The nightmare began quite simply.
In fact, Russell Southers had not the slightest inkling that he was entering into a nightmare at the time. He was passing his Sunday as he always did in the falclass="underline" seated before the Zenith Chromacolor III, watching the Giants invent new ways to lose a football game, while his wife Mitzi read The New York Times.
“Jesus Christ!” yelled Russell, as the Giants’ fullback bucked the middle of the Packer’s goal-line defense for the fourth time without scoring.
“Oh, Russell, look at this picture…” said Mitzi, showing him a page from The Times Magazine.
“First down on the two! On the two, and they can’t score! I can’t believe it…”
“Russell?”
“What, honey?” He looked at his wife as the thought of how she could dare interrupt him during a football game (especially after thirteen years of marriage) crossed his mind.
“Look at this picture,” she said again.
A razor blade commercial blared from the Zenith, and he turned to regard his wife. She was holding up a full-page advertisement from The Times Magazine, which featured a sad-eyed child in rags, framed by a desolate village background. It was a typical plea from one of those foster-parent programs which sponsor foreign orphans in far-away countries stricken with war, famine, and disease. SPARE THE CHILD said the banner line atop the picture, while smaller print explained the terrible level of life, then informed the reader how much money to send, where, and how the money would help the poor, starving children.
“Yeah, so what?” asked Russell as he glanced at the page.
“So what? Russell, look at the little boy. Look at those big, dark eyes! Oh, Russell, how can we sit here—in the lap of luxury—while those little babies are starving all over the world!”
“Lap of luxury!” The commercial had ended and the Packers were driving upfield from their two-yard line with short passes and power sweeps.
“Well, you know what I mean, Russell… it says here that we can be foster parents for a child for as little as fifteen dollars a month, and that we’ll get a picture of our child and letters each month, and we can write to him too.”
“Uh-huh…” The Giants’ middle linebacker had just slipped, allowing the Packers’ tight end to snare a look-in pass over the middle. “Jesus!”
“So I was thinking that we should do something to help. I mean, we pay more than fifteen dollars a month for cable TV, right?”
“What? Oh, yes, Mitzi…” The Packers’ quarterback had just been thrown for a loss, momentarily halting their surge upfield.
“Well, can we do it?”
Another commercial, this time about the new Chrysler, hit the screen, and Russell looked at his wife absently. “Do what?”
“Why, become foster parents! Russell, look at this picture!”
“I looked at the picture, Mitzi! What do you want me to do with it… frame it and put it over the mantel, for Christ’s sake!”
Mitzi remained calm. “I said I want to join the ‘Spare the Child’ program, Russell. Can we do it?”
“What? You want to send money overseas? How do we know the kids are even getting it? Look at that ad—do you know what it costs to run a full-page ad in the Times! They don’t seem like they need our measly fifteen bucks…”
“Russell, please…” She smiled and tilted her head the way she always did when she wanted something. The game was back on, and he was tired of being interrupted. What the hell? What was another fifteen bucks?
“All right, Mitzi… we can do it.” He exhaled slowly and returned to his game. The Giants lost anyway.
About twelve weeks after Russell and Mitzi filled out the Spare the Child application and had sent in their first monthly check (and their second and third), they received a letter and picture from their foster child. The air mail envelope carried the return address of Kona-Pei—a small atoll in the Trobriand Islands group. Russell would not have known this piece of arcane geographical knowledge had not he received an official welcoming/confirming letter from the World Headquarters of Spare the Child several weeks previously. The letter also provided additional data.
His foster child’s name was Tnen-Ku. She was a twelve-year-old girl, whose parents had been killed in a fishing-canoe accident, and who now lived at the island’s missionary post, under the guardianship of her kinship-uncle, Goka-Pon, the village shaman.
Tnen-Ku’s picture was a small, cracked, 3-x-5 black-and-white Polaroid snap, featuring a gangly pre-pubescent girl. She had long, straight, dark hair; large, darker almond-eyes; cheekbones like cut-crystal; and a pouting mouth that gave the hint of a wry smile at the corners. She wore a waist-to-knee wrap-around skirt and nothing else. Her just-developing breasts were tiny, suntanned cones, and she looked oddly, and somewhat chillingly, seductive to Russell when he first looked at her photograph.
Somewhat fascinated, Russell scanned her first correspondence:
Dear Second-Papa Russelclass="underline"
This is to say many thanks for becoming my Second-Papa. The U.S.A. money you send will let me not live at Mission all the time. You make my life happy.
Tnen-Ku
Mitzi was not altogether pleased with the first correspondence because Russell was named and she was not. And it was Mitzi’s idea in the first place!
Russell Southers tried to placate his wife by saying that it was probably island custom to address only the male members of families, and that Mitzi could not expect the Trobriand Islanders to be as liberated as all the folks in northern suburban New Jersey. The tactic seemed to please Russell’s wife, and soon her little foster child, Tnen-Ku, was the prime subject of conversation and pride at Mitzi’s bridge games and garden parties. In fact, she began carrying the picture of the young girl about in her purse, so that everyone would be able to see what her new child looked like.
Even though Russell found Mitzi’s behavior effusive and a bit embarrassing, he said nothing. After thirteen years of marriage, if he had discovered anything, it was that as long as the indulgence was not harmful or detrimental, it was usually better to give in to make Mitzi happy. And it seemed as though it was the little things in life that gave his wife the most joy. So fine, thought Russell, what’s fifteen bucks, if it makes my wife happy?
And so each month, he wrote a check to the Spare the Child Foundation, and about once every third month, he and Mitzi would receive a short, impersonal note from the young island girl with the hauntingly deep, impossibly dark eyes.
Dear Second-Papa Russell,
This is to say many-thanks for more U.S.A. dollars. Maybe now I never go back to Mission. My life is happy.
Tnen-Ku
Perhaps the most exasperating part of the young girl’s letters was the unvarying sameness of them, and although this did not bother Russell, it began to prey upon Mitzi.