In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

get up,” says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.
    Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie.
    “Well,” I say. “Dee.”
    “No, Mama,” she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
    “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.
    “She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.”
    “You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born.
    “But who was she named after?” asked Wangero.
    “I guess after Grandma Dee,” I said.
    “And who was she named after?” asked Wangero.
    “Her mother,” I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. “That’s about as far back as I can trace it,” I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches.
    “Well,” said Asalamalakim, “there you are.”
    “Uhnnnh,” I heard Maggie say.
    “There I was not,” I said, “before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?”
    He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.
    “How do you pronounce this name?” I asked.
    “You don’t have to call me by it if you don’t want to,” said Wangero.
    “Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “If that’s what you want us to call you, we’ll call you.”
    “I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero.
    “I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again.”
    Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn’t really think he was, so I didn’t ask.
    “You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road,” I said. They said “Asalamalakim” when they met you, too, but they didn’t shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.
    Hakim-a-barber said, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style.” (They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)
    We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn’t eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn’t afford to buy chairs.
    “Oh, Mama!” she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. “I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,” she said, running her hands underneath her and along