The Samurai's Garden

Like his father before him, Tarumi villager Matsu is a lifelong servant of Stephen’s family, caretaker of their summer home in Tarumi. He is about 60, stocky, with gray hair. He is a man of few words and at first seems impermeable to Stephen. As their friendship deepens, Matsu humbly reveals his history in Tarumi: how leprosy visited the village, how he saved Sachi, his sister Tomoko’s suicide, his friendship with Kenzo. Matsu’s relationship with Sachi is central to the novel – its layers of romantic love, friendship, suffering, service, and beauty are a roadmap and book of life to Stephen during his journey. Matsu’s garden is a canvas on which many events of the novel are painted, and its flora often work as metaphor.

Sachi is a former Tarumi villager and Matsu’s longtime love and mother of their stillborn child. She is a traditional Japanese beauty scarred by leprosy, and her veil is symbolic of her shame. As a young woman, she was engaged to Kenzo. She was innocent and entitled. When she was struck with disease, she attempted to end her life by seppuku in order not to dishonor her family and fiancé. She found herself unable to complete the ritual, wanting to die but also wanting to live. Matsu helped her flee to Yamaguchi and ultimately, to thrive there. For Stephen, she is an example of beauty as truth – her scars and experiences make her breathtaking and unique. Stephen learns about empathy and strength via her journey from tragedy to wisdom. In her, he sees that suffering is not something to be struggled against and that it may become part of the texture of a sublime life. Like Matsu’s garden, hers works both literally and metaphorically, showing how life may stand like a stone and flow like water at the same time. She embodies the theme of isolation and connection.

Kenzo, Matsu’s childhood friend, is the third in the Matsu-Sachi-Kenzo triangle. As an arrogant young man, he was engaged to Sachi. He abandoned her when she informed him of her leprosy, the same disease which took Matsu’s younger sister Tomoko. While he has remained loyal as a friend, his resentment and shame have followed him his whole life. After finding Sachi and Matsu in the garden at the beach house, he hangs himself.  

Tomoko, Kenzo’s younger sister, was, like Sachi, one of the finest girls in Tarumi. She committed seppuku with her father’s fishing knife when she contracted leprosy. Her death impacted Matsu, Kenzo, and Sachi deeply. The two stones which were hers and become Stephen’s are a gift of hope passed down through the novel.

Fumiko, Matsu’s older sister, moved to Tokyo with her husband just before Tomoko’s death. She visits Matsu and Stephen in Tarumi in the present day and is the catalyst for storytelling.

Ba-Ba, Stephen’s father, is a Westernized businessman who wears spectacles and a suit. His family lives in Hong Kong, where he requires his children to understand and succeed in an increasingly global world. He stays mainly in Kobe, Japan, at his apartment on business. There, he is having an affair. He is loving but unapologetic, believing himself to be doing the right thing for all. Stephen’s relationship with him moves from obedient admiration to resentment to acceptance as Stephen grows into being his own man.

Mah-mee is a traditional upper-middle-class Chinese mother. Her relationship with Stephen is loving and protective but somewhat distant; her servant Ching does most of the daily work of child-rearing as Mah-mee plays mah-jongg and attends parties. She is blindsided by Ba-Ba’s affair and leans on Stephen for information and support, somewhat reversing the parent-child relationship and forcing Stephen toward adulthood. 

Stephen’s twelve-year-old sister Pie is smart, wide-eyed, and pigtailed. She dotes on Stephen and writes to him while he is away in Tarumi. Like Stephen, she has a transformation as the war continues – unbeknownst to Mah-mee, she steps away from her life of attending the cinema and shopping and becomes a volunteer with refugees in Hong Kong.

Stephen’s older sister Anne and older brother Henry attend school in Macao. They are not central to the novel, but their characters do reveal the family’s Westernization and their separation during wartime.

Ching, the Chan family’s servant, underlines the theme of service as both isolating and connecting. While she is not the Chan children’s mother, she functions as such. It is she who nurses Stephen during his illness in Hong Kong, she who takes care of the family’s every daily need. In her service are both humility and power. Her character has parallels with Matsu’s and with Sachi’s as they serve Stephen and each other.

King, Stephen’s school friend, provides information about Stephen’s school days and his position as a popular, handsome boy. Stephen’s nostalgia for his friend adds to the theme of isolation and connection. King’s letters to Stephen in Tarumi– increasingly delayed – bring news of the Japanese encroachment in China. 

Keiko, associated with floral sights and smells, is a graceful Tarumi girl with whom Stephen has a relationship during his recuperation. Her father does not approve of Stephen, seeing him as an unwelcome outsider (Chinese in Japan during the war, when Keiko’s brother is away fighting). Keiko is drawn to Stephen but ultimately rejects him as her father’s disapproval will not allow them to be together. She is a catalyst for Stephen’s growth: first, she provides him connection in his isolation; then, her loss teaches him that beauty is both ephemeral and eternal. Her sister Mika acts mostly as an appendage, helping Keiko to approach Stephen.

Hiro is one of the early Yamaguchi villagers. He helped Sachi during her transition there, helped Matsu build the village, and helps Stephen and Matsu put out the fire. His death heralds change.