CHRISTMAS FOR LITTLE MANDA
Mayer, Milton
Christmas For Little Manda By MILTON MAYER THIS, Little Manda, is your first peacetime Christmas, but, as Editor Rubin says, and as Edmund Burke said before him, and as any fool over four can see,...
...SO you, Little Manda, as you fall asleep listening for the reindeer bells on the roof, you don't know from nuthin...
...All you know about war and peace is that you always asked your pa to bring you a blue bloon, and he never could get one on account of the war, and the war was a blue bloon that couldn't be got...
...Heaven lay around you in your infancy, Little Manda, and all you knew was that the streets and the house and the trains were full of soldier boys and sailor boys...
...But you didn't know where they were going or why, or what they were going to do when they got there...
...Your big sister Dudu, only ten, knows that there are millions of children this Christmas, black and white, Jew and Gentile, German and Japanese and Polish and Russian, and American too, who not only have no Christmas tree hung with wonderful presents, but no butter and no baked potato and no mother and father...
...Your big sister was four in a world—or at least a corner of the world—that believed there was a better way to settle it than by fighting...
...She knew, too, where her favorite uncle went, what he did there, and why he'll never be back...
...Prematurely the shadow is on her, and I am worried about her joy in a bestial world, but I am not worried about her morals...
...This, Little Manda, is the terrible question you may never have sense enough to ask...
...And the ten-year-old dragged the four-year-old to safety and then sat down to cry...
...of millions of men all over the world, just men getting paid $50 a month and keep for killing other men...
...How, when the Rabbi Jesus is defeated, will we celebrate the Victory Christmas...
...You don't even know his name any more, or his face, or the way he threw you up in the air...
...But you don't know that, because you are four...
...Her big sister, who was ten, like your own big sister, sneaked her in to an exclusive garden party for the children of the rich...
...SHE knew that war wasn't a shortage of butter for her baked potato at all...
...But the four-year-old, who didn't know from nuthin', didn't cry at all...
...This, Little Manda, is the terrible question your big sister never asked...
...The occasion was the grand opening of a rich little girl's gorgeous doll house...
...Not so your big sister, Dudu, christened Little Julie by her parents and re-christened Dudu by you...
...but a shooting of guns, a breaking of bones and heads and hearts, a groaning of pain and a starving and freezing, a massacre by Nazis of Jewish children like her and a massacre by Americans like her of Japanese children like Gloria Honda down the street...
...The war was no blue bloon for Dudu...
...The war for Dudu was the shadow of profitless, senseless, screaming death...
...not because you are four, but because you are a war-baby and your big sister was a peace-baby...
...But how will your parents teach you, when the world—including the corner you're four in—believes that the atomic bomb is good for those who have it...
...It was easy to teach your big sister that justice, temperance, and fortitude are good for those who have them...
...The two little sisters, four and ten, were the washerwoman's daughters and they hadn't been invited...
...But the shadow of screaming death will always be on her because, unlike you, she knows the score...
...But, like him, she didn't know why he went, and the shadow was on her...
...prematurely, at ten, she knows she's a pacifist, and prematurely, at ten, she knows that an admiral who says it is just as much fun to burn 'em is not only an admiral, but a beast...
...The four-year-old saw the doll house and all its wonderful contents, before the rich lady had her butler drive the washerwoman's brats from the grounds...
...You don't even know that your favorite uncle went to Leyte and will never be back...
...She learned the score four years ago, in first grade, when she got into a fight and the teacher said, "Now children, there must be a better way to settle this than by fighting," and Dudu said, in her fading innocence, "But if there's a better way for children to settle it, why isn't there a better way for grown-ups...
...1 seen the little lamp...
...How will we teach you, in a world where the strong are whipping the weak, what the man meant who said, "If I lift mys^jf up, I will draw all men after me" ? How, except by lifting ourselves up, will we draw you up after us, Little Manda...
...Christmas For Little Manda By MILTON MAYER THIS, Little Manda, is your first peacetime Christmas, but, as Editor Rubin says, and as Edmund Burke said before him, and as any fool over four can see, there is no peace...
...1 am worried about your morals this Christmas, Little Manda...
...She, like you, didn't know from nuthin', and she wanted to go to the party, and her sister, who, like yours, couldn't say no, sneaked her in...
...She just smiled and smiled and said, "I seen the little lamp...
...She knew that people sprayed other people with fire, while still other people cheered and a Christian American admiral said it was just as much fun to burn 'em as drown 'em...
...And she knows, prematurely, that they didn't deserve their starvation, while all you know, being four, is that the reindeer come down on the roofs of the good...
...The ten-year-old knew the score, but the four-year-old was like you...
...I am not worried about your big sister's...
...You remind me, in your infancy, and in your ignorance, of the four-year-old in Katherine Mansfield's Garden Party...
...But you are four in a world that, in every corner, has surrendered to war, and before your fourth year is over you may ask your pa, or your ma, or your teacher, "What are soldier boys for...
...Your ignorance has been your bliss, Little Manda, and heaven has lain around you in your infancy...
...by the time she saw her first soldier boy, she knew what soldiers were for, and the shadow was on her...
...Hell lay around Little Dudu in her childhood...
...But I am worried about yours, Little Manda...
...The war was a blue bloon that couldn't be got, and your four years of ignorance have been bliss, Little Manda...
...But she's only ten, so she survived happy, with school and play and friends and skates and the "Y" and the beach...
...HOWT will we teach you, little rich girl at the garden party, that justice, temperance, and fortitude were all that your parents (oh, they of little faith) needed in the world in which they were four, but that you will need faith, hope, and love besides, in a world that is not getting bigger and better, but smaller and worse...
...All you know, is that up until now you have never been permitted to float your baked potato in butter, and now you are...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 51
