Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot (Picador)

A dimly lit basement cafe with sepia walls, no windows, no air conditioning, three antique clocks that each show a different time, with seating for no more than nine customers at a time, Funicula Funicula is as old-fashioned as the song that gave the place its name. Tokyo is filled with far more attractive places where there are far more choices of coffee, so why do people persist in coming to this drab little spot where the owner will use only Ethopian mocha beans, the kind that makes a cup of bitter coffee? 

Although it’s received no publicity since an article in the paper years ago, this cafe’s famous. It’s the only spot in Tokyo where customers are promised a journey into the past, if they meet all of the stringent conditions for doing this. A prospective time-traveler must always sit on a stool at the counter which is almost always occupied, vacated only when the seated woman gets up to use the toilet. The traveler must order coffee and never leave this seat during their adventure. They can only meet someone who has visited the cafe and they can’t change the present during their visit to the past. Most important is the timing involved. If they don’t drink all of their coffee before it gets cold, they will return to their present life as a ghost.

Within this rigid framework blooms four poignant stories of coffee drinkers who have submitted to all of the restrictions. A young woman goes back in time to say the words that she was unable to speak before, ones that can’t change the present but may, in the future, possibly bring back the man she loves. Others learn how to live with present tragedies, a fatal automobile accident that takes place in an estranged family, a memory so fogged by aging that a wife must reintroduce herself again and again to the husband she’s lived with for decades. Then comes the impossible journeys that no one has made before. A daughter comes from the future to take a photograph of her dead mother and a mother goes into the future for a glimpse of the daughter she will never know. 

Anchoring these sweet and charming episodes are the cafe staff, the mysterious woman who rarely leaves her seat, and the cafe itself which is gradually revealed to be the sort of sanctuary that every urban resident longs for--a refuge that’s quiet, unrushed, and comfortable, where eventually customers and staff become friends. Even if the only wish that’s granted is a plate of toast and a cup of coffee, in a metropolis like Tokyo this can be enough.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi at first wrote this novella as a play but the cafe and its denizens weren’t ready to leave his imagination. Before the Coffee Gets Cold was quickly followed by a sequel. Tales from the Cafe (reviewed on Asia by the Book in February, 2022). Recently the third volume in the series, Before Your Memory Fades, appeared in the U.S. with Last Chance to Say Goodbye slated for its American debut at the end of this year. 

Kawaguchi’s novellas have tapped into the regret and sadness of the covid era with his delightful fantasies, each one posing the question, “If you could go back, who would you want to meet?” No matter how cynical any of his readers may be when they first open a book in this series, they’ll be possessed by that question long before they turn the last page.~Janet Brown