Herald Angels Miss the Boat
by AGNES NEWTON KEITH
IF IT was possible to hate one time more than another in camp, I hated Christmas. Then was the time one wanted to give: gifts, joy, happiness. Then was the time material and spiritual paupery hurt. Christmas, 1944, was the worst.
The Christian religion taught us that one thousand nine hundred and forty-four years before, the Saviour of the world was born. His promise was peace on the earth, good will to men. He showed us the way by love. The irony of celebrating His birth and teaching, while we were following their antithesis, overcame me.
Then we had another rice cut; four-year-old George had a toothache again; I heard that my husband, Harry, was ill; and Christmas was coming.
I wanted to cut it all out; I felt that I could not pretend. I suggested to the other mothers that, as both energy and materials were nonexistent now, we should keep Christmas as the Sisters did, as a religious festival only, and agree not to give any presents to our children. If no child had anything, they could not compare, they would not be sad.
But the majority of mothers felt that the children would be disappointed if they did not receive gifts, as we had made things for them the two previous Christmas seasons in camp. And if some children had gifts, then they all must have.
So the Christmas rush started. We cut off sleeves, shortened dresses, cut off collars, sacrificed anything, in the excitement of creating, to get bits of material out of which to make presents. Many of us had slept in evening dresses for a year or so, our nightgowns being worn-out; now the good parts of these were sacrificed. We unraveled stockings and socks to get thread to sew with. I had one pair of kid gloves which I cut up to make dolls’ shoes. Out of bits and pieces of every sort of material, we made small dolls and fancy animals, and never have I seen their like for originality. Nothing was what it seemed to be.
Their bodies were made of flesh-colored underpants or nighties or beige stockings, and stuffed with kapok, tea, or shredded rags. Hair was made of hemp, unraveled from the ends of rope, or else of wool. Faces were embroidered on, or rubbed on with pastel, or painted. I had a few pastels which the Japanese Domei news reporter had given me when he had posed me for a propaganda picture of “artist at play” the year before; these I used, combined with my own lipstick and rouge, to paint faces. I put the pastels on with a wet match stick to make them more lasting, and finished each face with a coat of my face powder.
The Christmas before, I had done fifty dolls’ faces for people this way, and nearly exhausted my make-up and patience. Now I said that I would trade each doll’s face for a scrap of extra food, or smokes. The barter did not discourage trade as much as I had hoped.
We cut blocks of soft rubberwood and carved small toys; we used liquid rubber tapped from the rubber tree in camp to glue things together. And anything with any claim of edibility was bartered for and hoarded until The Day.
If I hadn’t been exhausted anyway, if I hadn’t grudged the energy and time, if my heart had been in it, it might have been fun.
The day came. The children went wild. The barrack was bedlam, the holiday bustle was there, the excitement and comparing and quarreling. Each Sister came along with a food titbit for some child, and contributions arrived all morning. Gifts came from their fathers, permitted by the Japs: scooters, swords, guns, carts, and blocks, made of soft rubberwood, put together with nails made from the twisted-off barbs of barbed wire.
The Japanese office sent word that we were to meet our husbands for half an hour, in the field outside the barbed wire. We put on our make-up and went.
Lieutenant Nekata, who had charge of our camp, was there, looking benevolent or malevolent, according to your interpretation of him. Miss Takata, the interpreter, was there, announcing and pronouncing the rules and regulations and taboos of the occasion with her own natural vocal arrangements, which surpassed any ordinary loud-speaker. The armed guards were there, sweating and prodding their way among us. Colonel Suga, the Commandant, was there, sweeping by in his motorcar, he bowing, we bowing. Sweet biscuits arrived to be distributed to the children.
We sat with our husbands quietly under the trees. They held their children lovingly to them, and yearned over them. But the children would not have much of that. They were outside the barbed wire today, in the fields with the trees and the stream, running wild, climbing trees, picking flowers, burrs, buds, any living wild thing, running free. Fathers were secondary to freedom.
Harry looked ill, always more ill, always more thin. At the end of half an hour the parting came. As always, I felt that I had forgotten the most important things, that I had not made it clear enough that the only thing that mattered now was to be with him again; that I had talked about food, and hunger, and anxiety, when all that I should have said was, I love you.
We parted. The men were mustered and marched off down the road. Some looked back striving to hold the moment longer. Always there was the feeling that danger, destruction, death, would strike before we met again. Always each meeting seemed the last. I looked after them as far as I could see. Was it better, or was it worse, to meet like this, I wondered.
In the afternoon we had the Christmas tree. It had been sent from the men’s camp with all the decorations on it, made by the civilians and the British soldiers, and arranged for by George Colley, the American from Manila. George had no children, but there was no child in camp whom he did not father, send presents to, feed sugar to, whenever he had it.
The tree was pleasant, a small Dacrydium with bending boughs. Flowers and tiny scraps of colored cloth or string or paper were used to make it bright. There was a present on it for every child from George Colley, and a few had additional ones. The smaller gifts were hung on the tree, and the heavy ones placed under. It was like every Christmas tree, the shrine of great promise.
A Christmas angel in spangles, with limbs of seduction and face of enticing dissipation, teetered drunkenly on top, created by Fifi, the British Tommy, in the likeness of a prisoner’s dream.
Long before the presents were distributed the boys had spotted the best ones. These were two wooden motor trucks, a train, and a large and splendid ship carved of rubberwood. These were outstanding and stupendous, they were manly and pretentious. All over the tree were hung variouscolored stuffed animals and dolls which represented Mama’s garments and undergarments of the past — most ingenious considering — considering! The materials for these had been sent to Fifi and the other men to work with, and there were giraffes, tigers, elephants, zebras, spotted ponies, dogs, cats, bunnies, and golliwoggs — whimsical, fanciful, phony. We thought they were wonderful, considering — considering — But who wants to consider.
The boys looked at this stuff lethargically, and even the girls were blasé. There comes a time when Mama’s clothes should either be buried or burned.
But at the foot of the tree the boys all crowded and handled, and grabbed, and dribbled on, and panted over the trucks, the boat, and the train.
George said happily, “That’s mine, isn’t it, Mum? That big big big boat?”
“I don’t think so, darling. That is so very big it must be for the biggest boy. But there is something lovely for you on the tree, I know.”
“I want the boat, Mum.”
“But all the boys want the boat, and they can’t all have it. You must wait and see.”
“But I want it, Mum.”
“Wait and see.”
The distribution started. George waited breathless and confident, to receive his boat. I was praying; if only one child could have that boat, it might as well be George!
One by one the gifts were distributed. Still George didn’t have his, and the boat was still there. And then George was handed a white pony with red spots and an orange mane and a beautiful Christmas card, “To George.”
“Say thank you, George.”
“Thank you. But when do I get the boat?”
“That is for somebody else, dear. You have your present now.”
“I don’t want this pony. I want that boat.”
“I think we’d better go home now, George.” Something was about to start!
“I won’t go without my boat!”
Just then the boat was presented to Vicki! It was actually taken and held by Vicki, and it was removed by Vicki.
George watched it go. His world broke into bits. This was worse than the war, or being hungry, or toothache. This was the end of everything.
So he acted accordingly.
Oh, George, my darling, I know just how you feel. I would have got it for you if I could. I didn’t know in time. But it was too late then for me to make one, or smuggle one, or steal one.
It wasn’t nice of you to throw that pony on the ground and stamp on it. It wasn’t nice to scream and shout, “I hate that bad-smell pony!” It wasn’t nice, but I know how you feel.
Dusk comes, quiet comes, children sleep. Christmas is over again. I say my prayers: “Oh, God, before next Christmas comes, give me a boat to give my son.”