Sendai Station

Sendai Station is where Mr. Kurumizawa reappears after a twenty-day disappearance, found asleep on a bench in a waiting room with no money or identification. The station marks the abrupt return of a man whose route there, and whose life during the missing days, remain beyond his memory.

The Disappearance Ends

A railroad employee shakes Mr. Kurumizawa’s shoulder and wakes him on the waiting-room bench. After a while, he recalls his name, address, and telephone number, allowing the authorities to identify him. His wife, contacted by the police, flies to Sendai and confirms that the man is her husband.

The discovery resolves the immediate question of whether he is alive, but not how he reached the station. He has no money, and he cannot account for the journey from Tokyo to Sendai or for how he ate during the preceding twenty days. He remembers leaving his mother’s home and walking up the stairs; after that, his recollection stops.

Condition and Aftermath

When his wife finds him, Mr. Kurumizawa is wearing the same clothes he had on when he left their apartment. He has grown a beard, lost more than twenty pounds, and misplaced his glasses. From the hospital in Sendai, his wife reports that doctors are conducting a CAT scan, X-rays, and neurological examinations. He appears mentally well and has no evident physical injury, but his memory of the twenty days is absent.

The station is therefore both a place of recovery and the boundary of an unexplained blank. Mr. Kurumizawa can again identify himself, yet cannot reconstruct the stretch of time that brought him there. His wife expects that they will return to Tokyo the following day; the discovery restores him to his family without supplying an explanation for his disappearance.