The Samurai's Garden

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994

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Summer: August 17, 1938-Autumn: September 23, 1938Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Summer: August 17, 1938 Summary

Stephen wakes to the warm sounds and sight of Matsu and Fumiko preparing food to bring to the graves of the ancestors at the temple. As the trio walks there with the procession of villagers, Stephen thinks of Keiko and is glad not to see her; he does not wish to encounter her disapproving father again. Stephen remembers the Ghosts’ Feast in Hong Kong, with its more elaborate headstones and the recognition of his mother’s and father’s families. They leave their offerings at the family plot, and Matsu steps away to visit Kenzo’s grave.

When the three return to the village, it has been lit with colorful lanterns in many shapes. The mood is upbeat; the smell of food and the sound of music fill the air. Kenzo’s teahouse remains silent; Stephen thinks of him and of Sachi, wondering if she will celebrate in Yamaguchi. He thinks of the Chinese being slaughtered by the Japanese and that there will be “no one left to celebrate them” (181).

Autumn: September 5, 1938 Summary

The garden begins to hint at the change of seasons, bringing a sense of the serious. Stephen writes, “maybe it’s the light that gradually grows darker, making everything seem less trivial, forcing you to look harder to find your way” (185). The summer crowds have gone, and Tarumi is quiet again.

Stephen, feeling nostalgic for the days when fall meant returning to school, hears Matsu calling him from the garden. Matsu shows him a blooming kerria plant with yellow-orange flowers and tells him that it is a sign of good luck: normally, the plant blooms for only one week in the spring. Stephen asks Matsu if it means that they will have good luck; Matsu tells him that good luck will mean not having any bad luck.

Autumn: September 13, 1938 Summary

Stephen goes to the beach for the first time in weeks. After learning from Matsu that Keiko has been away with her family in Osaka, he anticipates her return. Pie has sent a postcard letting Stephen know that she and Mah-mee have visited Anne and Henry in Macao. Stephen thinks of these things as he walks among the detritus of the summer visitors – paper wrappers, a broken plastic shovel. He thinks of his own things left behind and the things he will have to leave in the future.

A flash appears in the distance. It is Keiko, running toward him, a new pendant around her neck glinting in the light. Stephen’s joy turns to shock as she tells him that she will be unable to see him anymore, that “there can never be any ‘us’” (187). The family has just learned that her brother was killed at Hsuchowfu in May. Stephen holds her as she sobs for her brother’s loss and the loss of Stephen. Their eyes meet, then she turns and walks back over the dunes. That night, Stephen writes of the insanity of war, the dead on both sides, the scars left on everyone.

Autumn: September 16, 1938 Summary

Stephen dreams of Keiko running toward him and never being able to reach him. He longs to see her but does not. His heart aches for the colors of her hair, her clothes, the persimmons in her basket.

Autumn: September 23, 1938 Summary

A week of rain has stopped just in time for Shibun No-Hi, the Autumn Equinox. Matsu and Stephen take a muddy hike to Yamaguchi to celebrate with Sachi; when they arrive, they rinse off and put on robes. Stephen’s body has filled out with his returned health and exercise.

As Sachi serves them a meal, Stephen notices Sachi’s pleasure in feeding Matsu and Matsu’s satisfaction that the house has stayed tight in the rain. In a sense Matsu – a servant at Stephen’s grandfather’s home – is the “master of the house” (190) here. But this sense is a double one Stephen remembers strongly from childhood: Ching, the family servant in Hong Kong, was powerful in her service. She was often more a household manager to Ba-Ba and a mother to the children than Mah-mee. The dynamics of friendship are visible as Sachi serves Matsu rice, Matsu tops off her tea, and Stephen lifts his bowl so that she won’t have to reach for it.

Summer: August 17, 1938-Autumn: September 23, 1938 Analysis

As summer turns to autumn, these five chapters turn Stephen’s eyes back to home: During a celebration of ancestors, he thinks of the war in China and wonders who will be left to celebrate the dead. A joyously late-blooming kerria plant in the garden continues the flower motif, offering good luck autumnally tempered by Matsu’s answer to Stephen’s question about it: ““As long as we don’t have any bad luck” (185).

At the beach, Stephen has a final meeting with Keiko. She tells him that her brother has been killed in combat and that she and Stephen can never be together; her father, already unlikely to approve the union, will now never have to. Their grief for both losses is echoed in the surroundings Stephen has noted before her arrival on the sand: “paper wrappers, a plastic shovel… what used to be castles and moats…. I felt lonely seeing these things, not for those who’d left them, but for all the things I’ve had to leave” (186).

The trajectory of several of the novel’s themes becomes evident. These “things I’ve had to leave” are becoming, for Steven, the texture of a life. He is beginning to understand that solitude and connection coexist; that beauty and suffering are sisters; and that the individual is always in some sense both part of a collective and totally on his or her own. While Stephen might have had a less-mature reaction to Keiko’s rejection – perhaps longing for her in the garden – earlier in the novel, now he goes with Matsu to visit Sachi and finds happiness in their service to each other: “at the same time he poured more tea into her cup and there seemed to be a perfect balance. I knew neither of them would ever drift away from the other” (192). When Sachi offers Stephen more rice in the next moment, he knows that he is as much a part of these lives as those who’ve lived them for decades.