Page 42 of The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop
‘Well, I – I think I might have been readingSpring and Asurawith you.’
A look of puzzlement crossed her father’s face. Kozue had to think quickly.Did I suddenly appear here? Maybe I’ve just been thrown back here, like the way I found myself in front of that shop. But if that were the case, there was no logical way of explaining it. Taking a deep breath, she summoned up the resolve to tell him everything she remembered.
‘Umm, Dad, I think I … I just saw Mum.’
This time, her father turned his chair around to face her. His expression had stiffened, his eyes unusually stern. But Kozue kept her composure as she told him about the place she’d just come back from, and its residents. With the memory still fresh in her mind, she was able to speak fluently, so much so that it made her wonder if the girl herself was speaking through her lips.I wouldn’t be surprised if she and I were connected in that way,Kozue thought.
Kozue also remembered to mention the conditions that needed to be met for the two worlds to be connected: read the same passage from the same book as the girl, at the exact same time on the same day in the same season. On a sunny day in spring, beneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom.
Her father listened until she finished speaking without ever interrupting. Then, he simply said, ‘I see.’ For a while, he sat with his arms folded, thinking to himself. Eventually, he pulled a sheet of manuscript paper from his drawer and handed it to Kozue. Could you have a read of this? he asked. There were a few lines of handwritten text on the sheet.
The shop was tucked away in a place beyond anyone’s understanding.
In front of it stood a mysterious, weeping cherry tree.
The tree was bursting with blossoms in every imaginable shade of red and white.
When a gust of wind swept through the flowers in full bloom, they blended together then parted again, at times creating a swirl of colours…
Having finished reading, Kozue looked up to find her father smiling awkwardly.
‘Is that the scene you saw, then?’
Kozue nodded at her father. He let out a heavy sigh. She had never heard him sigh so deeply.
‘I wrote this a few years ago, but I haven’t touched it since. The idea of the story came from something Sakura – your mother – and I used to talk about when we were young. Just a silly dream, really. From time to time, we fantasised about running a shop like that. We’d have a collection of the books we loved, and she mentioned serving coffee, too.’
Her father quietly shook his head sorrowfully. It pained Kozue to see him like this.
‘The other thing she said was that there absolutely needs to be a cherry tree in front of the shop. Recently, I’ve finally been able to quietly recall these memories. Probably because enough time has passed. And so, I thought I’d try and preserve your mum’s dream in the only way I know how. But once I’d written that much, I couldn’t keep going. Something was telling me that I shouldn’t do this.’
What he really meant, Kozue imagined, was that continuing to write the story would mean accepting the death of his wife. Although he knew this, he probably didn’t want to admit it and say it out loud.
Unless things changed, though, he would never be able to move forward. Besides, if he doesn’t complete the story, neither the girl, the cat nor the shop will be able to exist. That is, if what the girl had said was true. But somehow, Kozue felt that she could believe her.
I have to do something about it, then. That girl …Mum, who lives inside of her, trusted me to do this.
With firm resolve, Kozue said to her father, ‘Hey, Dad. I’d love to know what happens after this. You probably haven’t noticed, but I’ve read quite a few of your books. I’m kind of a fan. Besides?—’
Unsure whether she should continue, Kozue halted for a moment.
But she went ahead and said, ‘I’m sure that Mum and her cat Kobako are waiting. I think they’ve been waiting a long time for that shop.’
Her father briefly widened his eyes in surprise, then gazed at Kozue with a look of confusion. Eventually, he lifted his glance and murmured, ‘I see, you might be right.’
From that day on, Kozue’s father began to frequently call her into his study. He wanted to hear more about the shop. Kozue told him everything she remembered in detail: the girl’s gestures, the cat’s impressive fur, the titles of the books she spotted. What seemed to pique his curiosity the most, however, was the weeping cherry tree.
‘That’s right. The colours blended together, even when the air was still. It was absolutely beautiful. But the petals were – I guess you could call it single-coloured. Each petal that had fallen on the ground had a consistent colour.’
‘Right.’
‘This isn’t something the girl told me, but it made me think that the tree is somehow responsible for creating the flow of time in that place. It had an ethereal quality to it. The moment I saw it, it almost took my breath away.’
‘Hmm. That could work.’
Every so often, Kozue tried to mimic the way the girl spoke. Each time she did so, a look of conflicting emotions flitted across her father’s face, probably because it reminded him of her mother. As for Kozue, it made her realise that this was how, as the girl said, both Kozue and her mother came to shape the main character of his story.
Neither Kozue nor her father ever referred to the world that Kozue experienced as a ‘dream’. They didn’t know why.
