The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

by Keigo Higashino

  “Unreal.” Why would anyone go to all the trouble? she wondered. But this was coming from Shizuko. It must be true.

  That night, she couldn’t rid the Namiya General Store from her mind, and for good reason. Harumi had a big problem, and she didn’t have anyone who could give her advice.

  In a word, her problem was financial.

  Though Hideo had never mentioned it directly, the finances of the Tamura family were in rough shape. If their household were a boat, it would be minutes from slipping under. By bailing bucket after bucket from the cabin, they had somehow stayed afloat, but they couldn’t keep up the bucket brigade forever.

  Once upon a time, the Tamuras had been a family of substantial means, owning a great deal of property in the area, but over the years, most of the land was sold off to clear their daughter’s liabilities. Once they paid everything off, their daughter moved on, and they were able to welcome Harumi back into their home.

  But that was not the end of the hard times for the Tamuras. The previous year, Harumi’s great-uncle had a stroke and fell. He could barely move the right side of his body.

  This was what compelled Harumi to move to Tokyo to start working. She felt a duty to support her guardians in their old age, but with almost all her salary eaten up by living expenses, the thought of being any sort of aid to the Tamuras was a pipe dream.

  She had her first encounter with the nightlife industry during this period of emotional crisis. If the offer had come at any other time, she wouldn’t have ceded. To be honest, she thought working as a hostess was beneath her.

  But things changed. She now thought she should quit her job and hostess full-time so she could give back to the Tamuras in their time of need.

  Can I really ask for advice about this? Won’t it be an annoying problem to have to respond to? Harumi sat at the desk she’d used since middle school and thought it over.

  But then again, Shizuko’s problem had been quite difficult as well, and the Namiya General Store had solved her conundrum brilliantly. She should expect to get some kind of advice on her dilemma.

  There’s no use worrying about this. Just write it. With that, Harumi began her correspondence with the Namiya General Store.

  But when she showed up at the store to put her letter in the mail slot, she hesitated. Would she really get a response? Shizuko said she conducted her exchange the year before. What would happen if the house had been abandoned, and Harumi’s letter was left sitting on the floor?

  Ah, what the hell, she thought, and she slipped the letter in the mail slot anyway. It didn’t have her name on it. Not her real name anyway. If someone found it and read it, it wasn’t as if they could trace it back to her.

  But the next morning, she went back to check the milk bin and found an envelope inside. Of course she didn’t want it to be empty, but it felt bizarre to hold this letter in her hands.

  When she read the message, she realized Shizuko wasn’t kidding. The Namiya General Store didn’t sugarcoat a thing. This was straight talk. Unreserved, insensitive. It almost felt as if he was intentionally trying to piss her off.

  “That’s how Mr. Namiya gets the job done,” Shizuko had told her. “He gets you to speak your mind and encourages you to discover the right path on your own.”

  Even so, Harumi found the response a little too rude. Mr. Namiya had already decided that she was so eager to consider this avenue because she had lost her senses to the allure of being a hostess. Nothing more.

  She wrote back with a rebuttal straightaway, saying she wasn’t going to quit her job and go full-time as a hostess just so she could have a decadent lifestyle; she had a dream to start her own club someday.

  But the letter she got from the Namiya General Store in return infuriated her even more. Unbelievably, he had dared to question her level of commitment. If she really wanted to repay her guardians for their kindness, why not get married and raise a family? The letter had really gone off the deep end.

  Harumi felt that this miscommunication was on her. By leaving out the vital details, she had failed to get her point across.

  For her third letter, she made an effort to open up a little. She clarified the details of her upbringing, the dire circumstances of her guardians. She delved deeper into her plans.

  How would the Namiya General Store react? Half eager to hear, half scared to know, she pushed the letter through the mail slot.

  Back home, breakfast was long since ready. She sat on the tatami at the low table and ate her meal. Her great-uncle was lying down in the next room. Hideo was feeding him rice porridge from a spoon and having him sip cold tea from a feeding cup. As Harumi observed them, she felt her sense of urgency all over again. She had to help them; she had to do something.

  After breakfast, she went upstairs to her old room. She took the letter from her pocket and sat in the chair at her desk. Unfolding the pages, she saw the usual chicken scratches.

  But the letter itself was utterly different from everything she’d seen so far.

  Dear Dubious Doggy,

  I’ve gone through your third letter. It’s clear you’re in a very difficult situation, and you’re determined to get to a point where you can give back to those who’ve helped you. In that vein, I have a few more questions.

  • Are you sure you can trust the person who wants you to be his lover? You’ve said this man had a hand in setting up a bunch of businesses, but have you asked him what they’re called, and how exactly he was involved? If you can get him to take you to one of them to visit, go outside regular business hours and ask the staff about their experience with him.

  • Do you have any sort of written guarantee that this man will help you start your club, no matter what? Would he keep his promise even if his wife found out about the affair?

  • Do you plan to keep on with this man indefinitely? What will you do if you fall in love with someone else?

  • You’ve said you’re working as a hostess to build up financial resources so that someday you can open your own club. Would you consider making money some other way? Or is there a reason you need to do it as a hostess?

  • What if I told you there was a way you could make all the money you wanted without working as a hostess? Would you be willing to do what I say? There’s a chance I may advise you to quit working as a hostess and stop dating creepy dudes.

  Please write back one more time with your answers to these questions. Once I have your answers, I’ll see if I can help you make your dreams come true.

  I bet you’re finding this pretty hard to swallow. But I promise I’m not trying to deceive you. Remember, even if I were to deceive you, I would get nothing out of it. You can trust me.

  But a word of caution.

  I can only go back and forth with you until September 13. After that, it will no longer be possible to reach me.

  —Namiya General Store

  5

  Once Harumi had seen the third group of customers to the door, Maya pulled her into the staff-only powder room. Maya was four years older.

  She shut the door behind them and grabbed Harumi’s hair by the roots. “You think because you’re young you get a free pass?”

  Harumi’s face was tight with pain. “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? I saw you making eyes at my man.” Maya bared her teeth. Her lips were glossy with red lipstick.

  “At who? I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “Don’t play dumb. I saw you cuddling up with Mr. Sato. I’m the one who brought that geezer here from my last job.”

  Mr. Sato? Harumi couldn’t believe this. Make eyes at that old fat-ass? Please.

  “He came over and said hi,” she explained. “I was just being polite.”

  “You liar. You were getting all cute with him and shit.”

  “We’re hostesses. It’s our job to be friendly.”

  “Stuff it.” Maya let go of her scalp and shoved Harumi in the chest. Harumi’s back slammed against the wall. “Next time I won’t be so nic
e. Hear me?”

  Maya laughed at her and left the powder room.

  Harumi looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess. She combed it back into place with her fingers and made a conscious effort to relax the muscles of her face. She couldn’t let this kind of thing unsettle her.

  Outside the powder room, she was asked to sit at a table with three men who looked well-off.

  “Why, hello, here’s another young one.” The man addressing her had a lecherous laugh and a gleaming scalp. He looked Harumi up and down.

  “Good evening,” she responded, looking the man in the eye. “I’m Miharu. It’s a pleasure.” She sat beside him.

  One of her older coworkers who was already seated at the table made a fake laugh and gave Harumi a cold stare. This girl had chided Harumi before, too, telling her to stop making herself stand out so much.

  Yeah, whatever, she thought. If you can’t get a customer’s attention at this job, what’s the point?

  A little while later, Shinji Tomioka showed up alone. He was wearing a gray suit with a red tie. Fit, and with no hint of a beer belly, he hardly looked like he was forty-six.

  As expected, Harumi was called over to sit with him.

  “There’s a classy bar in Akasaka,” Tomioka whispered. He took a sip of his whiskey and water and lowered his voice even further. “They’re open till five, and they have wines from all over the world. They just got in some choice caviar and asked me to come try it. Care to join me later?”

  Harumi was intrigued, but she pressed her palms together and made a cutesy bow. “I’m so sorry. I can’t be late tomorrow.”

  He made a dour expression and sighed loudly. “That’s exactly why you need to quit that job. What do they do again?”

  “We’re a stationery manufacturer.”

  “What do you do? Just desk work, right?”

  Harumi nodded, though it technically wasn’t even that. More like grunt work.

  “How are you going to get ahead, stuck making minimum wage? You’re only young once. You need to make the best of these years if you want your dreams to come true.”

  She nodded again and looked straight at Tomioka. “By the way, if I recall correctly, you said you’d take me to that dinner club in Ginza. The one you said you helped get off the ground.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Sure, whenever you like. When works?”

  “If possible, I’d like to visit outside business hours.”

  “Why?”

  “For future reference. I want to ask the staff about their experiences and see what things are like behind the scenes.”

  Tomioka’s face clouded. “Not sure that’s gonna fly.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I like to draw a line between work and play. And being close with the owner doesn’t give me the right to barge in with someone who’s unaffiliated with the restaurant. It might upset the staff.”

  “Ah… That makes sense. I didn’t mean to impose. I’m sorry.” Harumi looked down.

  “But there’s no reason we can’t go as regular customers. Let’s go sometime soon.” The life returned to his face.

  That night, Harumi made it to her apartment in Koenji a little after three. Tomioka saw her home in a taxi.

  “I’m not going to invite myself upstairs.” This was his favorite line. “Think over what I proposed.”

  The romantic agreement. Harumi laughed in lieu of giving an answer.

  Upstairs, the first thing she did was drink a cup of water. She went to the club four nights a week. On nights she worked, this was around the time when she got home. That left only three days when she was home in time to visit the bathhouse.

  She removed her makeup, washed her face, and sat down to have a look at her planner. There was a big meeting in the morning, and she had to arrive half an hour earlier than usual. This left a mere four hours for sleep.

  Harumi dropped her planner in her bag and pulled out an envelope. She unfolded the pages and sighed. She’d read the letter so many times she had it essentially memorized. But she still read it once a day. This was the third letter she had received from the Namiya General Store.

  Are you sure you can trust the person who wants you to be his lover?

  Harumi had been harboring the same doubts, but she pushed it from her mind. She would rather not dwell on it. If Tomioka was all talk, it would put her even further from realizing her ambitions.

  The Namiya General Store was right to be skeptical. If she became romantically involved with Tomioka and his wife found out, could she really expect him to offer her assistance? Unlikely. Who would expect otherwise?

  His behavior that evening had been suspect. On its own, it isn’t strange to say you like to draw a line between work and play, but Tomioka was the one who had proposed the visit to the dinner club to show off his accomplishments in the first place.

  Maybe she couldn’t rely on him after all. But in that case, what was she supposed to do about the future?

  She read through the letter yet again. One part said: What if I told you there was a way you could make all the money you wanted without working as a hostess? Would you be willing to do what I say? It went on to say: Once I have your answers, I’ll see if I can help you make your dreams come true.

  What was going on here? How could he expect her to believe a word of this? It made him sound like a con man with a get-rich-quick scheme. Under any other circumstance, she would have tossed the letter in the trash.

  But this was a letter from the Namiya General Store. Mr. Namiya had solved Shizuko’s predicament, and even if he hadn’t, he would have earned her trust based on how he had conducted their exchange thus far. He didn’t mince words or fuss over her reactions. His direct style came right at you, clumsy but genuine.

  This letter was clear on one thing: He had nothing to gain by tricking Harumi. All the same, she still found the whole idea hard to believe. If making money were so easy, no one would need to struggle. And more importantly, Mr. Namiya would be a millionaire himself.

  Harumi’s trip home had come to an end before she had time to respond. She was back in Tokyo, back to working as a hostess and at the office. Back to living two lives out of one body. And that body was taking a beating. Once every couple of days at the office, she would tell herself, “That’s it—I’m done.”

  Harumi checked the calendar on the table. Another thing was on her mind. Today was Wednesday, September 10.

  The last letter had mentioned they could correspond only until September 13. After that, she would have no way of reaching him. The thirteenth was this Saturday. What was so special about that day? Was he retiring from giving out advice?

  She figured she may as well answer his questions. She wanted to hear what he had to say, for one thing, and she could decide whether to follow through afterwards. Even if she made a promise, it didn’t mean she had to keep it. If she broke her promise and kept on working as a hostess, he would have no way of knowing.

  Before bed, she peeked into the mirror and found a pimple by her lip. It had been far too long since she’d had a proper night’s sleep. If she quit her day job, she thought, she could sleep past noon.

  When she got off work on Friday, September 12, Harumi headed to the Tamura house. She took the night off at the club.

  Harumi showing up at home less than a month after the break came as a surprise to the Tamuras, but they were thrilled. On her last visit, she and her great-uncle hadn’t had much of a chance to talk. That night at dinner, she caught him up on things. Needless to say, she told neither of them about working as a hostess.

  “Any trouble making rent, utilities? If you come up short, do-don’t hesitate tuh…to ask.” He had to fight to get his words out. He let Hideo handle all their finances, meaning he had no idea what dire circumstances they were in.

  “I’ll be fine, as long as I budget,” she assured him. “The good news is I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve had no time to relax, which makes it hard to spend anything.”

>   No time to relax—that was the truth.

  After dinner, she took a bath. Through the screened windows of the bathroom, she looked up into the night sky. The moon was full and high, predicting that the next day would be a sunny one.

  What would she learn from the next letter?

  On her way home to the Tamura house, Harumi had stopped by the Namiya General Store. She left a letter in the mail slot saying she couldn’t care less about being a hostess, and if he knew some other way she might attain financial independence, she would turn down the proposed affair and quit working at the club and do whatever else he said.

  The next day was the thirteenth. Regardless of what he had to say, she would have no chance to question it: This was the end of their exchange. She’d have to make her plans based on whatever the last letter said.

  The next morning, it was before seven when she woke—or, more aptly put, when she got sick of tossing and turning between bouts of shallow sleep and kicked herself out of bed.

  Her great-aunt was already up fixing breakfast. A stench wafted over from the tatami room. Hideo must have been assisting her great-uncle with cleaning his nether regions; he couldn’t go to the bathroom on his own.

  Harumi told Hideo she was off to get some fresh air and left the house. She hopped on her bike and pedaled the route she’d come to know so well that summer.

  Before long, she was in front of the Namiya General Store. A holdout from another era. The storefront looked as if it had been waiting for her to come. She went down the alley alongside the building.

  Inside the wooden box, she found the envelope. Her heart was besieged by hope and distress, suspicion and curiosity. When she reached inside the bin to grab the letter, the surge of feelings made her hand throb.

  The ride home tested her patience. Passing a park, she slammed on the brakes, looked around to make sure she was alone, and read the letter without even climbing off her bike.

  Dear Dubious Doggy,

  Thank you for your letter. I’m glad you’re willing to trust me.

  Of course, I have no way of confirming that you mean what you say. There’s a chance you only want to see what my mysterious advice is. But at this point, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have to take your word for it.