The Samurai's Garden: A Novel Read online

  The house appears smaller than I remember, though it feels comfortable here, with a simplicity I could never find in crowded Hong Kong. On the left side of the house, there’s a small verandah looking out over the pond. I like the straight and curved shapes of the tile roof with its projecting eaves; it all seems to harmonize with the surroundings.

  We proceeded through to the genken, the entrance room, which had a wooden bench where shoes are to be removed. There were two pairs of house slippers neatly lined up. One pair was clearly worn, and next to them was a new pair that I slipped on. They felt cool and welcoming. The first summer we came to Tarumi, I asked my mother why we had to change our shoes before going into a house. She said it had to do with the Japanese custom of cleanliness, of not taking dirt from the streets into the house, and also because of the delicacy of the tatami mats lining the floor inside. It’s a ceremony I found refreshing after arriving from the dirty streets of Hong Kong.

  After I put my things away, Matsu led me out to the back garden where I took my first Japanese bath. On a wooden platform by the back of the house sat a wooden tub, a small black door open at the bottom of it, through which I could see coals in an iron container to heat the water.

  While Matsu prepared the bath, he gestured for me to wash first. To one side was a stool, bucket, and a washcloth. I was embarrassed thinking I had to undress and wash in front of Matsu, but he went about heating the tub, ignoring me. I took my time taking off my clothes, then sat down on the stool, and began to soap and wash my entire body with the washcloth. From a barrel of cool water, I used the bucket to pour water over my head, rinsing over and over as I’d seen my father do. It felt good after the hot, dusty walk.

  I stood up, feeling self-conscious as I walked toward the tub. I’d lost so much weight in the past few months, I looked no more than a skeleton. At my father’s apartment, I had bathed quickly, too embarrassed to linger for a soak.

  “The water’s hot,” Matsu said, not paying the least bit of attention to me. “Step in quickly. Then stay as still as you can.”

  I stepped up onto the wooden platform, then lifted my leg over the side and into the tub. I let the rest of my body follow as water splashed out over the rim. Steam rose, surrounding me with the sweet fragrance of cedar. There was a smooth touch of the wood under my skin. The water was very hot, but when I sat perfectly still as Matsu advised, my body calmed. Matsu stood to the side and almost smiled as I leaned back, letting the hot water embrace me.

  SEPTEMBER 16, 1937

  I fell asleep while writing after my bath last evening. I’d told Matsu I was only going to rest a short time on the bedding he had rolled out for me. He nodded his head with a look of relief. Wrapped in a light cotton kimono he gave me to wear, I fell into a deep sleep from which he did not disturb me.

  When I awoke, this book still lay open across my chest. It took me a few minutes to recall where I was. On the floor across from me was a tray with a small pot of cold tea, and the snack of red bean cakes Matsu had brought to me when I arrived.

  It’s very early, but I already hear Matsu moving around in the kitchen, and the faint smell of something cooking reminds me of how hungry I am. I haven’t experienced the hollowness of hunger for the longest time. Below my bedding, Matsu has placed several quilts to ease the hardness of the floor, but there’s still a stiffness up and down my back as I stand up. The air tastes sweeter here, and my throat is dry, but the coughing has lessened and I feel almost healthy again.

  I slide open my door. Matsu’s in the kitchen in the back of the house, so I walk through the hall, taking stock of everything I had missed the night before. Beyond the genken there’s a long corridor with two rooms on each side, separated by thin shoji walls, whose paper screens slide open to expose each room. The main room is a good size, lined with six tatami mats with clean lines. There isn’t any furniture, and it smells musty from lack of use. There are two small recesses which I remember are called tokonomas, one where a simple scroll painting hangs with a basket of dried flowers beside it on the floor. The other has cupboards with sliding doors that hide the zabuton cushions which are taken out for guests to sit on. Matsu keeps the house immaculate. I can’t help but think how ecstatic Ching would be at the lack of clutter. The last time we visited, Henry slid open the doors every morning and strewd the cushions all over the floor, as he jumped from one to the other pretending they were small islands. My father had remained in Kobe that time because of business, while my mother spent most of each day alone in the garden, shaded from the sun by a large, red-paper parasol.

  Across from the main room is my grandfather’s study, with a low-set black lacquered desk and a large, hand-carved ivory urn on the floor nearby. I enter the room that had always before been forbidden to the children. The room is light and cool, and I lay the palm of my hand on the mirrorlike surface of the desk. I look down to see my disheveled appearance: wavy unkempt hair, dark hollow eyes, the thin face with flushed cheeks and slight shadow of a beard. Except for my obvious weight loss, the feverish glow still gives me a deceptively healthy appearance in the dark lacquer surface.

  My room is down the corridor, smaller and brighter than the main room. It seems especially true this morning when a white light comes through the shoji windows, which aren’t shaded by so many trees. The light makes everything appear clear. The pale green of the tatami has a spiral design which corresponds to the fluid grain of the natural wood. The plastered walls are the color of sand. There’s a low sitting table, cushion, and a tokonoma which houses a Chinese scroll painting of the jagged mountains of Guilin. It was painted by my grandfather, and I’ve admired it since I was a child. It’s a pleasure to wake up to the sight of it.

  Matsu prepared a breakfast of rice with pickled vegetables and miso soup. After a six-word conversation with him, which consisted of my poor Japanese and several low grunts from him, I grabbed my sketch pad and headed down to the beach. The cool wind of early morning sent a chill through me.

  The road was empty. The thick, sweet smell of the late summer blossoms drifted through the air. I walked down the road to see some houses still asleep behind their bamboo fences. Others were just waking with movement from within. Through the cracks between the bamboo I could see a servant or two moving about. Many of the houses were already empty, or with only a servant like Matsu left to care for them. I wondered if Matsu had any contact with the other servants, or did he simply keep to himself? I tried not to think that it would be almost a year before Tarumi came alive again with families returning on vacation. Meanwhile, I’d have to adapt to the silence, put away all the noise and comforts of my family and friends in Hong Kong and Canton. It’s harder than I imagined, to be alone. I suppose I might get used to it, like an empty canvas you slowly begin to fill.

  The path was just as I remembered it, a narrow strip of sand threading down to a large, open beach. From the top of the slope I could see the empty stretch of white sand, divided by a large sand dune. The sea was blue-green and very quiet. As I ran down the path, my canvas loafers filled with sand, still cool from the night before. I struggled up and over the dune, then moved closer to the water, breathing in the salty air. I didn’t want to lose the morning light, so I quickly settled down and opened my sketch pad to draw the ocean and surrounding mountains.

  The sun felt hot and sticky against my back by the time I was mildly satisfied with what I’d drawn. I put down my sketch pad and felt hungry again. My stomach rumbled at the thought of Matsu’s rice and vegetables. Matsu was certainly a good cook, even if he wasn’t much of a talker.

  I decided to go for a swim to take my mind off food. There was no one in either direction down the length of the beach, so I dropped my clothes on top of my sketch pad and walked quickly to the water. In my head I could hear my mother and Ching scream their disapproval as I plunged in. The sudden cold made my whole body tighten. With each stroke against the salty water, I felt a new surge of energy travel through my body. I swam back and forth, my arms t
hrusting forward with each stroke as I disrupted the calm of the sea with my furious motions. The coolness of the water felt good against my body. As I relaxed, a sense of freedom emerged which had been buried under my illness.

  When my arms became too tired and my breathing labored, I simply lay back and floated. I could have stayed there forever, like a small child in a bathtub. Since returning to Hong Kong from my school in Canton, I’d spent most of my time in bed, too weak and feverish to do anything else. No one was allowed to visit, though Pie stuck her head in now and then. With only my mother and Ching as company, I missed King and my other friends at Lingnan University even more. I had been nothing but a prisoner in my own room.

  My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of voices coming from shore. Instinctively, I lowered myself in the water. I was surprised to see two young girls on the beach. The taller of the two chased the other along the sand, laughing wildly. They didn’t seem to notice me. At first I wanted to yell out to them, happy to discover other young people were living in Tarumi, but then I realized my clothes were on the beach. Watching them run up the dune, I kept very still until they were well out of sight.

  When I returned to the house, Matsu was nowhere to be found. I quickly ate the bowl of cold udon noodles and fish cake he had left in my room. Later on I tried to keep myself occupied writing letters to my mother, Pie, and to King. I hoped he was still studying at Lingnan University. Three months had passed since I’d come home from Canton and my life as a student. I had no idea if my letter would ever reach him there, with the Japanese swarming all over China. In King’s last letter to me in Hong Kong, he had said all was quiet in Canton and that the Japanese devils were currently leaving them alone. He ended his letter hoping I would use my “rest and recuperation” to perfect my art. King was one of the few friends I had who always understood how much painting means to me.

  Matsu returned late in the afternoon carrying several magazines and small packages. He quickly took them to the kitchen, barely stopping long enough to give a slight bow in my direction. I followed him and stood in the kitchen doorway while he unwrapped his packages. The bloodier of the two contained a chicken, its head freshly severed, while the other was some sort of raw fish. At home, Ching forbade any of us to bother her when she cooked, including my mother who rarely entered the kitchen except to give last-minute instructions on what was to be served at her mah-jongg games.

  Matsu finally looked up, no longer able to ignore me without being impolite. He shifted uncomfortably before saying his first full sentence since we met at the train station.

  “Is there anything you need?” he asked. His hoarse voice vibrated through the small room.

  “Yes,” I replied, eagerly. “I wanted to ask you about some of the people staying around here.”

  Matsu looked away, a towel draped over the right shoulder of his worn gray kimono. He lifted up the chicken and continued to pluck out the brownish feathers.

  “There aren’t many people, only those in the village and some looking after houses. Summer is when the others come.”

  “But I saw two young girls at the beach this morning. Do you know if they live close by? Could they be the daughters of a servant?”

  Matsu shrugged his shoulders. “Most of the young people left in Tarumi live in the village,” he answered. He turned away and lifted a large clay pot onto the stove.

  I waited until he turned around again before I asked, “Don’t you ever get lonely here by yourself?”

  I don’t know what possessed me to ask Matsu such a personal question, but once I’d said it, I looked him in the eyes and waited for an answer. He didn’t reply for a long time; he simply stood looking at me. Then he lifted his rough, thick fingers to his cheek and scratched it.

  “There’s always plenty of work,” he finally answered.

  “But what do you do when the work’s done?” I continued to probe. “I suppose you have many friends here to pass the time with?”

  Matsu’s eyes narrowed. He looked me up and down suspiciously. “Why?” he asked.

  I shifted uncomfortably, trying to find the right words to say in Japanese. “I just wondered. It seems so quiet here.”

  Matsu waited a moment, then let out a sharp laugh. “A friend here and there. Mostly, I work in the garden or read my magazines. I have a sister who sends them to me from Tokyo.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Does it seem so impossible for me to have a sister?” Matsu asked, clearly amused.

  “No, of course not.”

  “I had two sisters, but one is dead now.”

  “I have two sisters and a brother,” I said, realizing it was something he must already know. The few times our family came to visit, Matsu had helped us settle in, then quickly made himself scarce. I would have gone on telling him more about my family and friends, but Matsu cleared his throat and pointed to his clay pot on the stove. He picked up the chicken and turned away from me, but I didn’t leave. Instead, I stayed and watched as he skillfully butchered the fowl. Matsu didn’t look up or say another word. Still, it was a start.

  SEPTEMBER 20, 1937

  It was so warm last night I had a hard time sleeping. The moon was unusually bright, keeping the room awash in a hazy white light. Today I tried to draw, but nothing that made any sense found its way onto the paper. It was as if the dark charcoal lines were simply interrupting the whiteness of the sheet. I threw several away before I gave up in frustration. I tell myself I’ll have much better results when I work with oil paints, but the canvases my father promised to send me from Kobe haven’t arrived yet. He did send word that he wouldn’t be able to come see me until next week. There also hasn’t been any word from my mother and Pie in Hong Kong. I know it’s been less than a week since I arrived, but it feels longer.

  Matsu seems more receptive to my attempts at conversation, but we never get farther than what is already known. He acknowledges me with a slight bow of his head when we see each other during the day. At night, he spends most of his time back in the kitchen, or listening to the static sounds of his radio in the small room he sleeps in next to the kitchen. Matsu continues to surprise me. Usually he listens to pieces by Mozart or Chopin, which remind me of Pie and her White Russian piano teacher, or to the high female voice of a newscaster declaring “Shanghai’s foolishness at not accepting the good intentions of the Imperial Army.” Only once have I had the courage to ask Matsu what he felt about his country’s victories in China. He was in the kitchen reading a magazine, as his radio blared from his room. He looked up at me, and simply said, “Japan is like a young woman who thinks too much of herself. She’s bound to get herself into trouble.” Then he looked back at his magazine and continued to read. I remained silent. Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to need anything more. I guess all his years alone have left him comfortable with himself. We are slowly learning to live with each other.

  There has been no sign of the two girls I saw my first day here. Every morning I go for a swim, hoping by chance another similar situation might bring them out. But it’s been fruitless. Sometimes the house is so quiet I feel like the only noise that fills my mind is what I’ve created myself. Remembered conversations come back to me as if my friends and family were right here in the room.

  SEPTEMBER 29, 1937

  For the past week, I’ve endured all the quiet and loneliness like a blanket covering me until I’m well again. So I’ve simply resolved to become healthy through rest, exercise, and my painting.

  Then this morning when I returned from my swim, I entered the garden gate to find Matsu carrying two wooden buckets of water to the silk tree. Instead of just giving me his usual quick bow, he paused and said, “A package came for you.”

  I don’t remember if I said anything back to him. I ran into the house to find a large brown package of canvases leaning against the wall of my room, along with a letter from my mother and Pie lying on top of a stack of Japanese magazines. I grabbed the letter and a few magazines,
then headed back out to the garden, but Matsu was no longer there. The garden was definitely Matsu’s domain and I felt his odd lingering presence in it. Every part of the garden seemed to have a sturdiness about it, even with its quiet grace.

  It was a warm day, so I sat down near the pond to read my letter. The green moss was like a soft blanket. I felt like a child opening a long awaited present. The thin, blue papers went limp in my hands as I unfolded the pages to see the quick, strong strokes of my mother, followed by Pie’s large, neatly written Chinese characters.

  My mother spoke mostly of my health. Was I feeling better? Was I getting enough to eat? She would come to visit me as soon as possible. Anne and Henry would be returning to Hong Kong from school in Macao when the term was over in December. We would all be reunited then. She didn’t believe the Japanese would ever have the nerve to enter Hong Kong. After all, it was under British sovereignty. Still, as I read her words I couldn’t help but feel troubled.

  Pie’s words gave me much more comfort. She was first in her class, and was currently designing her own dresses for the dressmaker, inspired by Poor Little Rich Girl, the last Shirley Temple movie she had seen. The bulk of her letter was devoted to Anne’s having fainted in Macao during one of the blackout procedures. Anne’s teachers had to revive her with smelling salts and a shot of brandy. Pie said she would try it next blackout, just for a taste of brandy.

  When I put down the letter I felt more homesick than I had in days. It was difficult to keep up with the war news so far away from everything. I had only been able to hear bits and pieces of the Japanese version from Matsu’s radio. I was beginning to feel trapped behind this bamboo fence, which kept me separated from my family and the rest of the world.