Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee gets cold

What would you do if you had one chance to go back in time? Who would you meet?

But wait! There’s rules!

1. The person you go back to meet must have visited a particular café.
2. No matter what you do, the future will not change.
3. You can’t leave your seat!
4. Oh yeah, you only have until your coffee gets cold!

This book tackles that age old question, what would you do if you could go back in time? – And really if you can’t change anything- is there any point ?

The Book

Originally adapted from a play by the same author, this book is set in a mysterious and lesser known café in the back alleys of Tokyo, Japan. The café has been there for over 100 years and has cultivated an urban legend around a particular seat inside. In this one seat in the café, customers can travel back in time and meet someone in the past, who has also visited the café.

Your first thought may be, why aren’t there long queues outside this café? Well, as the local newspaper says, what’s the point if you can’t change the future? It this restriction, as well as having to stay in that one seat that keeps this place relatively quiet, and only filled with a few regulars…

The magic coffee and seat

The café is owned and run by Nagare and his wife, Kei. Working alongside them is Nagare’s cousin (or niece?), Kazu. Kazu is the one in the café who serves the coffee, in the particular seat to the person who wishes to go back in time. It must, it seems be served from a particular coffee jug and cup.

First the person must picture where they want to go, what day time, to ensure the person they want to meet is actually in the café at the time. Kazu reminds them of the rules, then begins to pour the coffee. The steam creates a weird sensation for the customer then they disappear, being transported to the time in the past they have imagined.

The stories and people

The overarching plot is the café itself, however the book is broken down into individual stories of different people using the café. We meet…

The Lovers: Fukimo regrets what she didn’t say at the time to her partner, Goro before he moves to America. But what can going back in time do if she can’t change the present?

Husband and Wife: Ageing man, Fusagi wants to use the time travelling seat to deliver a letter to his wife. He has early onset, Alzheimer’s. In the present, he doesn’t often, recognise his wife, Kohtake. Little does Fusagi know that, Kohtake knows what is happening to him, and she begins to use the café to reconnect with her husband, who is slowly forgetting her.

The Sisters: This was the most emotional for me. Hirai, runs a bar across from the café and is often in the café chatting to the staff. We learn she has kind of run to the big city to escape the responsibilities as the eldest sister of running her parents hotel in the countryside. Her younger sister Kumi, often drives down to the city to persuade her sister to come, but Hirai always hides and does not speak to her.

Something changes. Hirai then sees the opportunity the chair could give her. This visit back in time, cannot change the past, but interestingly does change Hirai’s future in the choices she makes, after the visit. (very allusive I know, but don’t wish to ruin it for you!).

Mother and Daughter: No-one really says, you can’t, but it is inadvisable because of the uncertainty, but the chair does allow a person to visit the future. Kei is pregnant and because of weak heart is not expected to survive the birth. Nagare does not want her to do it, but she decides she will carry the baby to term, knowing it could probably kill her. To change the trend, she decides to visit the future, to see what happens with the decision she makes…. (I’ll leave it at that!).

Café setting fun

I love a café setting. This book reminds me a little of Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café. Completely different, a café with no magical properties, and yet it becomes a vocal point for the lonely locals, seeing solace and companionship through their loneliness. In a similar way to the Japanese tale, characters pivot around a social meeting point, (the café), in order to quell their loneliness, or solve some issues in their life…

What’s the deep message?

It’s a nice wee tale and you can think how it would be good on the stage. It doesn’t really give the message you expect- as you think going back int time means being able to change the decisions we have made. What this book does query and let us think about is: if we could live a moment again, with the hindsight of the future, how would we alter our behaviour? How would we act in the present, with a second view of things, a second chance to look at a moment again and re-evaluate?

For the characters who do the trip into the past, they know they can’t change it. But they change something in their present because of what they have witness and learnt in the past….