“At Topaz, in the middle of the Utah desert.”
Irina had only heard of the German concentration camps in Europe, but Seth explained what had happened, showing her a photograph from the Japanese American National Museum. The caption beneath the original stated that these were the Fukudas. He told her that his assistant was looking for the names and ages of each of them on the lists of the Topaz evacuees.
THE PRISONERS
All through their first year at Topaz, Ichimei often used to send Alma his drawings, but after that they became less frequent, because the censors couldn’t keep up and had to restrict the evacuees’ correspondence. Alma jealously kept those sketches, which provided the best glimpse into this stage of the Fukudas’ lives: the family huddled in one of the barracks; children doing homework kneeling on the ground with benches for desks; lines of people outside the latrines; men playing cards; women washing clothes in huge tubs. The prisoners’ cameras had been confiscated, and the few who managed to hide theirs were unable to develop the negatives. The only permitted photographs were optimistic ones that showed not only the humane treatment the prisoners received but the relaxed, cheerful atmosphere in the camp: kids playing baseball, adolescents dancing to the latest crazes, everybody singing the national anthem while the flag was raised every morning; on no account were the barbed-wire fences, the watchtowers, or the armed guards to be shown. One of the American soldiers eventually took a snapshot of the Fukuda family. His name was Boyd Anderson, and he had fallen in love with Megumi, whom he saw for the first time at the hospital, where she worked as a volunteer and where he had gone after cutting his hand opening a can of corned beef.