“You know, Russell, I’m getting sick of this little game,” said Mitzi, out of the blue, while she and Russell were sitting in bed reading together.
“What little game, honey?” asked Russell absently. He was right in the middle of The Manheist Malefaction, the latest Nazi spy-thriller on The Times bestseller list, and was not surprised to be interrupted by Mitzi’s non sequitur, since it had been one of her most enduring attributes.
“That foster-child thing…” she said in some exasperation, as though Russell should have known what had been preying on her mind.
“You mean Tnen-Ku? Why? What’s the matter?” Russell laid down the book (he was at a familiar part of the plot—where the confused, but competent, protagonist has just met the standard young and beautiful companion), and looked at his wife.
“Well,” said Mitzi, “I mean, it’s nice being a foster parent and all that, and I guess I should feel good about helping out a poor child, but…”
“But what?” asked Russell. “Is it getting to be old hat?”
“Well, something like that. I mean, those letters she writes, Russell. If you can even call them letters… They’re so boring, and she never says anything interesting, or nice to us… I feel like we’re just being used.”
“Well, we are being used a little, but that’s what it’s all about, Mitzi.”
“Maybe so, but I thought it would be more exciting, more gratifying to be a foster parent for a little foreign child…” Mitzi looked to the ceiling and sighed.
“But we’re supposed to be doing it so that Tnen-Ku feels happier, not necessarily for our own betterment or happiness. Isn’t that what’s important?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Russell. You’ve seen that picture they sent us… that little girl doesn’t look like she’s so bad off.” Mitzi harrumphed lightly. “She looks like a little tart, if you ask me!”
Russell chuckled. “Well, you certainly have changed your tune lately!”
“No, I haven’t! It’s just that being a foster parent isn’t what I thought it would be…”
“Are you sure that you’re not just getting tired of it, that the novelty is wearing off? Remember how you were at first about backgammon? The aerobic dancing? And when’s the last time you went out jogging?”
“Russell, this is different…”
“Okay, honey. We can drop out of the program any time you want. We didn’t sign any contract, you know.”
Mitzi sighed and looked up at the ceiling as though considering the suggestion. “Well, if you really don’t think she needs our help…”
“Wait a minute, this is your idea, remember!” Russell smiled, as it was always Mitzi’s way—to twist things around so that it always seemed like Russell was the one who would bear responsibility for all decisions.
“Well, I know, but I wouldn’t want to do anything behind your back. Besides, I was thinking that we could use some new drapes in the living room. The sun is starting to fade those gold ones, and we could use that fifteen dollars each month to pay for them…”
And so, having planted the seed, not another month went by before Mitzi announced to Russell that it was okay to drop out of the Spare the Child program, having already picked up a sample fabric book, trying to decide which new color would look best in her chrome-and-glass living room. Russell wrote a letter to the Spare the Child offices in New York City, politely explaining that financial pressure had forced them to withdraw from the program. He expressed the hope and good wishes that Tnen-Ku would continue to receive assistance from a new foster parent, and thanked them for the opportunity to be of some help, at least for a brief time.
Before the new drapes were delivered, he received a letter from the Trobriand Islands:
Dear Second-Papa Russell,
The mission-peoples say that you will send no more U.S.A. dollars for me. I am very sad by this. That means I must live at Mission again, and I do not like that. Goka-Pon say a father cannot give up his child. Do you know it is forbidden? Please do not stop U.S.A. dollars. For you and me.
Tnen-Ku
“Now isn’t that strange,” said Russell, reading the young girl’s letter over a Saturday breakfast. “Forbidden, she says… I wonder what that means? And what about this ‘for you and me’?”
“Don’t pay any attention to it dear. She’s probably trying to make you feel guilty. You know what they say about people who get used to charity—they lose all incentive to do things for themselves, and all they learn is how to become professional beggars. By us stopping that money, we’re probably doing the best thing in the world for her. Maybe she’ll grow up now, and be somebody.” Mitzi poked at the bacon which sizzled in the pan, turned over the more crispy pieces.
Russell tossed away the letter and did not think about it for several weeks, until he received a plea from the Spare the Child Program to reconsider canceling his donation. It was similar to the form letters one gets from magazines when you have obviously intended not to renew a subscription. He was going to throw it out but decided that a final, short note to the offices would stop any further correspondence. He wrote telling them that he did not intend to contribute to the foster-parent plan ever again and wished that they would stop badgering him. That ended it, or so he thought.
Two months later, he received a hand-written note from the Trobriand Islands group:
Dear Second-Papa Russell,
Mission-peoples say no more U.S.A. dollars from you. This very bad. Goka-Pon say you must be punished.
Tnen-Ku
Understandably, Russell was outraged and fired off another letter to the Spare the Child Program, enclosing a xerox of what he termed an “ungrateful, arrogant, and threatening” letter. He informed the agency that if he received any more correspondence from Tnen-Ku, he would initiate legal actions against the agency.
A secretary from the Spare the Child offices wrote a perfunctory apology which promised that Russell Southers would not be troubled again, and this seemed to appease both him and Mitzi, until three weeks later, when the cat died.
Actually, their cat, Mugsy, did not die; it had been killed—strangled and then nailed to Russell’s garage door above a jerkily scrawled inscription which could have been in blood: Tnen-Ku. It was as though the young girl had sent them more correspondence, although of a different nature.
At first, Mitzi was horrified and Russell infuriated. They called the police, who did not seem terribly interested; the Spare the Child agency, which denied any culpability; and Russell’s lawyer, who said that perhaps a flimsy case could be made against the agency but suggested that one of Russell’s friends was most likely playing a very bad joke on him.
Russell was shocked to see the high levels of indifference and lack of true concern for what was happening to him but felt helpless to do much more than complain himself. He thought of writing a long threatening letter to Tnen-Ku, but something held him back. After all, it was impossible that the child had anything to do with Mugsy’s demise—the island of Kona-Pei was thousands of miles from New Jersey. But what the hell was going on?
Second-Papa? Second-Papa…?
Russell was awakened from a deep sleep by the voice. In the first moments of wakefulness; he found himself thinking that her voice sounded very much like he would have imagined it to sound.