Summary
In Part II, the narrator comments that the café opened in 1874 and therefore has no air conditioning, which would destroy the antique charm. Coffee was introduced to Japan in the late seventeenth century during the Edo period. Somehow the place always stays cool, even in sweltering summer heat. On one hot summer day, a young woman is busy writing something at the counter on blossom-pink paper. Kei Tokita watches with interest.
The other people in the room are the ghost woman in the dress and Fusagi, who once again has a magazine open. The narrator reveals that the young woman is Kumi, the younger sister of café regular Yaeko Hirai. Kumi asks Kei to give the letter to her sister. Kei obliges. She then punches in Kumi’s bill on the vintage 1925 cash register. She reads out the extremely extensive list of items, which comes to over ten thousand yen. Before leaving, she asks Kei to pass on the message that neither of their parents is angry anymore.
When Kumi leaves, Hirai gets up from hiding behind the counter, which she has been doing for three hours, and lights a cigarette. She says she’ll believe her parents aren’t angry when she sees it. The narrator comments that Hirai had a falling-out with her parents thirteen years earlier when she didn’t take over their inn in Sendai. Kumi regularly visits to try to convince her sister to come home. Hirai says Kumi resents her for putting her in a position of having to run the inn. On her way out, Hirai tells Kei to throw out the letter. Once alone, Kei says aloud that she can’t throw it out.
The bell rings as Kazu enters carrying supplies in both hands; she has been out getting things with Nagare. Nagare has gone out drinking because he couldn’t find all the best groceries he wanted. Kei puffs her cheeks resentfully. Kazu changes into her waitress uniform with a bowtie. She pours Fusagi a refill of hot coffee, which is the Ethiopian mocha variety that Nagare insists they always serve. She makes small talk with Fusagi, having nothing else to do. She asks what he intends to do in the past, but then apologizes for the intrusive question. He withdraws a brown envelope and says it’s a letter he wants to give his wife. He says he can’t remember her name now.
The door’s bell clangs and Kazu sees Kohtake at the entrance. She addresses Fusagi, but because he has early-onset Alzheimer’s, he can’t remember his acquaintance with her. His sporadically deteriorating memory means he doesn’t realize that Kohtake is his wife. She sits with him and clutches her lilac handkerchief while trembling. He gets up to pay and leave, after which an uncomfortable silence falls over the place. Kazu says Kohtake’s name. Kohtake says it’s okay and that she has been mentally preparing for this day. She has resigned herself to the fact he will completely forget her. She is a nurse, and she will care for him as a nurse.
Kei emerges from the back with a large bottle of sake—a gift from a customer—and asks if anyone wants a drink. This lightens the mood. Kohtake lets out a chuckle as a glass is poured for her. As she inhales the fragrant sake, Kohtake remembers visiting the café fifteen years earlier, when she and her husband were looking for somewhere to escape the summer heat. Kohtake had found it strange that the place stayed cool, but she liked the charm of it, and began coming during her breaks from work. Kazu begins a toast, but stops herself. Kohtake says it has been a year and a half since he stopped using her name. She says it’s okay though: she will still be there for him as a nurse.
Just then the ghost gets up and leaves her seat. Kohtake asks aloud why her husband wants to return to the past. Kazu mentions the letter he wants to give her. This doesn’t make sense, because he was never good at reading or writing. The narrator comments that Fusagi grew up in a seaweed industry–employed family and his schoolwork suffered because he had to help with their work after school. His romance with Kohtake had begun after a mutual acquaintance introduced them, and they started writing letters to each other. Hers were long, and his were always short and polite. She agreed to marry him before learning he could barely read or write.
Kei becomes convinced that it’s a love letter and Kohtake needs to go back. Kazu cautions Kei, but sighs and gets the coffee pot. She reminds Kohtake of the rules, adding that she has to picture the day she wants to return to: a day when Fusagi would have wanted to hand her the letter. As Kazu pours, the shimmering effect engulfs the room. Kohtake focuses, then arrives in the past, sitting alone. She assumes it must not have worked until the doorbell clangs and Fusagi walks in. She asks if it’s really him. He seems amused and confused by her odd question, and she realizes he is as he was before getting ill. He takes a seat and comments on how odd it is that no one is there. She asks if there’s something he wants to give her.
Fusagi realizes that she’s come from the future—that’s why she isn’t leaving her chair. This surprises her. He says that must mean she knows about his illness. Her heart races; he knows he is ill. He withdraws the envelope from his portfolio and explains that he doesn’t know how to tell her—in his current present—that he has Alzheimer’s, but it’s in the letter. He asks her to confirm that he forgets her, in the future. It fills her with joy and sorrow to know he has such concerns. She lies to him, saying his illness actually improves and he recovers in the future. He gives her the letter and says, in that case, she can throw it out. He turns away from her and says she should drink before it gets cold. She drinks the coffee in one gulp. As she returns to the present, he seems to thank her.
In the present, Kazu and Kei ask her to read the letter she now holds. Kazu reads for her. In it, he informs her of his illness and asks her to remember that he wants her to leave him if life with him ever becomes too difficult. He wants them to be together as husband and wife, and can’t stand the idea of her staying with him out of sympathy. Kohtake weeps as she realizes that he predicted how she would react to him losing his memory. But he didn’t want her to be his nurse; he wanted her to remain his wife. Kohtake triumphantly pays her bill and leaves, eager to see Fusagi’s face. The ghost returns to her seat and Kazu pours her a refill. She quietly tells the woman, “We appreciate your presence again this summer.” Kei places a hand on her own stomach and smiles.
Analysis
In the second part of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Kawaguchi continues developing the novel’s major themes: regret, desperation, hope, grief, sacrifice, uncertainty, and revelation. While Kohtake and Fusagi were background characters in Fumiko’s narrative, they become the focal point of II: Husband and Wife. In the previous section, Kawaguchi stoked the reader’s curiosity by showing Kohtake help pay his bill as though she were his caregiver. As it turns out, they are husband and wife.
As in the first part of the book, Fusagi sits in a corner of the cafe jotting down notes while looking through a travel magazine. Although he is a regular, he asks Kazu if she is a new employee. This interaction foreshadows the revelation that he has early-onset Alzheimer’s, an uncommon form of Alzheimer’s that affects people under sixty-five. As with the more common form of Alzheimer’s, early-onset (or younger-onset) Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease of the brain that leads to memory loss and change in personality, among other issues.
The theme of grief arises when Kohtake arrives at the cafe and Fusagi doesn’t recognize her as his wife. The awkward exchange between them provokes Kazu’s and Kei’s sympathy, but Kohtake, a nurse, insists that she will merely alter her perspective on their relationship and treat him as one of her patients. In this way, Kawaguchi depicts Kohtake denying her grief, as though she can skip the more painful aspects of mourning the loss of her marriage by denying that it’s upsetting.
The theme of uncertainty arises when Kazu tells Kohtake about the letter Fusagi hopes to deliver to her. The women are intrigued by the idea that it must be a love letter. However, when she goes back in time to a day when Fusagi still had his memory intact, Kohtake discovers that the envelope contains a devastating letter. Having predicted that she would revert to her nursing skills and treat him as a patient, Fusagi asks her only to stay with him if they can remain husband and wife. He would rather she leave him than simply be his nurse. With this letter, Fusagi shows his love for Kohtake by asking her not to sacrifice her life just to look after him.
After the revelation that Fusagi doesn’t want her to treat him as she has been, Kohtake feels a renewed affection toward her husband and is eager to see his face, even if he sees her as a stranger who makes him uncomfortable. As with Fumiko, Kohtake’s time travel experience doesn’t alter the material circumstances of her present, but it does broaden her perspective on her life and fill her with hope and courage. In an instance of dramatic irony, Kawaguchi shows Kazu quietly thank the enigmatic ghost, suggesting that the ghost and Kazu are more invested in helping customers through their difficulties than they let on.
