventing your parents marrying or meeting would erase the circumstances of your birth and cause your present self to vanish.
This had been the standard state of affairs in most time-travel stories that Fumiko knew, so she believed in the rule: If you change the past, you do change the present. On that basis, she wanted to return to the past and have the chance to do it afresh. Alas, it was a dream that was not to be.
She wanted a convincing explanation as to why this unbelievable rule existed, that there is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present. The only explanation that Kazu would give was to say, Because that's the rule. Was she trying to tease her in a friendly way, by not telling her the reason? Or was it a difficult concept that she was unable to explain? Or perhaps she didn't understand the reason either, as her casual expression seemed to suggest.
♥ The first rule was: The only people you can meet while in the past are those who have visited the cafe. This would usually defeat the purpose of going back. Another rule was: There is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present. The cafe was asked why that rule existed, but their only comment was that they didn't know.
As the author of the article was unable to find anyone who had actually visited the past, whether or not it was actually possible to go back in time remained a mystery. Even supposing it was possible, the sticky point of not being able to change the present certainly made the whole idea seem pointless.
♥ On their seventh date, Fumiko was waiting for Goro to arrive at their meeting point when a couple of men started talking to her. They were chatting her up. They were good-looking, but she was not interested. Men were always trying to pick her up and so she had developed a technique for dealing with this. Before she could put it to use, Goro arrived and stood there, looking uncomfortable. Fumiko rushed up to him, but the two men reacted, sneered at Goro, and asked her why she was with that dweeb. She had no choice but to begin her spiel.
Goro lowered his head and didn't say anything. But she faced the two men and said (in English), "You guys don't know his appeal," (in Russian) "He's brave enough to take on difficult tasks at work," (in French) "He has the mental discipline not to give up," (in Greek) "He has the skill to render the impossible possible," (in Italian) "I also know he has put in extraordinary effort to be able to gain this ability," (and in Spanish) "His appeal is far greater than any other man I know." Then in Japanese, she said, "If you understood what I just said, I wouldn't mind hanging out with you."
Visibly stunned, the two men at first stood motionless. Then they looked at each other, and moved on awkwardly.
♥ "When you return to the past, you must drink the entire cup before the coffee goes cold."
"Uh. I don't actually like coffee that much."
Kazu opened her eyes wider and brought her face an inch or so from the tip of Fumiko's nose.
"This is the one rule you have to absolutely obey," she said in a low voice.
"Really?"
"If you don't, something terrible will happen to you."
"Wh-what?"
Fumiko felt uneasy. It wasn't that she hadn't been expecting something like this. Travelling in time meant violating the laws of nature - which obviously entails risk. But she couldn't believe the timing of Kazi's announcement. A sinkhole had just opened up on the final strait to the finish line. Not that she was going to get cold feet - not after she had come this far. She looked apprehensively into Kazu's eyes.
"What? What will happen?"
"If you don't drink all the coffee before it gets cold..."
"...If I don't drink the coffee?"
"It will be your turn to be the ghost sitting in this seat."
A bolt of lightning went off inside Fumiko's head. "Seriously?"
"The woman who was sitting there just now..."
"Broke that rule?"
"Yes. She had gone to meet her dead husband. She must have lost track of the time. When she finally noticed, the coffee had gone cold."
"...and she became a ghost?"
"Yes."
♥ 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.
♥ (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."
..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.
♥ 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.
♥ 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.
♥ Kohtake had put on her most confident voice to reassure Kei and Kazu. She meant what she said. She was putting on a brave face, but her bravery was real.
♥ He began to mumble in a throaty voice that was difficult to hear.
"The "you" living in this time doesn't know about my illness..."
He might be under that impression. But "I" already know, or will very soon.
"I just don't know how to tell you..."
He held up the brown envelope to show her. He was planning to tell her that he had Alzheimer's in this letter.
But I don't need to read it... I already know. It would make more sense to give it to me in the past. The "me" that Fusagi can't bring himself to give it to... I guess if he can't pass it to that version of me, it's OK that I take it. That's just the way things are.
&heats; "So I forget? I forget you?" he mumbled, looking down.
Hearing this, she was overwhelmed by confusion. She didn't even know why there was a coffee cup in front of her.
She looked at him in trepidation. Staring at him, she noticed how forlorn his expression was now. She had never imagined that he could look that way. Lost for words, she couldn't even maintain eye contact and found herself casting her eyes down.
By giving no reply, she had answered his question with a yes.
"I see. I feared as much," he murmured sadly. He bowed his head so deeply his neck looked like it might break.
Her eyes welled with tears. After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he had struggled each day with the dread and anxiety of losing his memory. Yet she, his wife, had not seen how he had borne these thoughts and feelings alone. On learning that she had come from the future, the first thing he had wanted to know was whether he had forgotten her, his wife. This realization filled her with both joy and sorrow.
It gave her strength to look him in the face, without wiping away her tears. She smiled broadly at him so he might interpret her tears as those of joy.
"Actually, your illness does get better, you know."
(As a nurse, now is the time I need to be strong.)
"In fact, you in the future told me."
(I can say anything without changing the present.)
"How you did have anxious moments..."
(What does it hurt if I lie? If I can relieve his anxiety, even if it's just for a moment, it's worth it...)
She wanted so much for her lie to be believed, she would do anything. She had a lump in her throat. Tears streamed down her face. But maintaining her beaming smile, she continued.
"It will be all right."
(it will be all right!)
"You recover."
(You recover!)
"Don't worry."
(You recover... Really!)
Every word she spoke, she delivered with all her strength.
♥ The kindness of his smile seemed infinite.
♥ Kazu didn't interrogate or press anyone on why they had visited from the future. Even if, say, a murderer travelled back in time, she would have a good reason to leave it alone: the rule was that the present doesn't change no matter how much one tries to rearrange things in the past. This rule could never be broken. A series of random events would always somehow unfold to prevent the present from changing. If, for example, a gunman came from the future and fatally shot a customer - as long as the customer was living in the future, he could not die, even if he had been shot in the heart.
That was the rule.
Kazu or whoever was there would call the ambulance and the police. The ambulance would leave for the cafe. This ambulance would not get caught in traffic. The ambulance would travel from the emergency centre to the cafe and carry the patient from the cafe to the hospital using the shortest distance and in the fastest time. On looking at the patient, the hospital staff might say, "We probably can't save him." Even if that happened, then a world-leading surgeon would happen to be visiting the hospital and would operate on the patient. Even if the victim's blood was a rare type that only one in several ten thousand possessed, there would be a stock of such blood at the hospital. The surgery staff would be excellent and the operation would be successful. The surgeon might say later that if the ambulance had been one minute later or if the bullet had been located one millimetre to the left, the patient would not have survived. All the staff would say that it was a miracle the patient survived. But it wouldn't be a miracle. It would be because of the rule which dictated that the man who was shot in the past must survive.
Because of this, Kazu didn't mind who came from the future, for whatever reason. Everything a visitor from the future might try would be futile.
♥ Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don't trust.
♥ "Kumi!" Hirai cried out.
Hearing her name suddenly screamed in that way stopped Kumi in her tracks. "What?" she asked, looking startled.
Hirai didn't know what to say. Nothing she said would change the present.
"Er. Nothing. Sorry."
Of course it wasn't nothing. Don't go! Don't die! Sorry! Please forgive me! If you hadn't come to meet me, you wouldn't have died!
There were many things she wanted to say, and apologize for: selfishly leaving home, expecting Kumi to look after their parents, leaving it to her to take on the role of heir. Not only had she neglected to think how hard that was for her family, she'd never imagined what really led Kumi to take time from her busy schedule and come to see her. I see now that you suffered by having me as your older sister. I'm sorry. But none of these feelings could be formed into words. She had never understood... But what should she say? And what did she want to say?
Kumi was looking at her kindly. Even if nothing was forthcoming, she still waited for her to speak - she understood that she had something she wanted to say.
How kindly you look at me after I've been so horrible for so long. You held on to these kind feelings while you continued to wait for me for so long. Always wishing we could work together at the inn. Never giving up. But I...
After a long silence of being lost in her feelings Hirai managed to mutter just two words. "Thank you."
She didn't know whether that one phrase could contain all these feelings or whether it conveyed how he felt. But every part of her at that moment was invested in those two words.
♥ When it appears in haiku, the higurashi cicada is a term denoting the season, associated with autumn. The mention of the higurashi, therefore, evokes an image of it shrilling at the end of summer. Somehow, though, while the shrills of the abura cicada and the min-min cicada evoke the images of a blazing sun, midsummer, and scorching days, the song of the higurashi evokes images of the evening and the late summer. When the sun begins to set and the dusk gathers, the kana-kana-kana of the higurashi evokes a melancholic mood, and one gets the urge to hurry home.
In the city, the shrill of the higurashi is seldom heard. This is because, unlike the abura cicada and the min-min cicada, the higurashi likes shady places such as the canopy of a forest, or of cypress groves away from the sun. But living near our cafe was a single higurashi cicada. When the sun started to set, a continual kana-kana-kana could be heard coming from somewhere, shrilling fleetingly and weakly. This was sometimes audible in the cafe, you had to strain your ears to hear it - it was that faint.
♥ She didn't say anything but she thought to herself, When you return to the past, you cannot change the present. Going to the future is simply a waste of time. How convenient. I can see why that magazine article described the cafe's time travel as "meaningless".
..But unfortunately for her, she wouldn't have been able to travel to the future anyway. There was one more annoying rule preventing this from occurring: A person who has sat on the chair to travel through time once cannot do it a second time. Each person receives only a single chance.
♥ This weighed heavily on her heart, and was sapping her physical strength. As her strength faded, her sense of anxiety grew. Negativity is food for a malady, one might say.
♥ Kazu's drawings were hyper-realist. Using only pencils, she created works that appeared as true to life as actual photographs, but she could only draw things she could observe herself; her drawings never depicted the imaginary or the invented. People don't see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind. Pablo Picasso's sketch of a nude man that he did at age eight is remarkable. The painting he did at age fourteen of a Catholic communion ceremony is very realistic. But later, after the shock of his best friend's suicide, he created paintings in shades of blue that became known as the Blue Period. Then he met a new lover and created the bright and colourful works of the Rose Period. Influenced by African sculptures, he became part of the cubist movement. Then he turned to a neoclassical style, continued on to surrealism, and eventually painted the famous works The Weeping Woman and Guernica.
Taken together, these artworks show the world as seen through Picasso's eyes. They are the result of something passing through the filter that is Picasso. Until now, Kazu had never sought to challenge or influence people's opinions or behaviour. This was because her own feelings didn't form part of the filter through which she interacted with the world. Whatever happened, she tried not to influence it by keeping herself at a safe distance. That was Kazu's place - it was her way of life.
♥ Her father's death left her in a dark place emotionally. She had encountered death for the first time, and referred to it as the very dark box. Once you climbed inside tat box, you never got out. Her father was trapped in there - a place where you encountered no one, awful and lonely. When she thought of her father, her nights were robbed of sleep. Gradually, her smile faded.
Her mother Tomako's reaction to her husband's death was the opposite of Kei's. She spent her days with a permanent smile. She had never really had a bright disposition. She and Michinori seemed an unexciting and ordinary married couple. Tomako had cried at the funeral but after that day, she never showed a miserable face. She smiled far more than she had done before. Kei couldn't understand at all why her mother was always smiling. She asked her, "Why are you so happy when Dad is dead? Aren't you sad?"
Tomako, who knew that Kei described death as the very dark box, answered, "Well, if your father could see us from that very dark box, what do you suppose he would be thinking?"
With nothing but the kindest of thoughts for Kei's father, Tomako was trying her best to answer the accusatory question that Kei was asking: "Why are you so happy?"
"Your father didn't go in that box because he wanted to. There was a reason. He had to go. If your father could see from his box and see you crying every day, what do you think he would think? I think it would make him sad. You know how much your father loved you. Don't you think it would be painful for him to see the unhappy face of someone he loved? So why don't you smile every day so that your father can smile from his box? Our smiles allow him to smile. Our happiness allows your father to be happy in his box." On hearing this explanation, Kei's eyes welled up with tears.
Hugging Kei tightly, Tomako's eyes glistened with the tears that she had kept hidden since the funeral.
Next it will be my turn to go into the box...
Kei understood for the first time how hard it must have been for her father. Her heart tightened at the thought of how devastated he must have been, knowing that his time was up and that he had to leave his family. But by finally taking into account her father's feelings, she also understood more fully the greatness of her mother's words. She realized that only a deep love and understanding of her husband would have allowed her mother to say those things.
♥ Kei was unable to find any words to say next, but there was one thing she wanted to ask.
Bringing you into this world was the only thing that I did for you. Can you forgive me for that?
But how could she expect to receive such forgiveness? She had caused so much sadness.
..Miki took a breath. "Just before..." she said with a trembling voice. "When you said to Fumiko that I didn't want to meet... It's not like that."
Kei listened, hanging on every word.
"I always thought that if we met, I would want to talk to you..."
There were so many things that Kei wanted to ask also.
"But when it actually happened, I didn't know what to say."
Kei hadn't known what to say either. She dreaded how Miki might be feeling. She'd failed to put the things she wanted to ask into words.
"And yes... there have been times when I have been sad."
Kei could well imagine. The thought of Miki alone like that was heart-wrenching for her.
I cannot change those sad times of yours.
"But..." Miki smiled bashfully as she took a little step closer. "I am really glad for the life you gave me."
It takes courage to say what has to be said. It no doubt took Miki all of her courage to express her feelings to the mother she had just met. Her voice wavered with uncertainty, but it conveyed her true feelings.
But...
Large teardrops began flowing from Kei's eyes.
But giving birth to you is the only thing I will ever be able to do for you.
Miki also began crying. But using both hands to wipe away the tears, she smiled sweetly.
"Mum." She said it in a nervous, excited voice but Kei heard it clearly.
Miki was calling her Mum.
But I haven't given you anything...
Kei covered her face with both hands. Her shoulders shuddered as she wept.
"Mum."
Hearing her name called again, Kei suddenly remembered. It soon must be time to say goodbye.
"What?" Kei lifted up her face and smiled, reciprocating Miki's feelings.
"Thank you," Miki said with the broadest of smiles. "Thank you for having me. Thank you..." She looked at Kei and quickly held up a peace sign.
"Miki."
"Mum."
At that moment, Kei's heart sang with happiness: she was the mother of this child. She wasn't just a parent - she was the mother of the girl standing before her. She was unable to stop the tears from gushing.
I finally understand.
The present didn't change for Kohtake, but she banned everyone from using her maiden name and changed her attitude towards Fusagi. She would be with Fusagi to continue being his wife, even though she had vanished from his memory. Hirai abandoned her successful bar to rejoin her family. While repairing her relationship with her parents, she was learning the traditional ways of the inn from square one.
The present doesn't change.
Nothing about Fusagi changed, but Kohtake came to enjoy her conversations with him. Hirai had still lost her sister, but the photo she sent to the cafe showed her looking happy with her parents.
The present hadn't changed - but those two people had. Both Kohtake and Hirai returned to the present with a changed heart.
Kei gently closed her eyes.
I was so absorbed in the things that I couldn't change, I forgot the most important thing.
Filling in for her, Fumiko had been by Miki's side for these fifteen years, Nagare had been there for Miki as her father, showering her with love, no doubt going some way to make up for her absence. Also filling in for her, Kazu had lavished Miki with kindness, playing the role of mother and big sister. She realized that there had been all these loving people around Miki, earnestly supporting her growth for the fifteen years she had been gone, wishing for her happiness.
Thank you for growing up so happily and healthily. Just by growing up so fit and well, you have made me so happy. That's all I want to say to you... this is how I feel deep down.
"Miki..." Leaving her flowing tears unwiped, Kei gave her best smile to Miki. "Thank you, for the honour of having you."
♥ The magazine piece on the urban legend had stated, "At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?
But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone's heart, it clearly has its purpose.
But with her cool expression, she will just say, "Drink the coffee before it gets cold."