“He told me to wait here. As long as I’m waiting, he’11 definitely come.
And even if I did go home, my heart would stay here behind this rock,
waiting. My heart and my body would separate, and only my heart would
freeze. I’m warmer if I stay here.”
“Are you always waiting like this?”
“He told me to wait here every day, so I’m still waiting.”
“No matter how many days you wait, it doesn’t look like he’s going to
come. Your hands and feet must be frozen already. How about this—what if
you were to plant a chrysanthemum in this rock, and let it wait here in your
place?”
“I’U wait as long I’m alive. If I die here, a chrysanthemum will bloom
here and wait in my place.”
“He may not come even when there’s a chrysanthemum waiting.”
“He wants to come—there must be some reason why he can’t. When I’m
here where he told me to wait, somehow it seems as if he were already
here. A chrysanthemum’s color would never change, and it would go on
blooming whether the person it waited for came or not. I’m the same.”
“Your face has changed color already. You look as though you’re going
to freeze”
“If this autumn’s chrysanthemum dies, another chrysanthemum will
bloom next autumn. If a chrysanthemum takes my place, I’ll be happy.”
The ghost of the woman’s head vanished, and now a chrysanthemum
hovered in my dream. Snow began to fall on the rock. The rock grew white,
the same white as the chrysanthemum, and it became difficult to distinguish
the flower from it. Soon the snow and the rock and the chrysanthemum
were lost in the ash-gray shroud of evening.
Thinking about the fact that a rock out in the middle of the mountains, in
the middle of nature, had become the woman’s grave, just as it was, I began
