Toshikazu Kawaguchi: Before the Coffee Gets Cold

‘You want to go back and do what?’ asked Hirai coolly, between sips of her tepid coffee.

‘I’d make amends.’ Her face was serious.

‘I see…’ said Hirai with a shrug.

‘Please!’ She spoke louder; the word reverberated throughout the cafe.

It was only recently that the idea of marrying Goro had occurred to her. She was turning twenty-eight this year, and she had been interrogated on many occasions by her persistent parents, who lived in Hakodate – Still not thinking of marriage? Haven’t you met any nice men? and so forth. Her parents’ nagging had grown more intense since her twenty-five-year-old sister got married the year before. Now it had reached the point where she was receiving weekly emails. Aside from her younger sister, Fumiko also had a twenty-three-year-old brother. He had married a girl from their home town following a surprise pregnancy, leaving only Fumiko single.

Fumiko felt no rush, but after her little sister got married, her mindset had changed just a little. She had started to think getting married might be OK if it was to Goro.

Hirai plucked a cigarette from her leopard-print pouch.

‘Perhaps you’d best explain it to her properly… don’t you think?’ she said in a businesslike manner while lighting it.

‘It seems like I should,’ Kazu replied in her toneless voice as she walked around the counter and stood before Fumiko. She looked at her with a soft kindness in her eyes as if she were consoling a crying child.

‘Look. I want you to listen, and listen carefully. OK?’

‘What?’ Fumiko’s body tensed up.

‘You can go back. It’s true… you can go back, but…’

‘But…?’

‘When you go back, no matter how hard 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.’

‘What?’ Not wanting to hear, Fumiko desperately covered her ears.

But Kazu casually went on to say the words that she least wanted to hear. ‘It won’t change the fact that he’s gone to America.’

A trembling sensation swept through her entire body.

Yet with what seemed like a ruthless disregard for her feelings, Kazu continued with her explanation.

‘Even if you return to the past, reveal your feelings, and ask him not to go, it won’t change the present.’

Fumiko reacted impulsively to Kazu’s cold hard words. ‘That sort of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?’ she said defiantly.

‘Easy now… let’s not shoot the messenger,’ Hirai said. She took a drag of her cigarette, and seemed unsurprised by Fumiko’s reaction.

‘Why?’ Fumiko asked Kazu, her eyes begging for answers.

‘Why? I’ll tell you why,’ Kazu began. ‘Because that’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.

Hirai seemed to be relishing the sight of Fumiko’s expression. ‘Tough luck,’ she said, exhaling a plume of smoke with obvious pleasure.

She had drafted that line earlier when Fumiko had begun her explanation, and had been waiting to deliver it ever since.

‘But… why?’ Fumiko felt the energy drain from her body. As she let herself slouch limply into her chair, a vivid recollection came to her. She had read an article on this cafe in a magazine. The article had the headline ‘Uncovering Truth Behind “Time-Travelling Cafe” Made Famous by Urban Legend’. The gist of the article was as follows.

The cafe’s name was Funiculi Funicula. It had become famous, with long queues each day, on account of the time-travelling. But it wasn’t possible to find anyone who had actually gone back in time, because of the extremely annoying rules that had to be followed. 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.

The article concluded by stating that it certainly made an interesting urban legend, but it was difficult to see why the legend existed. As a postscript, the article also mentioned there were apparently other rules that had to be followed but it was unclear what they were.

Fumiko’s attention returned to the cafe. Hirai seated herself opposite her at the table she had collapsed onto and proceeded to merrily explain the other rules. With her head and shoulders still sprawled on the table, Fumiko fixed her eyes on the sugar pot, wondering why the cafe didn’t use sugar cubes, and quietly listened.

‘It’s not just those rules. There’s only one seat that allows you to go back in time, OK? And, while in the past, you can’t move from that seat,’ Hirai said. ‘What else was there?’ she asked Kazu, as she moved her count to her fifth finger.

‘There’s a time limit,’ Kazu said, keeping her eyes on the glass she was wiping. She mentioned it like an afterthought, as if she were merely talking to herself.

Fumiko raised her head in reaction to this news. ‘A time limit?’

Kazu showed a slight smile, and nodded.

Hirai gave the table a nudge. ‘Frankly, after hearing just these rules, barely anyone still wants to return to the past,’ she said, apparently enjoying herself. And she was indeed taking great delight in observing Fumiko. ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a customer like you – someone totally set in your delusion of wanting to go back to the past.’

‘Hirai…’ Kazu said sternly.

‘Life doesn’t get served to you on a plate. Why don’t you just give it up?’ Hirai blurted out. She looked ready to continue her tirade.

‘Hirai…’ Kazu repeated, this time with a bit more emphasis.

‘No. No, I think it’s best to clearly put it out there. Huh?’ Then Hirai guffawed loudly.

The words spoken were all too much for Fumiko. Her strength had entirely drained from her body, and again she collapsed head and shoulders onto the table.

Then, from across the room… ‘Can I have a refill, please?’ said the man sitting at the table closest to the entrance with his travel magazine opened out in front of him.