The Samurai's Garden

Stephen gets his wish: blue sky has come to Tarumi. Tourists descend.

Matsu brings Stephen a letter from Pie. She is upset that another visit has been cancelled – it’s been nearly a year since Stephen left. She has continued her secret volunteer work. She wonders how Stephen has changed and tells him that girls have come to the house asking after her handsome brother. Henry and Anne are still in Macao, and Pie and Mah-mee may visit them there.

In the afternoon heat, Stephen stops painting and goes to the cool woods where young Sachi once hid. He happens on Keiko, who has also fled there for the shade. They walk and speak, holding hands. 

Matsu takes Stephen on a torch-lit trip to catch shrimp at a cove in the woods at dusk. Stephen hasn’t seen Keiko since their last visit, and the spectacle of the leaping, squirming dinner is a welcome respite from Keiko’s absence and the beach filled with tourists.

Matsu has made plans for the O-bon festival. His older sister Fumiko will visit from Tokyo, one of many returning home for a celebration of birthplace and ancestors. As the men wait for Fumiko in the crowd at the station, Stephen marvels that Matsu – such a solitary figure – is a son and a brother, and he is reminded again of the absence of other young men in town. He daydreams with homesickness of greeting his own family at the train. When Fumiko arrives, Stephen is struck by the wise, lined beauty of her face.

As Fumiko prepares lunch back at the house, she and Matsu talk about Tomoko. To Stephen, it is as if both of them become younger, speaking of their lost sibling. Fumiko tells Stephen that she had only just moved with her husband to Tokyo – where she thought Tomoko would one day join her – when Tomoko killed herself. She shares that she asked Matsu to come live in Tokyo but that “there has always been something or someone holding him here” (178). Stephen wonders why Matsu does not now make his relationship with Sachi known.