“Yes, but that was the only way to avoid conscription.”
The lead FBI man turned to a second one and said, “Escort Mr. Watanabe to the car. We’ll look for contraband.”
Another agent started to take Akira by the arm when Tamiko came running up. “But he’s told you everything there is to tell!” she cried.
“We’ll see, ma’am.”
“I’ll be fine, honey,” Akira told his wife. He was barely able to kiss her on the cheek before the agent escorted him out.
“What is going on!” Jiro shouted. “Where are you taking my son?”
“Into custody, sir. For further questioning.”
The remaining agents entered without the courtesy of removing their shoes and began ransacking the house. Jiro and Taizo could only watch as they opened closets, poked into cupboards, peeked under furniture. They blithely trespassed into bedrooms and pulled back sheets, searched inside pillowcases, rifled through wardrobe and underwear drawers. They confiscated Jiro’s shotgun, binoculars, and a Kodak Brownie camera. All of these, the agents told them, were now forbidden items for Japanese to own.
The agents searched the barn and the backyard, and for a moment Taizo held his breath, afraid they might notice some faint revenant of the bonfire that had so recently blazed here. But they walked right over where the ashes had been, then walked back through the house, tracking in dirt as they did.
“What is going to happen to my son?” Jiro demanded.
“He’ll be questioned at a secure facility, sir. Thank you for your cooperation.” The G-man tipped his hat and the men left. Jiro and Taizo watched helplessly as they drove their black Packard—and Akira—away.
Tamiko wept inconsolably as Rose held her.
Horace and Ralph walked up, both looking stunned and guilty. “When we got that letter from Japan, we just ignored it,” Ralph admitted. “I thought, hey, let ’em come after me, what can they do?”
“It seems they weren’t the ones we had to fear,” Horace said quietly.
Tears were rolling down Jiro’s cheeks. “Why couldn’t they have taken me?” he said softly. “Why did they have to take my son?”
* * *
When Taizo called and told Ruth what had happened, the uncertainty and dread she had felt all day metabolized into fear, and she shivered violently. She heard her father say, “Get rid of any guns, cameras, binoculars, and anything Japanese,” but it all sounded like dialog from a radio play, the Martian invasion that had never happened. But this was happening, and as incredible as it seemed, they were the Martians.
Frank received the news with a stunned look. “My God,” he said, softly so the children wouldn’t hear, “he was serious? Everything?”
“Anything with kanji characters on it,” she said.
Frank gathered a clutch of envelopes containing his parents’ letters to him and stoically burned them in a trash can with old photos of his parents and grandparents in traditional Japanese dress. Frank gave his camera to Jim Russell, who expressed his astonishment at what was happening.
The next day the family learned that Akira was far from alone.
Beginning on the afternoon of December 7, FBI men in dark suits swooped down like crows on Florin, as they did up and down the West Coast. Their targets were leaders of the Japanese American community: Buddhist priests, businessmen with ties to Japan, teachers at Japanese-language schools, writers and editors for Japanese-language newspapers. In Florin they arrested Mr. Tanikawa, founder of the town’s oldest general store, because he also acted as a go-between for arranged marriages and his frequent trips to Japan raised suspicions. Mr. Akiyama, owner of Akiyama’s Fish Market, was arrested because he was an enthusiast of kendo—stylized Japanese swordplay, fought with bamboo sticks—and the FBI saw such games as “military training exercises.” Mr. Sasaki, a local tofu manufacturer, was rounded up because he also served as secretary of the local Japan Association, a kind of chamber of commerce. A farmer named Iwao Tsuji had also been taken away, though no one understood why—least of all his terrified wife and two adolescent children, who were left to somehow run their forty-acre farm.
Frank walked to the diner at five A.M. as usual. The staff was as shaken as he was, but they buckled down and were ready to open by six. The breakfast crowd soon arrived, larger than usual—everyone wanted to talk about the attack and share whispered stories of FBI arrests. Later, Frank turned on the radio so everyone could hear President Roosevelt’s address to Congress at nine-thirty A.M. asking for a declaration of war against Japan, which was quickly approved. The United States was now officially at war with the Empire of Japan. Frank studied his customers’ rapt faces, only now realizing that all those faces were Japanese—there was not a single white face among them.
Ruth went about her usual Monday morning grocery shipping, driving with the children up Stockton Boulevard to Sacramento. But as she entered the city, she was jolted by the sight of handmade signs that had sprouted like fungi on fences, store windows, and telephone poles:
JAPS GET OUT!
NO NIPS WANTED!
ALL JAPS MUST GO!
She was grateful that the kids couldn’t read and almost wished she couldn’t either.
Shopping at the local Safeway, she was conscious of her Japanese features in a way she never had been before, flinching when a white customer merely glanced at her. She stocked up on toiletries, milk, bread, cereal, and meat, then worried, was she buying too much? Might it look as if she were hoarding food in advance of an impending attack? She took a deep breath and, in the candy aisle, when Donnie and Peggy begged for treats, Ruth surprised herself with her own whimsy and handed them each a Mars Bar.
She quickly paid and drove white-knuckled all the way back to Florin.
She stopped at her parents’ farm, where Etsuko was quick to take the children outside to play while Ruth embraced Aunt Nishi and Uncle Jiro. “I’m so sorry, Uncle. Have you heard anything from the FBI?”
“No,” he said bleakly. “I called their office in Sacramento, but no one will say anything other than that Akira is still being questioned. And now we have learned that the government has frozen the assets of Sumitomo Bank and other Japanese-owned banks. We cannot touch our savings; all we can do is live day to day.” He blinked back tears. “Tamiko is beside herself with worry. She is taking the children and going to stay with her parents in Sacramento. She needs the comfort of her mother, and I cannot blame her.”
At home, Ruth tried to hide her anxiety from the children. She knew she would eventually have to tell them what had happened, but they were so young and she wasn’t ready to burden them with that knowledge yet. Only one member of the household wasn’t fooled. As Ruth was cooking dinner, Slugger padded into the kitchen and stood by her side as if protecting her from unseen forces. He looked up, making a little whining noise of concern. She bent down and ruffled his fur. “You can always tell when I’m upset, can’t you, boy?” She reached up, picked up a slice of the carrot she had been chopping, and handed it to him. He wolfed it down, his tail wagging happily. “Fortunately,” she added fondly, “you are also highly susceptible to bribery.”
* * *