Belle looked around. She was the only woman in the room who still straightened her hair. Instead of African garb, she wore a skirt and blouse with pantyhose and slip underneath.
After the community center cleared out, Geoff told her he needed to stop by the place of one of his classmates, to get notes from that week’s lectures. Maybe Zulu could drive her to pick up the baby, and Zulu chimed in, saying it was no trouble. Anything to help his brother. The two men exchanged a soul shake.
At her mother-in-law’s house, Belle told Zulu to wait in the car. No, she didn’t need help with the stroller. But when she emerged with Lydia, he was standing outside the car with the passenger door open. Then, at the apartment, she told him she was fine. She was safe, but as she was putting Lydia down in her room, Belle heard Aretha singing. He had put a record on the turntable, and she wondered, who had raised this man? Where had Zulu learned to go searching through folks’ homes, doing whatever he wanted?
Coming out of her bedroom, she yawned widely. She stretched her arms, but Zulu asked, would it be too much trouble for her to warm him up some food? He was always so hungry after the weekly community meetings. Something about talking in front of people took all his energy, and when he went home, sometimes he ate two or three plates.
“You sound like a preacher,” she said. “Back home, our Elder follows folks after church into the parking lot. My mama always runs from him, ’cause she said she can’t afford to be killing as many chickens as that man likes to eat on Sunday.”
She laughed, hoping Zulu would take the hint, but he swayed to the music. He followed her to the kitchen as she prepared his meal. She made sure to put a huge portion into the baking pan: she didn’t want him asking for seconds. She sprinkled water over the food before placing it into the oven to heat, and thought about the three women that he lived with. Did only one do the cooking or did they take turns? And how did the sleeping arrangement work? She was so curious, but it would be rude to ask.
Zulu leaned against the refrigerator, smiling. “Sister, do you know why I changed my name?”
“I didn’t know you had changed it. I thought your mama named you that.”
“Oh no! My slave first name was Tyrone, but I changed that last year. Now, I’m King Shaka Zulu Harris.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because now I’m a warrior fighting for the revolution! ‘We shall heal our wounds, collect our dead and continue fighting.’ That’s Chairman Mao. Heavy, ain’t it, sister?”
“I thought he was Chinese.”
“He is.”
“But isn’t the man you’re named for African?”
Zulu nodded solemnly. “Exactly. This is a global fight. You getting it now, sister. Right on.”
When his food was done warming. Belle sat at the kitchen table with him as he ate. Then she sat with him on the couch, listening to Aretha sing the same side of an album seven times. They talked about nothing in particular. By midnight, a dangerous comfort had sneaked up on Belle. That she could sit with a man other than her husband and feel so at peace frightened her.
She sat up, telling him she was real tired and her baby liked to wake at dawn. But at the door, Zulu lingered, and right when Belle was going to throw another hint, he told her he hadn’t eaten cooking like hers since his mother had passed. She had been from the south, too. Alabama, and she’d had the same sweet ways.
Belle leaned against the doorway. She couldn’t let a man tell her about such a great loss and immediately throw him out of her house. That wouldn’t be right.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. And you know you’re surely welcome to come back. Anytime.”
“Thank you again, my dear sister,” Zulu said.
He kissed Belle’s cheek and left; as she closed the door after him, she trembled. When she finally lay down, it was two in the morning, and her husband had not returned home, and when light hit, he wasn’t there, either.
Geoff didn’t come back home until the next evening, and when she asked where he’d been, he told her he’d stayed over at Zulu’s apartment on the couch. Thinking of how she’d lounged on her own sofa with Zulu, talking and laughing, she didn’t confront her husband, or ask what had he been doing that necessitated his lying.
*
At the community center bazaar, Belle bought bolts of African cloth in tones of red, black, and green, and ran up minidresses on her sewing machine. And on her wash day, she decided not to straighten her hair after it dried. She couldn’t stop touching it. It pleased her, how it sprang back from her fingers, and when Zulu saw her at the Wednesday meeting, his eyes widened. He showered her with compliments, praising her decision to no longer oppress her hair. He told her she’d already been a beautiful woman, but now she was a heart-stopper.