Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

  Once again, Fumiko’s head was filled with racing thoughts.

  Ghost? A real moaning shrieking ghost? The sort that appears under a weeping willow in the summer? The girl just said it so casually – maybe I misheard? But what sounds like ‘is a ghost’?

  Fumiko’s head was awash with many confusing thoughts. ‘Ghost?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re messing with me.’

  ‘No, honestly, she’s a ghost.’

  Fumiko was bewildered. She was happy not to get stuck on questioning whether or not ghosts actually exist. But what she couldn’t accept was the possibility that the woman in the dress was a ghost. She seemed far too real.

  ‘Look, I can clearly . . .’

  ‘See her.’ Kazu finished her sentence as if she knew what Fumiko was going to say.

  Fumiko was confused. ‘But . . .’

  Without thinking, she stretched her hand out towards the woman’s shoulder. Just as she was about to touch the woman in the dress, Kazu said, ‘You can touch her.’

  Again, Kazu had a ready reply. Fumiko placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder as if to confirm that she could be touched. Without a doubt, she could feel the woman’s shoulder and the material of the dress covering her soft skin. She couldn’t believe that this was a ghost.

  She gently removed her hand. Then once again she placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. She turned to Kazu as if to say, I can clearly touch her, calling this person a ghost is crazy!

  But Kazu’s face remained cool and composed. ‘She’s a ghost.’

  ‘Really? A ghost?’

  Fumiko poked her head towards the woman and looked her squarely in the face, quite rudely.

  ‘Yes,’ Kazu replied, with utmost certainty.

  ‘No way. I just can’t believe it.’

  If Fumiko could see her but was unable to touch her, then she could have accepted it. But this was not the case. She could touch the woman, who had legs. The title of the book the woman was reading was one she had never heard of. It was a normal book, nevertheless – one that you could buy almost anywhere. This led Fumiko to come up with a theory.

  You can’t really go back to the past. This cafe can’t really take you back to the past. It is all just a ploy to get people to come. Take the countless number of annoying rules, for example. These are just the first hurdle to encourage customers wanting to return to the past to give up. If the customer passes that first hurdle, then this must be the second hurdle for those customers who still want to go back in time. They mention a ghost to frighten the person into giving up on the idea. The woman in the dress is just for show. She’s pretending to be a ghost.

  Fumiko was beginning to feel quite stubborn.

  If it’s all a lie, then so be it. But I’m not going to be fooled by this lie.

  Fumiko addressed the woman in the dress politely. ‘Look, it will only be for a short while. Please would you kindly allow me to sit there.’

  But it was as if her words hadn’t reached the woman’s ears. She continued reading without the slightest reaction.

  Being totally ignored like this darkened Fumiko’s mood. She grabbed the woman’s upper arm.

  ‘Stop! You mustn’t do that!’ warned Kazu loudly.

  ‘Hey! Just stop it! Stop just ignoring me!’

  Fumiko tried to forcefully drag the woman in the dress from her seat.

  And then it happened . . . The woman in the dress’s eyes widened and she glared at her fiercely.

  She felt as if the weight of her body had increased many times over. It felt as if dozens of heavy blankets had fallen over her. The light in the cafe dimmed to the brightness of candlelight. An unworldly wailing began to reverberate through the cafe.

  She was paralysed. Unable to move a muscle, she dropped to her knees and then fell to a crawling position.

  ‘Ugh! What’s happening? What’s happening?’

  She had absolutely no idea what was happening. Kazu, in a smug, told-you-so kind of way, simply said, ‘She cursed you.’

  When Fumiko heard curse, she didn’t understand at first.

  ‘Huh?’ she asked with a groan.

  Unable to withstand this invisible force that seemed to be getting stronger, Fumiko was now lying face down on the floor.

  ‘What? What is this? What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s a curse. You went ahead and did what you did, and she cursed you,’ said Kazu as she slipped back into the kitchen, leaving Fumiko sprawled on the floor.

  Lying face down, Fumiko didn’t see Kazu go, but with one ear firmly against the floor, she clearly heard Kazu leave by the sound of her fading footsteps. Her fear was so intense, Fumiko shivered as if icy water had been poured over her entire body.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Look at me! What can I do?’

  There was no response. Fumiko started shuddering.

  The woman in the dress was still glaring at Fumiko with a terrifying expression. She seemed a completely different person to the woman who had been calmly reading her book just moments earlier.

  ‘Help me! Please help me!’ Fumiko yelled out to the kitchen.

  Kazu calmly returned. Fumiko could not see this, but Kazu was holding a glass carafe of coffee in her hand. Fumiko heard her footsteps coming towards her, but she had no idea what was happening – first the rules, then the ghost, and now the curse. It was all utterly bewildering.

  Kazu hadn’t even given her any indication whether she meant to help her or not. Fumiko was on the verge of yelling Help! at the top of her lungs.

  But right at that moment . . .

  ‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ Fumiko heard Kazu asking nonchalantly.

  Fumiko was incensed. Ignoring her in her moment of need, Kazu was not only not helping, she was offering the woman in the dress some more coffee. Fumiko was dumbfounded. I was clearly told that she was a ghost, and it was wrong of me not to believe it. It was also wrong of me to grab on to the woman’s arm and try to forcefully remove her from her chair. But even though I’ve been yelling ‘Help me!’ the girl has just been ignoring me and now she is breezily asking that woman if she wants more coffee! Why would a ghost be wanting another coffee!

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ was all that Fumiko was able to vocalize, however.

  But without hesitation, ‘Yes, please,’ an eerily ethereal voice replied.

  It was the woman in the dress who had spoken. Suddenly, Fumiko’s body felt lighter.

  ‘Aah . . .’

  The curse had been lifted. Fumiko, unencumbered and panting, stood upright on her knees and glared at Kazu.

  Kazu returned her gaze, as if to ask, You have something to say? and shrugged with indifference. The woman in the dress took a sip from her freshly poured coffee and then returned quietly to her book.

  Acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Kazu disappeared back to the kitchen to return the carafe. Fumiko once more reached her hand out to touch the shoulder of that terrifying woman in the dress. Her fingers could feel her. The woman is here. She exists.

  Unable to understand such weird events, Fumiko was completely confused. She had experienced the whole thing – she couldn’t dispute that. Her body had been pushed down by an invisible force. Though she could not make sense of things in her head, her heart had already fathomed the situation well enough to be pumping gallons of blood through her body.

  She stood up and walked towards the counter, feeling quite dizzy. By the time she had made her way there, Kazu had returned from the kitchen.

  ‘Is she really a ghost?’ Fumiko asked Kazu.

  ‘Yes,’ was Kazu’s only reply. She had started topping up the sugar pot with sugar.

  So, this totally impossible thing happened . . . Fumiko once more began to hypothesize. If the ghost . . . and the curse . . . really happened, then what they say about going back in time might also really be true!

  Experiencing the curse had convinced Fumiko that you can go back. But there was a problem.
>
  It was that rule – in order to go back to the past, you have to sit in one particular seat. Sitting in that one particular seat, however, is a ghost. Anything I say doesn’t get through to her. And when I tried to sit there forcefully, she cursed me. What am I meant to do?

  ‘You just have to wait,’ Kazu said, as if she could hear Fumiko’s thoughts.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Every day, there is just one moment when she goes to the toilet.’

  ‘A ghost needs to go to the toilet?’

  ‘While she’s gone, you can sit there.’

  Fumiko stared hard into Kazu’s eyes. She gave a small nod. That seemed to be the only solution. As to Fumiko’s question of whether ghosts go to the toilet, Kazu was unsure of whether it was genuine curiosity or meant for comedic effect and decided to ignore it with a deadpan expression.

  Fumiko drew a deep breath. A moment ago she had been grasping at straws. Now she had a piece of straw in her hand, and she wasn’t going to let it go. She once had read a story about a man who traded his way up from one piece of straw to become a millionaire. If she was to become a straw millionaire, she mustn’t waste that straw.

  ‘OK . . . I’ll wait. I’ll wait!’

  ‘Fine, but you should know that she doesn’t differentiate between day and night.’

  ‘Yes. OK, I’ll wait,’ Fumiko said, desperately clutching her straw. ‘What time do you close?’

  ‘Regular opening hours are until eight p.m. But if you decide you want to wait, you can wait for as long as it takes.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  Fumiko sat down at the middle of the three tables. She sat with her chair facing the woman in the dress. She folded her arms and breathed hard through her nose.

  ‘I’m going to get that seat!’ she announced, glaring at the woman in the dress. The woman in the dress was reading her book, as always.

  Kazu gave a little sigh.

  CLANG-DONG

  ‘Hello. Good evening!’ said Kazu, delivering her standard greeting. ‘Kohtake!’

  Standing in the open doorway was a woman. She looked like she might be a little over forty.

  Kohtake was wearing a navy blue cardigan over a nurse’s uniform and carrying a plain shoulder bag. Breathing a little heavily as if she had been running, she held her hand on her chest as if to steady her breath.

  ‘Thanks for calling,’ she said. She spoke quickly.

  Kazu nodded with a smile and disappeared into the kitchen. Kohtake took two or three steps towards the table closest to the entrance and stood next to the man called Fusagi. He didn’t seem to notice her at all.

  ‘Fusagi,’ Kohtake said in a gentle tone that one would normally reserve for a child.

  At first, Fusagi showed no reaction, as if he hadn’t noticed that she had called him. But noticing her in his peripheral vision, he turned to her with a vacant stare.

  ‘Kohtake,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes. It’s me,’ Kohtake said with clear articulation.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I had some time off and I thought I might have a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Oh . . . OK,’ Fusagi said.

  He once more cast his eyes down to his magazine. Kohtake, continuing to look at him, sat casually down in the seat opposite. He didn’t react to this and instead turned the page of his magazine.

  ‘I hear you’ve been coming here a lot lately,’ Kohtake said while studying every nook and cranny of the cafe like a customer who was visiting for the first time.

  ‘Yeah,’ Fusagi said simply.

  ‘So you’ve taken a liking to this place?’

  ‘Oh . . . not particularly,’ he said, in a way that clearly showed that he had indeed taken a liking to the place. A slight smile formed on his lips.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ he whispered.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  He turned and looked over at the seat where the woman in the dress was sitting.

  ‘For her to leave that seat,’ he answered. His face betrayed a boyish glimmer.

  Fumiko hadn’t particularly been eavesdropping but the cafe was small. ‘What!’ she exclaimed in surprise at learning that Fusagi was likewise waiting for the woman in the dress to go to the toilet so he could return to the past.

  Hearing Fumiko’s voice, Kohtake turned to look at her, but Fusagi paid no attention to her himself.

  ‘Is that so?’ Kohtake asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ was all that Fusagi said in reply as he took a sip of his coffee.

  Fumiko was shaken. Please don’t let me have competition.

  After all . . . she instantly realized that it was her who was at a disadvantage should they both have the same objective. When she had entered the cafe, Fusagi was already there. Since he was here first, it was his turn first. As a matter of common courtesy, she was not going to jump the queue. The woman in the dress only went to the toilet once a day. Therefore there was only one chance to sit in the seat each day.

  Fumiko wanted to go back in time right away. She was unable to bear the thought that she might have to wait an extra day, and was unable to hide her agitation at this unexpected development. She leaned sideways and cocked her ear to make sure that Fusagi really did intend to return to the past.

  ‘Did you get to sit there today?’ Kohtake asked.

  ‘Not today.’

  ‘Oh, you couldn’t sit there?’

  ‘Yeah . . . no.’

  Their conversation was doing nothing to allay her worst fears. Fumiko scrunched up her face.

  ‘Fusagi, what do you want to do when you go back in time?’

  There was no mistaking – Fusagi was waiting for the woman in the dress to go to the toilet. This revelation was a huge blow for Fumiko. Disappointment spread across her face and she collapsed onto the table again. The devastating conversation continued.

  ‘Something you want to fix?’

  ‘Ah, well.’ Fusagi thought for a moment. ‘That’s my secret,’ he said. He gave a self-satisfied, childish grin.

  ‘Your secret?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Even though Fusagi had said it was a secret, Kohtake smiled as if something was pleasing. Then she looked over to the woman in the dress.

  ‘But it seems like she probably won’t be going to the toilet today, does it?’

  Fumiko hadn’t been expecting to hear that. She reacted automatically, lifting her head from the table. Her movement so swift it was almost audible. Is it possible that the woman might not even go to the toilet? Kazu said that she goes once a day. But as that woman said, perhaps the woman in the dress has already made today’s trip . . . No, that can’t be the case. I really hope that’s not the case.

  Praying that was not the case, Fumiko waited in trepidation for what Fusagi would say next.

  ‘Perhaps that’s right,’ he said, readily conceding this point.

  No way! Fumiko’s mouth opened as if to let out a shriek, but she was dumbfounded by the shock. Why isn’t the woman in the dress going to go to the toilet? What does the woman called Kohtake know? She was desperate for answers.

  Yet she sensed that she shouldn’t interrupt the conversation. She had always believed that reading the situation was important, and right now, Kohtake’s entire body language was saying, Stay out of it! Exactly what she was meant to stay out of was not clear to her. But there was definitely something happening there – and outsiders weren’t welcome.

  ‘So . . . how about we leave?’ Kohtake said in a gentle, coaxing way. ‘Huh?’

  Her big chance was back. Setting aside the question of whether the woman in the dress had already gone to the toilet, if Fusagi left, at least she could be rid of her rival.

  When Kohtake had suggested that the woman in the dress probably wouldn’t be moving today, Fusagi had simply agreed, Perhaps that’s right. He said perhaps. It is equally plausible that he could have meant, At any rate, I’m waiting to see. If it was her, Fumiko would definitely wait. She concentrated all of he
r mental reserves while she waited for his reply, trying not to appear too eager. It was as if her entire body had become her ears.

  He glanced over at the woman in the dress, then paused, deep in thought. ‘Sure, OK,’ he replied.

  As it was such a clear and simple reply, Fumiko’s heart didn’t skip a beat. But even so, her excitement soared and she felt her heart beating fast.

  ‘Right then. We’ll leave when you finish your cup,’ said Kohtake, looking at the half-empty coffee cup.

  Fusagi now seemed to be only thinking about leaving. ‘No, it’s OK. It’s gone cold anyhow,’ he said as he clumsily packed away his magazine, notebook, and pencil and got up from his seat.

  Putting on his jacket with fleecy sleeves – a type often worn by construction workers – he made his way to the till. With impeccable timing, Kazu came back out of the kitchen. Fusagi passed her the coffee bill.

  ‘What do I owe?’ he asked.

  Kazu entered the amount using the clunky keys of the ancient cash register. Meanwhile, Fusagi was checking his second bag, his shirt pocket, his back pocket, and every other place he could think . . .

  ‘That’s odd, my wallet . . .’ he muttered.

  It seemed he had come to the cafe without his wallet. After looking in the same places again and again, he still couldn’t find it. He looked visibly upset, close to tears, even.

  Then Kohtake unexpectedly produced a wallet, and held it in front of him.

  ‘Here.’

  It was a well-worn men’s leather wallet – folded in half, bulging with what appeared to be a wad of receipts. He paused for moment, staring at the wallet presented before him. He seemed genuinely in a daze. Finally, he took the wallet offered to him without a word.

  ‘How much?’ he asked while furrowing into the coin purse as if it was a familiar habit.

  Kohtake said nothing. She simply stood behind Fusagi, watching over him as he went about paying. ‘Three hundred and eighty yen.’

  Fusagi pulled out one coin and handed it to Kazu. ‘OK, receiving five hundred yen . . .’

  Kazu took the money, entered it into the cash register. Cha-ching . . .

  She pulled the change from the drawer.

  ‘That’s one hundred and twenty yen change.’ Kazu carefully placed the change and receipt in Fusagi’s hand.