The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami

located on the underground level of a building.
    “I didn’t know there was a bar like this so close to school,” I said, and Kojima nodded.
    “Of course, I never came here when we were high school students,” he said earnestly. The bartender laughed at his comment. The bartender was a woman. Her hair, faintly flecked with gray, was smoothed back perfectly, and she wore a crisply ironed white shirt with a garçon-style black apron.
    Kojima introduced her as Maeda, the owner of the bar, and as she set out a plate of edamame, she asked in a soft, low voice, “How many years has it been since you started coming here, Kojima?”
    “Hmm, I came here a lot with Ayuko.”
    “Ah, yes.”
    That meant that he must have been a longtime regular. Because if he came here with Ayuko, then they must have been here before they had broken up, which meant that Kojima had been frequenting this bar for more than twenty years.
    Kojima turned to me and asked, “Omachi, are you hungry?”

    “I’m a little hungry,” I replied.
    “Me too,” Kojima said.
    “The food’s tasty here,” he added, taking a menu from Maeda.
    I’ll let you decide, I said, and he turned his gaze to the menu.
    Cheese omelet. Green salad. Smoked oysters. Kojima pointed at each of the items on the menu as he ordered them. Then Maeda carefully poured us each a glass of red wine from a bottle she had just meticulously uncorked.
    Cheers, Kojima said, and in return I said, Cheers to you. Sensei flashed through my mind for an instant but I immediately chased his image away. Our glasses clinked. The wine had just the right heft and a subtle dusky aroma.
    “That’s a nice wine,” I said.
    Kojima turned to Maeda and said, “So she says.”
    Maeda gave a slight bow of her head. “I’m just pleased you like it.”
    Flustered, I bowed my head as well, and Kojima and Maeda both laughed.
    “Really, Omachi, you haven’t changed a bit,” Kojima said, swirling the wine around in his glass and then tasting it. Maeda opened a silver refrigerator that had been built in under the counter and began to prepare the items that Kojima had ordered. I thought about asking about Ayuko—what she was doing these days, what kind of work she did—but since I didn’t really care to know, I decided against it. Kojima was still swirling his wine around.
    “You know, lots of people do this—swirl their wine around—but I always feel kind of embarrassed when I see them do it.” I had been staring fixedly at his fingers as they swirled, and Kojima had followed my gaze from his hands to my face.
    “Uh, no, that’s not what I was thinking,” I stammered, but in fact, I sort of was.
    “Just humor me and try it yourself,” Kojima urged, looking me deep in the eyes.

    “Really?” I said, swirling around the wine in my own glass. The aroma rose to my nostrils. I took a sip, and the wine tasted just the slightest bit different from before. As if there were no resistance. The flavor nestled right up, was perhaps a better way of putting it.
    “What a difference,” I said, my eyes widening.
    Kojima nodded vigorously. “See what I mean?”
    “It’s amazing.”
    I felt like I had entered into a strange time, sitting there next to Kojima, in a bar I’d never been to before, swirling wine around in my glass and savoring smoked oysters. Every so often, the thought of Sensei would flit across my mind, but each time, just as suddenly, it would then disappear. It wasn’t as though I had returned to my high school days, but neither did it feel like I was actually in the present—all I could say was that I had caught a fleeting moment at the counter of Bar Maeda. It seemed like we had ended up within a time that didn’t exist anywhere. The cheese omelet was warm and fluffy. The green salad was peppery. After we worked our way through the bottle of wine, Kojima ordered a vodka cocktail while I ordered a gin cocktail, and we were then surprised by how late it had become. I would have