The Samurai's Garden: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

silence.
    “What’s the situation like in Shanghai?” I asked, hungry for any news. “I don’t hear much here.”
    “It’s not good,” my father answered, his face becoming serious. “Warplanes have bombed Shanghai incessantly. What the bombs don’t destroy, the fires they start do. So many innocent lives have been lost.” He paused, shaking his head. Then he looked at me and said, “I’ll have some newspapers sent to you.”
    “What do you think will happen after they capture Shanghai?” I persisted.
    “They will most likely keep moving south.”
    “Do you think they’ll ever get as far as Hong Kong?”
    My father lifted his hat and wiped his brow. “It’s possible,” he finally answered.
    We stayed quiet for a while, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
    “Can you tell me something about Matsu- san ?” I suddenly asked.
    My father squinted down at me. “What do you want to know?”
    “Why has he stayed alone in Tarumi for all these years?”
    “Tarumi has always been his home.”
    I spread my legs out on the warm sand. “But when he was young, didn’t he ever want to see other places, raise a family of his own?”
    My father laughed. “I can see you haven’t gotten much out of Matsu, have you?”
    “He doesn’t say much,” I answered.
    “He never did. Even when I used to come here as a boy I remember Matsu always keeping to himself, only at ease talking with his sisters. One of his sisters, the younger one, Tomoko, was very pretty and had caught the eye of many a boy.”
    “Did she catch your eye?”
    “I was too shy to do anything.” He smiled to himself. “Besides, I was the owner’s son, and we were kept apart by class and custom. Your grandfather and grandmother had other plans for me in those days.”
    “So you never had anything to do with Matsu and his sisters?” I asked, burying my foot in the sand, where I could still feel some coolness.
    “We were children. Sometimes we’d play together when they came to help their father with the garden. Most of the time, they stayed at the house they lived in near the village.”
    “What was Matsu like at my age?”
    My father leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment before answering. “Matsu was like a bull, his energy pent up, as if he was ready to break out at any moment. Why he never did, we’ll never know. There were rumors that he loved a girl in town. She moved away, or married someone else. I’m not sure which. Then his sister Tomoko suddenly died, and Matsu seemed to lose all his steam.”
    “You don’t know what happened?” I asked, eager for answers.
    My father shook his head. “I believe his sister had some kind of accident. By then, I was coming to Tarumi less and less and had only heard scant rumors of what happened.”
    “His other sister lives in Tokyo now,” I said.
    “She married and moved there.”
    “But why didn’t Matsu leave here? What would keep him alone here all of his life?”
    My father laughed at the urgency in my voice. “If you can get anything out of Matsu, I’ll say you’ve accomplished quite a feat. He isn’t the kind who will likely tell you his thoughts. Let’s just assume he has found some sort of peace here in Tarumi, and leave it at that.”
    I kicked some sand away from me and remained silent. Matsu scared away most people with his aloofness, but I saw something more. He seemed to have a story no one had bothered to discover.
    OCTOBER 8, 1937
    My father returned to Kobe yesterday. Matsu remained at the house, allowing me to accompany him to the station alone. As we waved good-bye at the train station, he was again the father I recognized in a business suit. Walking back to the house, I felt such an emptiness, I wanted to cry.
    Matsu was in the garden. He was stooped by the pond grumbling to himself as he picked up the wet flower petals which had showered the garden every few days. I still hadn’t had any luck meeting the two girls who threw them over the fence, but I knew it