52 pages • 1 hour read
Asha LemmieFifty Words for Rain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4, Chapter 16 Summary: “Skin”
Over the past seven years, Nori, who is now 23, has traveled to various parts of Europe. She has not played the violin since Akira’s death. She does not want to marry or have children. In March 1964, Nori attends a symphony in Paris. Will is the pianist. He spots her in the audience, and she flees.
Meanwhile, Alice lives in London. She is married to a man named George, who is the dull son of the Duke of Norfolk; she has two young daughters and is pregnant once again. While Alice loves her children, her life is otherwise unfulfilling. She misses Nori and presumes her dead. When Will arrives on a visit, he claims that he saw Nori in Paris. Alice doesn’t believe him. However, the next day, Nori appears at Alice’s door. Alice faints from the shock.
When Alice wakes in bed, Nori is by her side. The two women reunite like sisters and Alice insists that Nori move in with her. Over the coming months, Nori adjusts well to life in London. Alice hires a piano teacher, named Noah, for her daughters. He is 19, and Nori likes him instantly. Alice tries to convince her to get to know him better, but Nori says there is no point since she does not want love and romance. Alice is disappointed that Nori can indulge her desires but chooses not to. In time, Alice wants to throw a ball to officially introduce Nori to London society. Nori is reluctant, but she agrees.
The ball is in June 1964. Alice’s sister finds Nori and makes condescending and discriminatory comments about Nori’s ethnicity, calling her a “half-caste.” She tells Nori she knows she is “not some pretty Eastern blossom. [She is] a weed” (351). Alice’s sister thinks Nori is exploiting Alice’s kindness and using her connections to find a rich husband. Unsettled by this encounter, Nori escapes to the garden where she runs into Will, whom Alice had not invited to the party. He attempts to restart their relationship and proposes marriage, but Nori rejects him, threatening to tell Alice what he did to her if he doesn’t leave her alone. He leaves, defeated.
Two months later, as Alice nears her due date, Nori travels with her to her estate in Bath. Noah accompanies them, and Alice teases Nori about Noah and their mutual romantic interest. Nori denies this, but she nevertheless watches Noah from a distance.
The vacation idyll is shattered when Alice’s son is stillborn. Nori believes she is cursed and has brought her friend bad luck, but she stays to support Alice. Alice blames herself, believing the stillborn infant is divine retribution for a secret abortion she had as an adolescent. Nori assures Alice she did nothing wrong. Eventually, they return to London.
Part 4, Chapter 17 Summary: “But Home is Nowhere”
By December 1964, Alice has recovered from her grief. Noah becomes increasingly bold in his attempts to woo Nori, but he says he knows that he is “beneath [her] station” (367). Nori says that no one is beneath her, but that she knows what all men want. Noah strikes a deal with her: He says she must spend 10 minutes with him every night for a month; if she rejects him afterward, he will no longer pursue her. Nori agrees to this.
Although their meetings are initially awkward, Nori grows increasingly comfortable with Noah. She even confides in him about Will raping her, which she has told no one else about. Nori also tells him that her grandmother considered her brown skin as a sign that she was inferior, but Noah says her skin is beautiful. Still, she fears her feelings for Noah are not deep enough. During a party on New Year’s, which is the last night of their month-long deal, Noah kisses her and confesses that he loves her. However, he gives her an ultimatum—if she rejects him, he will leave permanently. Alice encourages Nori not to let Noah go, suggesting that she should let herself be happy. Nori gives in and asks Noah to stay, confessing her love for him.
Part 4, Chapter 18 Summary: “Chrysanthemum”
The next year, Nori and Noah’s wedding plans are in full swing, and Nori is finally happy. However, she is scared to finish reading Seiko’s diaries. Noah offers her company and support, so she opens the final journal. She is overwhelmed by the truth, but can’t bring herself to hate Seiko for her choices.
Seiko wrote that she loved Akira. She taught him piano, violin, and French. She loved seeing him happy. However, she feared his father and grandmother would ruin him and mourned his desolate future. One day, Yuko arrived to “help” care for Akira, seeking to groom him into her ideal heir. Seiko found the visit stifling, and when Yuko finally left, she took Akira with her to her estate.
Right after, Seiko returned to her only means of happiness, which was her music. At the symphony, she met James, Nori’s father. He was a Black American soldier. Their love was passionate; Seiko spent as much time with him as possible, though disaster loomed in the form of her husband, her son, and World War II. After Akira returned from the estate, Seiko spent her days with Akira and her nights with James. They dreamed of making a home together in America, but Seiko couldn’t bear to leave Akira.
Then, Seiko discovered she was pregnant with James’s child. She wrote in her journal: “This is the worst day of my life” (395). Seiko knew the baby would have darker skin, and that it would be obvious that her husband was not the father. She thought that if her father found out, he would kill her; so, instead, she left, abandoning Akira, and created a new home with James in a cottage outside Tokyo. Still, Seiko feared Kamiza retribution, and she missed Akira terribly. When Nori was born, James loved her; but soon after, he became sick and died of a collapsed lung. Seiko believed she was cursed for abandoning her family. She couldn’t return to Akira because of Nori, so she decided to raise Nori as penance.
Nori cries as she reads this. She sees that Seiko was in an impossible situation. The empathy she feels for her mother allows her to wonder if she should also forgive herself. After this, she regains her equilibrium and looks forward to her future with Noah.
Soon after, she receives a letter from Japan telling her that her grandparents are dead and Nori is the sole heir to the family estate; she is required to return to Japan to take care of the legalities. Although she doesn’t want to go and Alice tries to dissuade her, Nori decides she must, and hopes that this trip will be her last trip to Japan.
When Nori returns to Japan in June 1965, she feels as if she is a stranger in her homeland. Even her taxi driver doesn’t believe she is Japanese. She is reunited with Akiko, who now has a 12-year-old daughter. However, upon entering the Kamiza house, Nori learns the letter is a lie: Yuko is still alive, though she is unwell. The letter was a ruse to bring Nori back to Kyoto.
Akiko cares for Nori and calls for a doctor when Nori is ill. Later, Akiko tries to warn Nori of Yuko’s plan. She also tells Nori that she is pregnant, based on the doctor’s examination. Nori knows she is pregnant with Noah’s baby and is not happy about the news.
Nori visits Yuko. Yuko reveals the extent of her spy network; she even knows about Noah and finds him unfit for the Kamiza family. Yuko also confesses that the car crash that killed Akira was planned; it was meant to kill Nori since she was supposed to be alone in the car and Akira was supposed to be in Vienna. However, since only Nori is alive, Yuko commands her to take Akira’s place as the Kamiza heir.
Distraught, Nori escapes to her old attic bedroom and faints. She wakes in a garden paradise and finds Akira there with his violin, playing “Ave Maria,” her favorite song. Their reunion is emotional. Akira assures her that he doesn’t regret his efforts to care for her. He can’t advise her on what to do about Yuko and the inheritance, but he advises her to commit fully to whatever choice she makes. Nori begs to stay with him, but he sends her back, promising he will always be with her.
Nori visits Yuko again and tells her she will become the heir; however, she intends to change things the way Akira hoped to change them. She also wants to find her mother.
Nori delivers her son in December 1965. The infant is given to Akiko. Nori cuts ties with Noah via a brief letter; she writes a final letter to Alice, too. Nori is shocked by her vast inheritance and commits to her new role, considering future husbands and power strategies, while Yuko plans her introduction to Japanese high society. As Nori learns more about the Kamiza businesses and assets, she finds the brothel she had once been sold to and vows to shut it down. Yuko says she must be ruthless and that one day Nori will be horrified by the things she’ll have to do to maintain her station. Nori asks Yuko if she has any regrets; Yuko answers, “Many [...]. And none” (445). As Nori settles into her new and final role, she realizes that she feels more pity than hatred for Yuko.
Nori visits her infant son and promises him a different world. Then, she goes to the garden, climbs her tree, thinks of Akira, and feels warm, describing the sensation as “[t]he burning light of her Kyoto sun” (449).
Part 4 Analysis
In the final section of the novel, the theme of Duty Versus Desire comes to the fore. After Akira’s death and Nori’s exile from Japan, she has the freedom she always desired, but she finds that it is empty and lonely without Akira in her world. He centered her, and without him, she drifts aimlessly and unhappily. In this way, Nori finds that complete freedom without human attachment is meaningless. Her arrival at Alice’s home gives her some roots, and Nori finally fulfills her desire for a family (calling Alice her sister) and, though she is reluctant at first, she also gives in to her desire for a romantic partner, Noah. However, when Yuko summons her back to the Kamiza estate, Nori must confront the ancestral dilemma: Should she reject the Kamizas and live as she likes, like Seiko, thereby choosing desire; or, should she assume the mantle of Kamiza heir and try to change the old traditions, the way Akira intended to? Like Akira, Nori decides to bow to duty and she wants to change the Kamiza family for the better. Thus, while Nori chooses the path of duty, she also attempts to fulfill her own desires through this decision, as well.
This section of the novel also highlights the theme of Women’s Powerlessness in Patriarchal Societies through the character arcs of Alice and Yuko. While Alice achieves an impressive marriage that allows her to reenter London’s high society, she finds herself stuck with a dull partner and a life that bores her. She thinks: “The older I get, the more I realize how empty [my life] is” (336). Alice needed to marry well to integrate herself back into society after her teenage transgressions with the stable hand—the patriarchal society of the time needed her to be approved by a man of high social standing to accept her again. However, even though Alice follows these rules and does what is expected, she finds that she experiences no fulfillment.
Similarly, Yuko is another unfulfilled woman. Yuko rose to prominence through her ruthless determination and hard choices. However, on her deathbed, she no longer has an aura of power. She is an old woman dying alone, and she believes she will go to hell for her role in Akira’s death. The cost of ruling as a woman requires cruelty, ambition, constant vigilance, and the corrosion of her integrity. Yuko tells Nori that she has many regrets and none; she has no regrets because she did what she considers to be her duty. However, she regrets the fact that she lives in a society where she did not have the option to make other choices. Ultimately, Nori sees Yuko as a pitiable character.
Nori’s relationship with Noah changes over this section of the novel, which illustrates The Complexities of Ethnicity and Class. Initially, Noah assumes that Nori is uninterested in him because she is from a higher social class; he tells Nori he understands that he is “beneath [her] station” (367). However, Nori’s race and the circumstances of her birth have made her averse to class consciousness, and she tells Noah that no one is beneath her station. What she appreciates about Noah is his desire for her entire self—he does not discriminate against her dark skin. Nori has faced racial discrimination in Japan, undergoing bleaching treatments as a child on the orders of her grandmother; and even in London, Alice’s sister corners her and calls her a “half-caste” and “a weed,” saying Nori is not “some pretty Eastern blossom” (351). After these difficult experiences, Nori finds Noah’s love for her refreshing.
However, when Nori decides to become the heir to the Kamiza estate, she acknowledges that class matters in her new role, and Noah is in fact “beneath [her] station” now since he is a commoner (367). This is why she curtly breaks off their engagement and plots to marry strategically among Japanese aristocracy. Nori understands that she has new power as the Kamiza heir, and this will force even the people who previously discriminated against her to bow to her and accept her into Japanese high society. To consolidate this wealth and power, she must follow the social rules that come with her new role and marry well. By the end of the novel, Nori perpetuates the same rules that she struggled against all her life.
Throughout the novel, music is a symbol of happiness, and this is especially pronounced in this final section. Though Nori no longer plays the violin out of grief for Akira’s death, she takes his violin with her wherever she travels because it was his favorite possession, and she finds comfort in its presence by her side. She even seeks out music in Akira’s memory, which is why she goes to Will’s piano concert in Paris. Nori is attracted to Noah, who is a piano teacher; he sees the musician in her and draws out her happiness with his love. Seiko, too, expresses in her journals that she finds happiness through music; her husband rewards her for bearing a son by giving Seiko a music room, which she covets. She also teaches Akira to play music and is genuinely happy during those times. Even when Nori has her dream-vision of Akira, which fills her with love and gives her the strength to make her decisions, he is playing her favorite song, “Ave Maria,” on his violin, tying music with memories of love and happiness.
