Present Day
The diary waited on her kitchen table when she woke the next morning. Talia poured a hot cup of coffee - 2 sugars - and rubbed the late night crustiness from her eyes.

Once she could focus again, she opened the diary and began to read aloud … ,

7 December 1941
Dear Diary,
We are at war. Today is Sunday. I was in church at the college when we all heard the news, so I took the bus to the fort to see if I was needed. What I saw frightened me so. The bus was stopped at the gate and a soldier with a rifle came on board to check each of us.
    Luckily, I knew him from the cafeteria so he let me pass.
    Soldiers everywhere carried rifles.

On Stedman Street
“Papa?” she cried, trying to understand.
    The family had gathered around the radio to hear Sammy Kay’s Sunday Serenade. Through the static came a frantic voice, and Ichiro Kuroda - Frank to his friends - strained to make out the words.
    When he saw the panic in the face of his daughter he reached up and turned off the radio.
    He looked out of the living room window of the small flat above his photography studio on Stedman Street in Ketchikan. The street was deserted.
    “Stay inside. Draw the blinds,” and he gathered his hat and coat from the coat closet.
    “Where are you going?” asked his wife, Tamiko.
    “I’m going to secure the studio, then try and find out what’s going on.”

1300 Hours
“It burned to the ground. It’s an invasion!”
    Frank Kuroda walked into the Noodle Café just a block up the street and found some of the local business owners gathered around a radio on the counter - abuzz with updates.
    A young cannery worker had burst through the door, panic in his voice.
    “Slow down, Nikko. What burned?”
    “The lodge. The Deer Mountain cabin.”
    “When?”
    “Last night! They say it was hit by a Japanese warship!”
    “Wait a minute. Who said?”
    “Everyone. At the cannery. They’re getting guns. It’s an invasion! I have to tell everybody!” and he bolted back out the door.
    Jiro Tanino, who operated the café, just shook his head.
    “The boy is an idiot.”
    Two more people came through the door. Kichirobei Tatsuda, who owned Tatsuda's Grocery Store on Stedman Street, approached the others, concern on his face.
    “I just came from the harbor. The cannery has been locked and all of the workers sent home. The police were there asking about the fire up on Deer Mountain. They are calling it a signal fire.”
    “Signal fire?”
    “For the Japanese fleet.”
    “What Japanese fleet? My god, has everyone gone completely crazy?”
    A man and his wife came through the door, surprised to see the collection of people around the front counter.
    “All right, what’s your story?” demanded Jiro.
    The man looked confused.
   “Tea … and some soup, maybe,” and he looked around apprehensively.
    Jiro just shook his head and looked at the others.
    “And the world still spins around.”

The New York Café and Hotel; 207 Stedman Street 1650 Hours
Nikko “Benny” Okada burst through the doorway, out of breath. Yayoko Shimizu stood behind the counter holding a pot of tea.
    “Lock the doors! They are coming!” screamed the young boy.
    “Nikko Okada, there are no Japanese warships. Calm down.”
    “No, no. They are arresting the Japanese men.”
    “What? What kind of nonsense is this?”
    “Kichijiro Suzuki, Johnny Okata, Yusuke Kimura. And others. They will be coming for Mr. Shimizu. You have to hide!”
    George Shimizu came down the stairs from the hotel above, wiping his hands on a towel. “What is it now?”
    “Mr. Shimizu, you must go and hide!”
    “Why? What are you talking about?”
    “They are everywhere.”
    “Who?”
    “The police.”
    “The Ketchikan police? Nonsense. Be off with you, and stop spreading gossip. Someone will get hurt.”
    “No, no, not the local police. The FBI. They are arresting all the Japanese men, and shutting down the businesses!”
    George Shimizu tossed the towel in a bin behind the café’s counter and turned to his wife.
    “I will go and see what this is all about.” He turned back to young Benny. “In the meantime, go home and stop spreading this nonsense. There is no way they are arresting the business people of Stedman Street. This is America, for Christ’s sake.” He reached for his coat and hat.
    “I will be back soon.

Kuroda Photography; 1800 Hours
“Paper!”
    He heard a dull thud at the front door. Frank Kuroda decided to keep the door of his photography studio locked for the time being. Stedman Street was busy with anxious people going door to door to see who knew what, mostly venting anger and fear, and getting nowhere in the process. Then the streets became eerily quiet.
    Frank decided to take no chances. But the arrival of the Ketchikan Daily News was a surprise. This was Sunday. The Daily never published on a Sunday.
    He stepped to the door, unlocked it, and reached for the newspaper.
        WAR EXTRA
        JAPAN WARS ON US
    As he turned, reading, he neglected to lock the door again behind him.

“Ichiro Kuroda!”
    Frank was working in his darkroom trying to digest the horror of the attack in Hawaii he had just read in the Daily when he heard a shout from the counter of his studio.
    He thought he had locked the door.
    “I am Frank Kuroda,” he replied as he came through the connecting door to face two men in dull gray business suits. One wore an ill-fitting fedora.
    The men moved toward him aggressively as Frank attempted to retreat behind the counter. He was grabbed and forced face-down onto the counter.
    “FBI. You are under arrest as a spy for the Empire of Japan.”
    He felt the cold steel of handcuffs as they clamped around his hands behind his back.
    “No! No! There must be a mistake!” he screamed and tried to rise up off the counter.
    “Shut up!” one of the men demanded and slammed his face back down, his nose cracking as blood spurted out across the counter.
    The one with the fedora headed into the back room and immediately returned with his camera - a Grafex Crown Graphic full-frame portrait camera and heavy wooden tripod.
    He tossed them onto the floor.
    “My camera!” he cried.
    “That’s right, Jap. Your spy camera,” and bad-hat jerked him upright and began pushing him toward the open doorway.
    He was shoved into the back seat of a black sedan and driven away.
    They never bothered to shut the door behind them.

Tatsuda’s Grocery Store; 1245 Hours
“At this rate we will have nothing but empty shelves!”
    Kichirobei Tatsuda, who the people of Ketchikan knew as James, looked at his wife, exasperation on her face, and shook his head.
    “I am going to close the store and lock the doors. This craziness cannot last too much longer,” and he stepped briskly toward the front door. Rumors that police and FBI agents had arrested prominent members of the Stedman Street Japanese business community had spread panic. A run on basic necessities - rice, lard, pickled fruit and vegetables - had cleared many of his shelves. Toilet paper disappeared first.
    As he turned to go back into the storeroom to assess his inventory he heard someone banging on the door.  
   “No! Closed! Come back tomorrow!” he cried through the glass, but the banging on the door grew even louder.
    “How can we turn them away?” his wife asked.
    “We have no choice but to wait out the panic. Turn off the lights and come into the back. They will tire of pounding their fists.”

Mrs. Tatsuda made tea, and the two sat at a small prep table to settle their nerves. The frantic pounding on the door had ceased, and an eery quiet settled down on the street out front of the store.
    The grocery was a meeting place - the centerpiece of the Stedman Street business district, mostly Japanese and Pilipino businesses that had located south of the Stedman Bridge, away from downtown proper.
    James Tatsuda was a prominent and respected member of Ketchikan’s Stedman Street business community.
    “How long will we remain closed?” his wife asked.
    “People are frightened, and they will try to hoard whatever they can. That could put us in a difficult position. So we must be careful. But I am sure this hysteria will pass in a short time. People will come to their senses.”
    He hoped.
    Suddenly loud pounding, louder than before, shattered the quiet.
    “No, stay here,” he said as he reached to place a reassuring hand on his wife’s arm. But the pounding continued. Louder than before.
    “If they break the glass … ,” but the words were hardly out of her mouth when they heard a loud shattering of glass and the splintering of the wooden door frame.
    The grocer grabbed his wife’s hand.
    “Stay here. I will talk to them.”
    Two men in dull gray business suits, one of them wearing an ill-fitting fedora, grabbed him at the doorway to the storeroom.
    “Kichirobei!” screamed his wife.
    Bad-hat just turned to face her and shouted, “Shut up, Jap!”

Peter Kawabe stepped off his small boat in Ketchikan harbor and began the long walk up to the fish buyer’s barge. He had been out with his gillnetter for the last 3 days, his hold filled with fish.
    He knew a secret. On the SE side of Dall Island, the waters at the approach to Little Daycoo Harbor were simply too shallow for the big purse seiners that disrupted his nets. The outer part of the harbor was exposed to the southeast, the direction of storms.
    Closer to the inside harbor, however, the bay was more protected by headlands and large rocks. A deep hole between dangerously shallow outcrops served as a holding place for salmon preparing to head up Little Daycoo creek.
    And he always had this spot to himself.
    “What are you doing here?”
    He stopped and looked around.
    “I got a hold full of fish. What’s the going price?”
    Bobby Franklin, the fish buyer’s son, gave him a hard stare.
    “Ain’t buyin’ no fish from no goddamn Jap.”
    “What are you talking about? Where’s your father? I’ve been selling him fish for 20 years.”
    “I’m right here,” and Maury Franklin came in through the back door.
    “What is going on here?” Kawabe asked.
    Maury Franklin turned to his son.
    “Get his fish unloaded.”
   “Him?” demanded Bobby.
    “You heard me, boy. You do what I say!”
    As the son stormed out the front door and down the dock Maury took Peter Kawabe into his office.
    He poured him a scotch.
    “You haven’t heard?”
    “Heard what?”
    “We are at war. The Japanese navy attacked Pearl Harbor. The president declared war today.”
    “Good god.”
    “But it’s worse than that. The FBI is arresting Japanese men. All over town. Frank Kuroda. James Tatsuda. A bunch of others.”
    “Arrested what for?”
    “For being Japanese, goddammit. That’s why the boy wanted to throw you out. People are acting crazy-like all over town.
    “I’ll take your fish today, Peter. We’ve been friends for a long time. But if I were you I’d take that boat and go hide someplace until this craziness settles down.”
   “Why? I’m not Japanese. I am full-bloodied Tlingit, for god’s sake.”
    “Your last name. It’s Japanese.”
    “My father’s name. Not my blood.”
    He reached into his top drawer and pulled out an envelope.
    “I’m going to pay you in cash, not script. Just don’t come back here for a while. For your own safety.”

Peter Kawabe fueled up at the gas dock and checked his stores. He was good for several more days, but he’d have to reprovision after that.
    He hoped so. There was a clerk at the store. Her name was Akari. Her husband had been a friend, but he had passed in a terrible work accident … had it really been 3 years now?
    Kawabe often spent long hours alone at sea, and thoughts of Akari - still young and beautiful - haunted him … in a wonderful way.
    Someday … maybe soon … he would ask her to tea. Maybe it had been long enough.
    But the recent events crashed his fantasies. With James Tatsuda arrested, will his store even be open?
    Luckily, he had cash. If he had been paid in credits …
    “Stand away from the boat!”
     “That’s him! That’s the Jap. He took cash from my father’s office. He’s a goddamn thief and a spy. Probably givin’ information to the goddamn Jap navy offshore. Ask him where he’s been for so goddamn long!”
    He saw Bobby Franklin standing with two men in dull gray business suits. One wore an ill-fitting fedora.