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Authors: Tan Twan Eng
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Hong had stayed with me; in fact it had grown more insistent. In the camp, she had often talked to me about the garden she would build once the war was over and our lives were returned to us again.
On my last day at work, I sat down to clear my desk. Packing away my personal things, I stopped when I saw the news article I had clipped from the Straits Times . The photograph accompanying the article showed a group of Japanese men in tailcoats standing behind their Prime Minister, Yoshida, as he signed the Japan Security Treaty with the Americans. Staring at the photograph, I thought about the camp. And I thought about Nakamura Aritomo, recalling the first time I had heard about him, all those years ago. I had never forgotten his name; it had followed me wherever I went. It was time I visited him. Creating a garden was something I had to do for Yun Hong, something I owed her.
Taking out a blank sheet of paper, I uncapped my fountain pen and wrote a letter to Magnus, asking him to arrange a meeting with the gardener for me. When I had finished, I sealed it in an envelope and asked the clerk to post it for me as I left my office for the last time.
* * *
The world was growing brighter, bleaching away the moon and stars. Halfway down to the bottom of the valley, I found the path separating one division of tea bushes from another. The track was tramped hard by generations of tea-pickers. This shortcut would take me to Yugiri, Magnus had informed me at dinner the night before. ‘There’s no fence on this side,’ he had said,
‘but you’ll know where Yugiri starts when you come to it.’
The fir trees in the distance rose higher as I came nearer to Yugiri. The path wound between the trees and continued into a thicket of bamboo, their poles knocking gently against each other, as if transmitting the news of my arrival through the garden, passing the message from tree to tree.
It began to drizzle. Wiping the blisters of rain from my face, I walked beneath the bamboo and emerged into another realm.
* * *
The silence here had a different quality; I felt I had been plumbed with weighted fishing line into a deeper, denser level of the ocean. I stood there, allowing the stillness to seep into me. In the leaves, an unseen bird whistled, deepening the emptiness of the air between each note. Water dripped off the leaves. Not far away, the edge of a red-tiled roof could be seen through the treetops. Setting off towards it, I soon came to a long rectangle of round, white pebbles. I crouched and picked one up. It was about the size of one of the leatherback turtles’ eggs my mother had sometimes bought at the Pulau Tikus market.
About fifty feet away to my left stood two round targets. Set on low stilts to my right was a simple wooden one-storey structure with an attap roof. Putting down the stone, I went closer to it. The front of the structure was open, the bamboo chicks rolled up to the eaves. A man was standing at the edge of the platform, dressed in a white robe and a pair of grey pantaloons that just showed his white socks. He appeared to be in his early fifties, his hair just starting to turn grey. In his right hand he held a bow. He did not acknowledge my presence, but somehow I knew that he was aware of me.
I had not seen a Japanese nor spoken to one in nearly six years, but I would always be able to recognise them. It had been easy enough to write to Nakamura Aritomo, but I had been a fool to think I could just stroll in here and talk to him. I was not ready to do this; perhaps I never would be. The urge to turn around and leave the garden took hold of me. But when I looked at the roll of documents in my hand, I knew that I had to speak to the gardener, I had to tell him what I wanted from him. I would do it, and then I would leave. If he chose to accept my offer, we would communicate through the post. There would be no need for me to talk to him in person again.
Raising his bow, the man drew back the bowstring, his
On my last day at work, I sat down to clear my desk. Packing away my personal things, I stopped when I saw the news article I had clipped from the Straits Times . The photograph accompanying the article showed a group of Japanese men in tailcoats standing behind their Prime Minister, Yoshida, as he signed the Japan Security Treaty with the Americans. Staring at the photograph, I thought about the camp. And I thought about Nakamura Aritomo, recalling the first time I had heard about him, all those years ago. I had never forgotten his name; it had followed me wherever I went. It was time I visited him. Creating a garden was something I had to do for Yun Hong, something I owed her.
Taking out a blank sheet of paper, I uncapped my fountain pen and wrote a letter to Magnus, asking him to arrange a meeting with the gardener for me. When I had finished, I sealed it in an envelope and asked the clerk to post it for me as I left my office for the last time.
* * *
The world was growing brighter, bleaching away the moon and stars. Halfway down to the bottom of the valley, I found the path separating one division of tea bushes from another. The track was tramped hard by generations of tea-pickers. This shortcut would take me to Yugiri, Magnus had informed me at dinner the night before. ‘There’s no fence on this side,’ he had said,
‘but you’ll know where Yugiri starts when you come to it.’
The fir trees in the distance rose higher as I came nearer to Yugiri. The path wound between the trees and continued into a thicket of bamboo, their poles knocking gently against each other, as if transmitting the news of my arrival through the garden, passing the message from tree to tree.
It began to drizzle. Wiping the blisters of rain from my face, I walked beneath the bamboo and emerged into another realm.
* * *
The silence here had a different quality; I felt I had been plumbed with weighted fishing line into a deeper, denser level of the ocean. I stood there, allowing the stillness to seep into me. In the leaves, an unseen bird whistled, deepening the emptiness of the air between each note. Water dripped off the leaves. Not far away, the edge of a red-tiled roof could be seen through the treetops. Setting off towards it, I soon came to a long rectangle of round, white pebbles. I crouched and picked one up. It was about the size of one of the leatherback turtles’ eggs my mother had sometimes bought at the Pulau Tikus market.
About fifty feet away to my left stood two round targets. Set on low stilts to my right was a simple wooden one-storey structure with an attap roof. Putting down the stone, I went closer to it. The front of the structure was open, the bamboo chicks rolled up to the eaves. A man was standing at the edge of the platform, dressed in a white robe and a pair of grey pantaloons that just showed his white socks. He appeared to be in his early fifties, his hair just starting to turn grey. In his right hand he held a bow. He did not acknowledge my presence, but somehow I knew that he was aware of me.
I had not seen a Japanese nor spoken to one in nearly six years, but I would always be able to recognise them. It had been easy enough to write to Nakamura Aritomo, but I had been a fool to think I could just stroll in here and talk to him. I was not ready to do this; perhaps I never would be. The urge to turn around and leave the garden took hold of me. But when I looked at the roll of documents in my hand, I knew that I had to speak to the gardener, I had to tell him what I wanted from him. I would do it, and then I would leave. If he chose to accept my offer, we would communicate through the post. There would be no need for me to talk to him in person again.
Raising his bow, the man drew back the bowstring, his
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