The Samurai's Garden

Upon finishing his painting of Matsu’s garden, Stephen feels adrift. He shows his piece to Matsu, who gives it a quick glance and grunts his approval, then asks Stephen if he’d like to go with him into town. Stephen has rarely been into Tarumi before. When the family visited the beach house when Stephen was a child, the servants went into town to get supplies while the family spent time at the beach. The two months he’s been at the beach house now have not included a trip into the village.

On the way into town, Matsu and Stephen pass through the train station. Stephen gets some looks not only because of his Chinese appearance, but also because there are not many young men who have not left for military service. The village consists of a store, a post office, a teahouse, and the homes of the villagers. Stephen wonders if he will see Keiko and Mika.

At the teahouse, Matsu introduces Stephen to the owner, Kenzo, a childhood friend who supplies Matsu with bacon and other hard-to-get items. Matsu recalls his first meeting with Kenzo in the garden at the beach house and that Sachi and Tomoko had been popular and great friends. Matsu thinks a great deal of Kenzo and relates that Kenzo should have left the village to make his fortune in the city. Instead, because Kenzo’s father was sickly, then died, Kenzo stayed behind to care first for him, and then for his bereaved mother.

Kenzo serves Matsu and Stephen rice crackers and drinks, and the three laugh about the bottled rosewater concoction he gives Stephen – he has been trying to convince patrons to like it for years. When Kenzo shares the news that Japanese troops have captured Soo-chow and nearly Shanghai, Matsu is quick to protect Stephen by changing the subject. Kenzo asks after Sachi, and it pleases him when Matsu gives him a note from her.

Stephen and Matsu leave for the post office; Stephen asks about Kenzo and Sachi. Matsu tells him that they cared for each other when they were young and that Sachi left Kenzo behind when she contracted leprosy. She would not see Kenzo, only Matsu: “it was easier for Sachi to see someone she didn’t care for” (49). At the post office, Matsu goes to his box and brings back an envelope he hands to Stephen. It has Stephen’s name on it.

Stephen writes that the morning is heavy and gray, portending a big storm. Stephen reads and re-reads the letter he’s received from his mother: his father is keeping a woman in Kobe, and Mah-mee wants to know if Stephen has known anything about the affair. She has always known that her husband might seek companionship, living far away from his family; she has said nothing as he has remained a good provider. However, she has learned from the family banker that Stephen’s father has been withdrawing large sums of money in a woman’s name and has asked to borrow against the Hong Kong house. She suggests that Stephen is old enough to understand and might return to Kobe to learn what is happening. Stephen empathizes with her embarrassment and loss, but he does not share her sense of his maturity and does want to leave Tarumi yet.

As Stephen attempts to write back to his mother, the storm hits. He and Matsu hurry to slide heavy boards over the house’s shoji panels to protect the structure from the heavy wind and rain. As the storm grows stronger, the ocean rages closer, over the beach and toward the house. Waves begin crashing over the property. One of them slams Stephen hard into the house.

Stephen awakes in bed, a nasty bump behind his ear and his head pounding. The shoji are still sealed by the boards; he doesn’t know if it’s day or night. Getting his bearings, he remembers blacking out from impact. He hears voices, and Matsu enters, a bandage on his cheek, followed by Sachi. Concerned for her friends in the storm, she has come from Yamaguchi for the first time in forty years. Wondering if she will stay or go, Stephen begins to lose consciousness. He hears Matsu and Sachi discussing a doctor as he fades out.

Later, Stephen awakes to bright light. He dresses and goes to the garden, which has been destroyed by the storm. He finds Matsu working there and learns that he has been down for two days. He wonders if Sachi’s appearance was a hallucination, but she emerges from behind the house: she has come for the second time to check on him. Stephen asks if he can help with the garden. At first, Matsu refuses. Sachi reminds him that he once told her that working in a garden would return her to life. “Only light work then, until you’re better” (56), says Matsu.

Sachi begins coming to the house very early every day to help Matsu and Stephen with the garden, leaving again at twilight. Sachi and Stephen’s friendship grows as the garden takes its shape again. Stephen writes a brief letter to his mother letting her know that he must recover from the storm; he dreads speaking to his father.

One day as they work, Stephen asks Sachi about her return, which feels to her like a dream. She’s been given courage by her will to help Matsu and Stephen. When Stephen brings up Kenzo, Sachi says that he was a hard friend to lose, but she has always had Matsu and has made friends in Yamaguchi. She points to Matsu’s rebuilt bridge and tells Stephen that Matsu once told her it represented the samurai’s brave journey to the afterlife. Standing at the top of the bridge, one can see paradise; this is how she feels, living newly without fear. As they replant a pine together, Sachi tells Stephen that soon the garden will look just like his painting again. He is surprised that Matsu has shown her the painting, since he said nothing when Stephen showed it to him. Sachi says, “everything is in what he does not say” (58).

Stephen comes to see Sachi’s scars, which he glimpses sometimes, as beautiful. He enjoys Matsu and Sachi’s sweet friendship and wonders about futures past in which they or Sachi and Kenzo might have been married. The happiness and nostalgia of the present are interrupted when the radio announces that Shanghai has been occupied.

The same evening, Stephen hears Keiko and Mika at the gate. When he opens it, Keiko is there alone. She tells him that they heard he wasn’t well and hands him a gift: a black lacquer box wrapped in maroon cloth. Inside are yokan: red bean cakes. Stephen asks her in, but she says she cannot stay. He asks if he will see her again, and when she demures, he asks if they can set a time. She suggests ten the next morning at the beach.

Stephen is in bed when Matsu comes home from walking Sachi back to Yamaguchi. Stephen offers Matsu some of Keiko’s red bean cakes. He tells Matsu about his date tomorrow, and Matsu teases him affectionately. Stephen asks whether Sachi has ever made Matsu yokan; Matsu responds that Stephen should be asking if Matsu has made it for her. Matsu then says he has not, adding that Sachi would have given it back if he did.