Ms. Okoye was sixty, and for thirty-one years she had run the lost-property office at the central station. She said that every object has a home, and her job was to find the road.
On Tuesday afternoon a conductor brought her a battered accordion case from the 6:10 train from the coast. It had no name and no address. Ms. Okoye reasoned aloud, as she always did, in the voice of a detective who enjoys her work. "It smells of salt and sea air. In the lining there are three grains of rice, so it has been to weddings. The strap is worn pale at one shoulder, so someone has carried it for years. And inside the lid there is a torn repair label: '…vel's Repairs, Harbor T…'"
She phoned the repair shop in Harbor Town. "Pavel's!" a man said. "That is old Mr. Welka's accordion. I repaired it twice. He plays at every wedding on the coast." She phoned the village hall. Mr. Welka, seventy-six, had been in tears all day: his granddaughter's wedding was the next day at noon, and he had promised to play the first waltz. The last train to the coast left at 8:40 in the evening.
Ms. Okoye closed the office for the first time in thirty-one years, put her coat over her uniform and took the accordion on her knees. The train was late. At eleven at night the whole family was waiting on the platform in the rain. Mr. Welka hugged the case and said nothing for a long time.
The next day she sat at the head table, and Mr. Welka played the first waltz for the bride and groom while looking at her. In thirty-one years she had returned thousands of lost things; this was the first time she had been invited to the wedding.
