This happened when I’d just turned twenty-eight. Six years after I got married. Six years during which time I’d laid three cats to rest. Burned how many aspirations, bundled up how much suffering in thick sweaters, and buried them in the ground. All in this fathomlessly huge city Tokyo.

It was a chilly December afternoon. There was no wind; the air was so cold that what little light filtered through the clouds did nothing to clear away the gray of the city. I was heading home from the bank and stepped into a glass-fronted café on Aoyama Boulevard for a cup of coffee. I was flipping through the novel I’d just bought, looking up now and then, watching the passing cars.

Then I noticed the guy standing in front of me. He was addressing me by name.

“That is you, isn’t it?” he was saying.

I was taken aback. I answered in the affirmative, but I couldn’t place the guy. He seemed to be about my age, and wore a well-tailored navy blazer and a suitably colored rep tie. Something about the guy made him seem a little worn down. His clothes weren’t old, and he didn’t look exhausted. Nothing like that. It had more to do with his face. Which, although presentable, gave me the feeling that his every expression had been thrown together on the spur of the moment. Like mismatched dishes set out in make-do fashion on a party table.

“Mind if I sit down?” he said, taking the seat opposite me. He fished a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter from his pocket. He didn’t light up, though; he merely put them on the table. “Well, remember me?”

“Afraid not,” I confessed. “I’m sorry, I’m terrible about these things. I’m terrible with people’s faces.”

“Or maybe you’d just rather forget the past. Subliminally, that is.”

“Maybe so,” I said. What if I did?

The waitress brought over a glass of water for him, and he ordered an American coffee. Water it down, please, he told her.