The Lesson of the Daidai

The afternoon came slowly, like a young blossom turning glory red in the dusk. The coffee shop was dark inside and time seemed to run slower, like the heat had taken time in hand and stretched it out. Outside the street was busy and chilled with cold rain, but inside it was gently warm, quiet, and peaceful. 

Avery finished pouring daidai batter into muffin tins, slid them into the oven, and pushed her short hair back from her face. She stood for a moment behind the counter with her hands on her hips. There were few people inside the Starbucks but since the rush was about to happen, she wasn’t worried. 

A handful of university students sat around a table muttering quietly about physics. She smiled at one as he looked up. 

A young mother with long black-violet hair sat with her baby, who was nibbling on a scone and laughing at the passersby outside the window. Avery waved to the baby. 

A very old man with a short white moustache sat in one of the leather chairs reading a book. It was small and red, and she knew what it was. He didn’t look up, but she felt like he was talking to her, smiling at her. She didn’t like reading but she knew if he started to tell her about this one, she might pick it up. 

It was early October but the weather didn’t know it yet. This was the latest in the year that the leaves had started turning. They usually began to dim, brighten, swell, and fall in mid-September and north wind to fill the streets by October. Winter always arrived on time, precisely by Halloween. 

This was the only Starbucks coffee shop in Kawasaki. During the autumn months, when the weather matched the mood and the color of the coffee, the tea shops started to empty and the coffee shops filled. All the current customers were Japanese, except for one of the university students, whom Avery recognized from her physics course last year. Markus was Russian.

The violet-haired mother drank from her paper cup. She’d ordered the pumpkin spice latte, the newest addition to the menu, and the first time the fall menu came out in Kawasaki. Avery had put out the sign only this morning and already she’d made three dozen cups of it. 

Avery herself wasn’t Japanese. She was a Taipei transfer student trying to write a dissertation and not die of starvation and overwork at the same time. She worked two shifts, walked home to research and scribble rough drafts, and jogged back to work. She rarely saw Meiya, the owner; just at the end of the month to collect her paycheck and in the early mornings when Meiya unlocked the glass doors. 

Avery rubbed at an invisible spot on her green apron. She pulled down her rolled-up sleeves and hugged her elbows, standing still, appreciating the quiet now offered. 

Autumn was late this year. She knew this because August had turned to September imperceptibly, and research turned into stride. The cold winds waited, pushed aside by warm summer breezes that swept down the streets and kept bedroom windows open. Last autumn she’d declared her major and got to work. This was how she kept time these days, by finals, quizzes, and dissertation deadlines. 

She thought about autumn and about change, and how the northern winds, sweeping down from Russia where Markus was from, always came, no matter how hard you prayed for October to stay.

With a sigh, she put her head down and started to rinse out the espresso equipment. The pause full of autumn and thinking had taken but two seconds.

The next morning dawned eagerly, and with it came the turning of the year. Avery could smell it in the air as she half-ran past the Tokaido Main Line and ducked under a string of paper lanterns outside a tourist shop. The lanterns were red, like the old man’s book the day before. The air smelled crisp, like old blossoms and young ice. The sky was overcast. 

“It’s going to rain,” she mumbled in Chinese, unthinkingly. 

“What?” said the old woman who owned the tourist shop. She spoke in Japanese. 

“Nothing,” Avery said, returning the language. “Apologies.”

She let out a sigh as she crossed the last intersection and caught sight of the familiar green-and-white symbol hanging amid thick characters painted on old wood. There was a picture of an ume fruit on the storefront next to Starbucks, soft orange and green together. The sign beneath read Canned Fruits and Vegetables. Umes are only eaten as pickles, if anyone eats them at all. Meiya once suggested an ume drink, but Avery shot her down. Avery had tasted ume before and Meiya hadn’t.

She nodded hello to Meiya and pulled on her apron. Meiya left soon after. Avery flicked the lights and machines on, warmed up the rooms by plugging in the portable heaters, and pulled her hair into a ponytail on the side of her head. 

The old man returned, with his little red book under his elbow. He came immediately to the counter and waited as a white woman ordered a pumpkin latte in fumbling, French-accented Japanese.

“Hello,” he said politely, nodding to Avery once the woman walked away with her latte. 

“Good morning, sir,” Avery said, smiling. “Can I get you something?”

“Are the daidai muffins ready yet?” he asked. 

“From yesterday,” she said, pausing a little before speaking. She was still working on Japanese. “They keep for a while, though. I can warm one up.”

“Thank you.”

She moved to the display counter and turned the oven on as she went. 

“Daidai,” the old man said. “My father grew them when I was a boy.”

“Oh?” Avery tried to look like she was listening. 

“They are a sign of longevity. And resilience,” he said, tapping the counter of his book. “They can hang on the tree limb for many years without falling.”

She knew this. 

“They change color in the fall and in the spring.” He was using the more formal terms, and it made her listen more closely. Was he doing so on purpose? “The most resilient of all the fruits, and still they conform to the power of the seasons.”

“Yes. I don’t like autumn. I think it’s bossy.” He laughed. “I love summer best of all, and fall takes away warm sun and contentment and replaces it with cold rains. Fall is always grey.”

“You wonder why,” he said, smiling. “I love daidai. It reminds me of my father, and the crisp autumn mornings by the Yangtze.”

“I know what you’re saying,” she replied, trying to match his easygoing yet formal tones. “The daidai--” She paused as the oven dinged. “The daidai is stoic and still changes, like each year must. Why?”

“Young people are affected most by change,” he said, accepting the hot muffin in a paper bag. “When you are old, you do not mind so much.”

“That’s what you all tell me.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “But yes, Avery, you are right. Even the strongest things must conform. They must change. Basho wrote about change. He said ‘Another year is gone. A travel hat on my head, Straw sandals on my feet.’ Do you study Basho in school?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “But that was long ago. I work in science, you know.”

His voice was trembling with age. “Science is full of change. You must learn to love the change in order to get anything done.” He tapped his book knowingly, raising an eyebrow, and went slowly to his chair in the corner. 

She watched him go, smiling slightly. She couldn’t help it. 

Morning turned away and afternoon rose up. The old man whose father grew daidais left by ten but returned mid-afternoon. He ordered an espresso with Costa Rica coffee beans and drank it slowly and read his book. Avery glanced at him from time to time but he never looked up.

Markus was back, with an armload of heavy books, without his friends this time. 

“Hi, Avery,” he said, reading her name tag. “You’re at Den-en, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said, making his pumpkin cold brew as she talked. “I’m in the science building mostly. I’m working on my dissertation.”

“That’s great,” he said, pushing a few bills over the counter. He spoke Japanese hesitantly. “I’m actually at both Den-en and Senzoku. Den-en for the humanities classes and Senzoku for the music.”

“They let you do that?”

“Yes. A professor back home wrote a good reference letter.”

“Well, good luck,” she said, and they both laughed. He sat down at a table and spread out his books. 

The new list of autumn drinks was only two days old, but Avery was already sick of it. She’d made almost forty so far; thirty-seven pumpkin spice lattes, one pumpkin cold brew, and one caramel mocha. She put her palms flat on the cool counter, her shoulders in a relaxed shrug, and let her body rest for a moment. 

She thought about the old man and his red book. She knew what he’d been trying to tell her, about change and not changing, autumn and spring. He’s a sweet old man, she thought. He was reading Mao. She knew it by the cover of the book; just a plain red. Avery was from Taiwan, a municipality of China. She knew The Little Red Book by heart. 

She swallowed. 

Avery straightened and went back to work. She’d paused just two seconds.

“Good afternoon,” a middle-aged woman said in Chinese. 

“Good afternoon,” Avery responded instinctively. “Can I get you something?”

“I saw that you have made drinks for the autumn,” the woman said, unzipping her heavy jacket. She had on an orange sweater underneath. 

“Yes, ma’am. We have pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cream brews, caramel--”

“Pumpkin cream… brew?”

“Yes. It’s a cold coffee flavored with… well, with pumpkin,” she finished lamely. 

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. It’s good. If you like sweet things, though. It tastes-- er, it tastes like fall.” The woman was watching her closely. “Well, it tastes like a cloud, almost, a rain cloud but good, sweet and pumpkiny and not too thin.”

“I will have that. Thank you.”

“Of course,” Avery said, taking the woman’s money and moving toward the machine. “Thank you.”

As she filled a glass, she thought about what she’d said. A rain cloud? She smiled and shook her head. That was inane. But it made her think. She looked up at the ceiling as she made the drink. 

“A cloud?”

Pumpkiny and sweet. Suddenly, she wanted to have one. Describing the drink made her crave it. Perhaps this was what the red-book man was talking about. Avery handed the woman the brimming glass and said “Enjoy.”

“Thank you.”

As she walked away, Avery watched the window. It had begun to rain gently, almost sleet, and the sky was the color of whipped cream, tinged with greyish orange. She linked her hands together, made sure no one needed her, and walked to the window behind the counter. She stood before it, hand pressed up against the glass, and watched it rain. 

She’d always hated the rain ever since she attended a year of university in England. It rained two-thirds of the year and that summer she applied elsewhere, and ended up in Kawasaki. She was happier here, but rain made her remember that awful year and forget why she was working for anything. 

But as she watched the rain come softly down the busy street, mixed with cold winds and pumpkiny clouds, Avery wasn’t sad. She wasn’t quite happy, but--

The old man was leaving. She waved to him as he walked to the door, and he saw her watching the rain. He waved the red book at her and gave her a thumbs up. The sky moved above the street, milky white and brushed with the colors of red leaves pulled from shedding trees and tossed by the wind. 

As the old man pulled open the glass door, she heard him say “Autumn is full of change, but it is not always grey.”