Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

When she looked into the altar room, it was open to the veranda. There, she saw her father Yasuo’s small rounded back. He was sitting on the edge, looking out at the lush green garden.

Kumi was lying there silently. She was dressed in a white robe, and had hanging over her the pink kimono worn by the head woman of the inn. Yasuo must have just moved from her side, as his hand was still gripping the white cloth that would normally cover the face of the dead. Her mother Michiko was not there.

Hirai sat down and peered at Kumi’s face. So peaceful was it that it looked like she was merely sleeping. As Hirai gently touched her face, she whispered, Thank God. If her face had been badly cut in the accident, her body would have been laid in the coffin and wrapped up like a mummy. This is what was running through her mind as she looked at Kumi’s pretty face. The thought had been troubling her, having heard that Kumi collided head on with a truck. Her father, Yasuo, kept gazing out at the courtyard garden.

‘Father…’ Hirai called out in a stilted voice to Yasuo’s back.

It was to be her first conversation with her father since she left home thirteen years ago.

But Yasuo remained seated with his back to her, his only response being a sniffle. Hirai looked at Kumi’s face a while longer, then slowly rose and quietly left the room.

She went into Sendai town, where preparations for the Tanabata Festival were under way. With curlers still in her hair, she trudged around until dusk, still in her slippers and camisole. She bought something to wear to the funeral and found a hotel.

At the funeral the next day, she saw her mother Michiko putting on a brave face alongside her father, who had broken down in tears. Rather than sitting in the row of seats for the family, she sat with the rest of the mourners. Just once she made eye contact with her mother, but no words passed between them. The funeral went smoothly. Hirai offered incense, but left without speaking to anyone.

The column of ash lengthened on Hirai’s cigarette and fell silently. She watched it fall. ‘Yes, and that’s that,’ she said, stubbing out the cigarette.

Nagare’s head was bowed. Kohtake sat motionless with her cup in her hand.

Kei looked directly at Hirai with concern.

Hirai looked at these three faces and sighed. ‘I’m no good with all this serious stuff,’ she let out in exasperation.

‘Hirai…’ Kei began, but Hirai waved her hand to stop her.

‘So lose the sad faces, and stop asking if I’m all right,’ she pleaded.

She could see that there was something that Kei wanted to say. So she kept talking.

‘I might not look like it, but I am really upset. But, come on, guys, I need to overcome this by putting my best foot forward, don’t I?’

She spoke as if she was trying to reassure a tearful child. She was that kind of person – inscrutable to the end. If Kei was in her shoes, she would have been crying for days. If it were Kohtake, she would have observed the mourning period, lamented the deceased, and behaved with propriety. But Hirai was neither Kei nor Kohtake.

‘I’ll mourn how I mourn. Everyone’s different,’ Hirai said, and with that she stood up and picked up her handbag.

‘So that’s how things are,’ she said, and began to walk to the door.

‘So, why visit the cafe now?’ Nagare muttered, as if to himself.

Hirai froze like a stop-motion frame.

‘Why come here rather than going directly back to yours?’ he asked bluntly, keeping his back to her. Hirai stood there silently for a while.

‘Busted.’ She sighed. She turned round and walked back to where she had been sitting.

Nagare didn’t look at her. He just carried on staring at the bottle of salt in his hands.

She returned to her seat and sat down in the chair.

‘Hirai,’ Kei said as she approached holding a letter. ‘I still have it.’

‘You didn’t throw it out?’ She recognized it instantly. She was pretty sure it was the one Kumi had written and left at the cafe three days ago. She had asked Kei to throw it out without having read any of it.

Her hand trembled as she took it: the last letter that Kumi had ever written.

‘I never imagined I would hand it to you under such circumstances,’ Kei said with her head bowed apologetically.

‘No of course not… Thank you,’ Hirai replied.

She pulled out a letter folded in half from the unsealed envelope.

The contents were just as she had thought; it was always the same. But though the letter was filled with the same old irritating things, a single teardrop fell from her eyes.

‘I didn’t even meet her and now this happened,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Only she never gave up on me. She came to Tokyo to see me again and again.’

The first time Kumi came to visit Hirai in Tokyo, Hirai was twenty-four and Kumi was eighteen. But back then, Kumi was the cuddly little sister who contacted her every now and then behind her parents’ back. Still only in senior high school, she was already helping at the inn when she wasn’t at school. When Hirai left home, her parents’ expectations were immediately transferred to Kumi. Before she had even come of age, she had become the face of the old inn, the future owner. Kumi’s efforts to persuade Hirai to return to the family began then. Despite always being busy with her responsibilities, Kumi found the time to visit Tokyo once every couple of months. At first, while Hirai still saw Kumi as her cuddly younger sister, she would meet her and listen to what she had to say. But there came a point where Kumi’s requests began to feel like an annoying imposition. For the last year, the last two years for that matter, Hirai had completely avoided her.

The final time, she had hidden from her in this very cafe, and tried to throw away what Kumi had written to her. She put the letter that Kei had rescued back in the envelope.

‘I know the rule. The present doesn’t change no matter how hard you try. I fully understand that. Take me back to that day.’

‘…’

‘I’m begging you!’ Hirai’s face was now far more serious than it ever had been. She bowed her head deeply.

Nagare’s narrow eyes narrowed further as he looked down at Hirai bowing deeply. Naturally, Nagare knew the day that Hirai was referring to: three days ago when Kumi had visited the cafe. She was asking to go back and meet her. Kei and Kohtake waited with bated breath for Nagare’s reply. The room became eerily silent. Only the woman in the dress continued to behave as if nothing was wrong, continuing to read her novel.

Plonk.

The sound of Nagare putting the bottle of salt on the counter echoed throughout the cafe.

Then, without a word, he walked away and disappeared into the back room.

Hirai lifted her head, and took a large, deep breath.

From the back room, Nagare’s voice could be faintly heard calling for Kazu.

‘But, Hirai—’

‘Yeah, I know.’

Hirai interrupted Kohtake so she didn’t have to hear what she was going to say. She walked up to the woman in the dress. ‘Um, so like I was just saying to the others. Could I sit there, please?’

‘Hi— Hirai!’ Kei said frantically.

‘Can you do this for me? Please!’ Ignoring Kei, Hirai put her hands together as if she were praying to a god. She looked faintly ridiculous as she did so, but still she seemed genuinely serious.

But the woman in the dress did not even flinch. This made Hirai irate. ‘Hey! Can you hear me? Don’t just ignore me. Can’t you give me the seat?’ she said while putting her hand on the woman’s shoulder.

‘No! Hirai, stop! You mustn’t.’

‘Please!’ She wasn’t listening to Kei. She tried to pull the woman’s arm by force, to take the seat from her.