Before We Forget Kindness, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Freya
We all have moments in our lives we wish we could change. Points at which something should have been said, or not said. Conversations that could have gone a completely different direction, if only we’d said X instead of Y.
Well, what if you had the chance for a do-over?
That’s what Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before The Coffee Gets Cold series explores. Each book is centred around a magical place hidden in plain sight - a small café called Funiculi Funicula, tucked away in the back streets of Tokyo. In this café, there is a single seat in which people can travel through time, so long as they adhere to the many rules associated with doing so. For example, time travellers cannot get up from the seat when not in the present; they can only remain in another time until the coffee cools completely; and, most importantly, the past cannot be changed.
Many who go to the café with the intention of travelling through time give up on their quest upon hearing the exhaustive restrictions. What’s the point if they can’t change anything? However, there are also many people who, despite knowing that nothing can be done to alter the present, still opt to sit in the magical seat in Funiculi Funicula. This series is about those people.
I highly, highly recommend reading the series from the start, however Kawaguchi is very adept at peppering information throughout the narrative, so I do think you’d be able to pick up on who’s who at Funiculi Funicula pretty quickly even if you read them as standalone novels.
As with every book in the series, the fifth instalment, Before We Forget Kindness, is split into four short stories. Each chapter introduces us to a new guest at the café looking to return to the past for one reason or another. The son who wants to revisit a painful conversation with his parents; the mother who can’t choose a name for her child alone; the father who is filled with regret about opposing his daughter’s marriage; the woman who let a high school crush get in the way of her and her best friend. Although our time with each character is fleeting, Kawaguchi’s writing, brilliantly translated by Geoffrey Trousselot, succinctly communicates so much information about them and their motivations that you cannot help but become attached to them and wish - in spite of the rules - that their trip to the past could change their present.
I have been a massive fan of the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series since reading the first one a few years ago, and every instalment manages to blow me away and fill me with so many varied emotions. Despite the inherent sadness of the theme, these books are gently uplifting and comforting. Before We Forget Kindness is a meditation on personal resilience, the beauty of forgiveness, and how time can heal wounds.
Freya
