The Gift of Rain

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

Philip Hutton (Philip Arminius Khoo-Hutton) is the son of an English man named Noel Hutton and his second wife, a Chinese woman named Khoo Yu Lian. According to a soothsayer in an ancient temple, Philip was “born with the gift of rain” (13). Now, as an old man, he struggles to remember her appearance, but her words remain with him, as does the image of rain.

Philip meets Michiko Murakami on a rainy early morning in Penang, 50 years after the end of World War II. Michiko is in her seventies, dressed in expensive clothes and carrying a suitcase. Philip recalls her name from his distant past and finds no excuse to turn her away. From the garden of his large house, he points her toward the nearby island where their friend, Endo, is buried.

Philip cooks dinner for his guest, pondering the decorations of his house. Of the many photographs, none contain Endo. Philip does not need a photograph of Endo, as Endo’s face is “painted in [his] memory” (16). Michiko recognizes a photograph of the World Aikido Headquarters in Tokyo; Philip no longer teaches the martial art, he explains in Japanese.