The Cat at Platform Zero Vol.17

About this book

For one long spring holiday, the whole country comes to Hoshizaki — and Hoshizaki lends itself, entire.

Eight linked stories of Golden Week in a small valley in Japan, where the trains run at :42 and the station cat supervises from the bench. An innkeeper of thirty years takes one day of the holiday as a guest herself. A girl of ten buys her homeward ticket at the window, in her own name, out of her own money, while her grandmother learns to stand beside her and not in front of her. A woman who has fled this week for nine years stays, and stands in the crowd she used to leave. A young couple takes the holiday's middle day as the only private country they own. A student spends a whole day coming home slowly, and tells. A retired vice-principal's secret rehearsal becomes, at last, a bench that seats five. And the valley's great host — who has aired his house for twenty years of homecomings — locks the aired house, picks up his bag, and rides the crowded line to the coast as a guest.

On the last evening, keeper Sumi Takamine writes the holiday into the thirteenth volume of the station book, at its true size: the valley was lent to the travellers, and returned by them, in full and in order. Lent, and returned. The first train is at 05:42. The last train of the holiday is at 22:17. The cat, as ever, is on the bench.