The Samurai's Garden

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994

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Summer: June 6, 1938-Summer: July 5, 1938Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Summer: June 6, 1938 Summary

The brightness of summer brings Stephen to Tarumi with Matsu for the first time since Kenzo’s funeral. The teahouse remains closed. Stephen has learned that Ba-Ba will visit; Stephen mails letters to his mother and Pie letting them know that he is fine. Leaving the post office, he sees Keiko coming confidently toward him. She tells him that she feared he might have returned to Hong Kong and asks him to meet her the next day at the Tama shrine. She touches his hand gently before walking away.

When Matsu and Stephen return home, Sachi is there. She informs them that Hiro has passed away in his sleep. Matsu returns to Yamaguchi with Sachi, leaving Stephen to rest. Stephen feels “growing pains,” deaths and endings, “the dull ache of being pulled in other directions” (165).

Summer: June 7, 1938 Summary

Matsu has not returned from Yamaguchi overnight. Stephen meets Keiko at the shrine. She has brought a furoshiki packed with food and tea. They share the refreshments, then Stephen reclines. He notices Keiko’s “scent of jasmine” (166) very close. They kiss, then make love. Stephen wakes to find it’s been a dream. Keiko tells Stephen that she dreads the tourists who will soon descend on Tarumi and that she wishes to study architecture at university. Stephen longs to hold her hand as they leave the shrine.

Back at the beach house, Matsu has returned. He tells Stephen that Hiro has been buried. In Matsu, Yamaguchi’s “unlikely hero,” Stephen sees “cracks in his armor, grief in the curve of his back” (167).

Summer: June 15, 1938 Summary

Stephen’s father has come and gone. They avoided the topic of Stephen’s mother, focusing on weather and the war. Stephen noticed that even though his father refers to the Japanese as “they,” he behaves in a more Japanese than Chinese manner. Ba-Ba informed Stephen that he and Mah-mee have agreed that Stephen should stay in Tarumi until fall. Ba-Ba offers Stephen the chance to visit him in Kobe for a festival; Stephen lies and says that he has heard of one he’d like to attend at the same time in Tarumi.

Summer: June 29, 1938 Summary

The six-week Baiu (plum rains) have begun. Stephen sees Matsu in the misty garden. On canvas, he is unable to capture the “ghostly beauty” (170) of his friend emerging from the mist.

Summer: July 5, 1938 Summary

Stephen has been swimming in the mist and rain. Recently, in the village, he’s seen Mika and Keiko. There is something intimate between Stephen and Keiko now – even though Keiko could not greet him, they share a sweet moment.

Summer: June 6, 1938-Summer: July 5, 1938 Analysis

The season changes again in these chapters. They, along with the next five chapters, serve as a sort of punctuation between the longer, more psychologically complex sections of the novel.

Hiro, a core member of Tarumi, dies, the old giving way to the new. Summer symbolizes fruition, and the plum rains bring emotional and physical union for Stephen and Keiko at Tama shrine (though the physical occurs mainly in a dream). Stephen, in a sense, emerges from his writing and art to become a fuller person, realizing the limitations of painting and the pen in truly conveying life’s beauty and pain: “There’s something about being too perfect, that evenness which at times appears stiff, almost boring. I finally gave up after several tries” (170).