by Pam Grier
More than three months after I had arrived, I packed my bags and got ready for the long flight home. As I prepared to depart, the weather looked turbid and dangerous. Monsoons, steady, pounding rain patterns, were constant in the Philippines, washing down the city streets, eating up the sidewalks, and turning the ground to mud wherever it was not paved. But the rain that poured relentlessly from the sky the day I was leaving felt biblical, as if only Noah’s ark could save me from drowning and get me where I was going. In fact, the film coordinator showed up in an army truck to drive me to the airport because the water was rising so high. In the middle of an Asian monsoon, I felt extraordinarily small and vulnerable.
I actually believed I might die. How on earth could a plane take off in the middle of a monsoon on a half-flooded airfield? I also feared that something terrible was going to happen to the people I was leaving behind. I had made so many good friends who had been so kind and welcoming to all of us. I knew they would suffer in the monsoon and possibly lose everything. It happened there all the time.
Once we managed the takeoff and were in the air, apparently out of immediate danger, I settled in for the marathon flight home. I was sad to leave this home away from home, but I felt full from so much nurturing and so many new experiences. I was familiar with a slice of life that could not be understood by reading a book or studying. I had been somewhere special, I had met fantastic people I would never forget, and I had learned something of substance that I couldn’t get in college or anywhere else.
I stared out the airplane window. It always seemed like I got away in the nick of time. I had missed the typhoon, I had finished two films for Roger Corman, and all I could do was wonder what was coming next. I watched the cloud formations, first above us, and then beneath us, as we reached our flying altitude. A cloud warrior with a double-sided spear changed form into a dinosaur, right before my eyes. I started to doze. I had a lot to think about.
CHAPTER 15
The Paisley Head Scarf
When I got back home, my first stop was Colorado. I wanted to check on my mom, and I had so much to tell her. She felt pretty good, and, as usual, she was eager to drink in every detail of my life as I described the rice terraces and the women’s movement that was emerging in the larger cities over there.
“If you go back and you have time,” she said, “you have to go to Leyte, where Daddy Ray was born, and meet your Philippine relatives. We have a lot of them there, you know.”
I did know about them, and I couldn’t wait. But once I knew that Mom was okay, I had to get back to Los Angeles and see where things stood with Kareem and me. I missed the wonderful, humid, smoky smell of the rural areas of the Philippines, especially when I landed back in the smog and the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. I missed the fresh fruits: papayas, litchi nuts, mangosteens, guavas, and durians that fell off the trees. I also missed the coconuts people opened with machetes, put a straw into, and sold on street corners, where we could drink the sweet, fresh coconut milk, a potent healing nectar.
I missed a lot, but I also felt better about my life in Los Angeles with eight thousand dollars in the bank, more savings than I’d ever had. And in Malibu with Kareem, the landscape was beautiful, the ocean water sparkled, the air was relatively clean, and it was good to be with him again.
I’d been back about three days, which I’d spent getting over my jet lag, when one morning the doorbell rang. I was cleaning up the dishes after breakfast in Kareem’s apartment when he headed to the door. “I invited some of my friends over,” he called to me over his shoulder.
It was Saturday, and now that the dishes were clean, I had nothing planned for the day. I had expected to spend it with Kareem, and I was happy he had invited his close friends over. I considered them my friends, too, since I’d always liked them and hadn’t seen them for so long. This was the first time we would meet up since they were newly converted, and I couldn’t wait to tell them about the Philippines and start asking them questions about their conversion.
“Hi!” I called out, wiping my wet hands on my cutoffs as I leaned in to give one of them a hug.
He moved back, as if I had bad breath or a contagious skin disease. “Nice to see you, Pam,” he said. And that was it. Now that they had converted, they could speak to me, but there was no touching allowed. No intimate or personal conversations. In fact, I wasn’t supposed to speak to them at all, unless I was answering a specific question. I stood there awkwardly, when Kareem said in a quiet voice, “You’re supposed to leave the room now, Pam.”
“For how long?” I asked, frowning.
“Until I ask you to come back or my friends leave.”
I walked out of the room feeling upset and humiliated. I dragged my feet to the bedroom and stood by the patio door. The hillside was magnificent below Kareem’s cliff-hanging apartment with a perfect view of the Pacific Coast Highway and the sparkling ocean beyond. I sat on the bed. What was I supposed to do? Sit here like a dummy until my man came to get me? It was such a beautiful day. Why would I choose to sit in a room instead of being outside?
Suddenly Kareem was standing at the door to the bedroom, grinning. “Can you make us some sandwiches?” he asked.
I was a bit dubious, but I gave Kareem a hug and headed for the kitchen, feeling a little bit better. I made extra-thick turkey and tomato sandwiches, poured some ice tea, and brought a tray to the kitchen table where the guys were hanging out. They smiled wide and thanked me. I had sat on a chair and was reaching for a sandwich, when Kareem caught my glance. “You have to go now,” he said. “You can take a sandwich with you.”
Crestfallen, I stood. “Okay,” I said, suddenly losing my appetite. “I’m new at this.” I left the room. Once I was back in the bedroom, I felt crushed. These were the guys with whom I used to talk and laugh. I had considered them my friends. They said they had considered me a friend. But that was before they converted. Now they were Muslim men and I was a woman, not even a Muslim, who not only would be ignored but was also expected to cook for them and to clean up after them.
I marched defiantly out of the bedroom and stood at the doorway to the room where Kareem and the guys were hanging out. “I have to talk to you,” I said to him.
He looked annoyed but got up and accompanied me back to the bedroom. “What is it? I’m busy right now.”
“How much longer do you expect me to sit in this room?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Are you saying I could end up sitting here all day?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not staying in this room any longer,” I told him. “I’m going out for a drive.”
“Go ahead,” he said in a detached manner. “How long will you be gone?”
I wanted to say, “None of your goddamned business,” but instead I said, “I’m not sure.”
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t be gone too long.”
What difference did it make to him? Unless he wanted to control me. The day was warm and sunny, so I didn’t change my clothes. When I walked through the front room in my cutoff shorts and halter top, I had to keep my eyes averted from the men to get outside. “I’ll never be able to remember all these rules,” I muttered to myself as I got into my beat-up 1968 metallic blue Firebird with the white vinyl top and a big dent in the fender from when my brother and a tree tried to occupy the same space at the same time. I loved the car anyway because it was the first one I ever purchased for myself so I could get back and forth between work and Malibu. I pulled out a scarf from the glove compartment, something bright in silk paisley that was left over from my hippie days. I took a moment to make the specialized wrap that would keep my head covered like a good Muslim woman should. At least I was trying. Then I started up the engine.
Feeling free and back in control, I punched the accelerator along the winding road that overlooked the Pacific Coast Highway. If Kareem wanted me to cover my head in public, the least I could do was give it a try to please my man. I
breathed deeply and savored the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair—but wait. Why was I feeling the wind in my hair? My head was supposed to be covered. It seemed that the special wrap I was still learning to tie had come undone, and the silk suddenly blew across my face, blinding me. I grabbed frantically to get it loose, but it was impossibly tangled. I tried to pull the material away from my eyes, thinking, I have to STOP. When I finally managed to stop the car and remove the silk from my eyes, I was two inches from the crest of the mountain that ended in a sheer drop to the Pacific Coast Highway far below.
I can’t even tie a head scarf correctly, I chastised myself. I almost died, and if I had, no one would have known I was trying to please my man. But I must have been making a serious error. I simply was not mature enough to do this for Kareem. Breathless, I retired the scarf back to the glove compartment and drove carefully down to the beach. It felt like an omen that my head scarf, meant to be sacred and protective, had nearly killed me.
I walked up and down the sand, my feet wading in the tide pools. I had met “the perfect man,” someone whom I respected and was proud to be with. I loved him, he loved me, and now, because of a religion that seemed not to respect women, it was all falling apart.
I ran into a few acquaintances on the beach with whom I stopped to engage in some light conversation. When I headed back home, I felt somewhat better, but I can’t say the same for Kareem. It seemed that one of the guys I had just fed had driven down the hill and had seen me on the beach in my halter top, cutoffs, and no head scarf, talking to men. He had called to “tell on me.” Kareem was irate when I got back home, and he read me the riot act about disgracing him on the beach. I guess when we met, he considered me young and impressionable enough that he could mold me. But I would show him that I was more than a piece of clay.
“It was hot down there,” I argued. “I always wear cutoffs on the beach. According to you, I can’t jog, I can’t drive, I can’t talk to men, and I can’t play sports because I might expose my body.”
“That’s right. You have to be covered. Arms, legs, and head. Only your hands can be seen.”
My stomach tightened. “So I can’t even wear a bathing suit on the beach anymore, according to you?”
“It’s not according to me,” he corrected me. “That is how it is written in the Koran.”
“But I’m not asking the Koran. I’m asking you,” I said.
By the time Kareem left for Milwaukee, I had lost my sunny personality and was depressed a lot of the time. I loved Kareem, but I was not ready to commit to him or to Islam (one and the same), and I didn’t go the airport to see him off. It was too painful, because I just couldn’t deal with his demands for strict adherence to a set of rules that made no sense to me. When I explained I wasn’t clear yet about any of it, all he said was, “You don’t really love me, do you?”
“I do love you,” I countered. “But you’re in love with a religion. You’re not thinking of me. I like to fish, drive, take flying lessons, and participate in outdoor sports. I ride horses and motorcycles, and I like to climb mountains. I like adventures, and I like to talk to men friends and look them in the eye. I can’t imagine staying isolated in another room, having a chaperone, walking behind a man, and sitting in the backseat when my husband drives.”
It was a terrible dilemma to be in love with a man who was in love with a religion that seemed to have no regard for women’s freedoms. It was a quandary for Kareem as well, who kept calling me to come see his apartment in Milwaukee. He was playing for the Bucks, and he told me on the phone that he had an apartment in a high-rise that was beside a beautiful lake. He knew I’d love it. Why didn’t I come and see it?
“If I marry you,” I said, “what if you decide to take a second and third wife? I don’t think I could handle that.”
“You’d have to agree first.”
“And if I didn’t?” I asked.
“Then I wouldn’t marry them.”
“Or you’d divorce me. Right?”
“That isn’t going to happen,” he said. “Why are you wasting time with worst-case scenarios when we love each other?”
I wasn’t born yesterday. I knew about Muslim laws that were in place right then in the Middle East that proclaimed a man’s right to kill his own daughter or wife who was infertile or unattractive, or who dishonored the family by talking to a man, riding in a car with a male driver and no chaperone, exposing her hair, or refusing to marry a man chosen for her, no matter his age or circumstances. They called them “honor killings,” and they were hideously common. I called them criminal acts and slavery, and I would have no part of that or anything that encouraged or supported it.
“Kareem, I’m reading this book about Muslim women, and I just can’t—”
“It’ll be different for us. I promise. We’ll go to Mecca together and make friends there. We can be moderate. Just keep reading and practicing and you’ll get better at it.”
“What if you decide not to be moderate somewhere along the line?” I argued. “What if you become a lot more conservative? I’ll have to do whatever you tell me to do.”
I was clear that wasn’t going to happen to me. The word Islam meant submission and obedience. There was literally no “self ” in the religion of Islam. Everyone was guided by Allah, who clearly preferred men over women. I think that, in truth, Kareem knew, deep in his heart, that I could never submit to a religion like Islam, where there was no self. Everything was decided by Allah or rather by how some man interpreted Allah’s teachings. I was just beginning to understand what freedom was all about, I was feeling it deep in my soul, and I wasn’t about to give it up. “What about my education?” I said.
“I’ll put you through school. I told you I’d take care of you.”
There it was again. He was offering to take care of me. I knew he loved me, and I knew his parents loved me, especially his mom, Cora, with whom I had a special connection. But Kareem’s commitment to his religion above all else was too rigid. I felt he was trying to make me dependent on him, and he was denying it. “You don’t trust me enough to marry me,” he said.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I don’t trust that your feelings about me will necessarily stay the same. People change. You could decide you don’t like our sex anymore. Then what do I do? A Muslim woman has no rights. Why do you have to get married right away, anyway? What’s the big rush?”
“Allah says that Muslim men need to marry.”
Back to the beginning. Exhausted from the same old debate with no answers or solutions, I finally agreed to go to Milwaukee to see what life would be like as the submissive, obedient Muslim wife of a huge up-and-coming basketball star.
CHAPTER 16
Lightning, Thunder, and Blood
Milwaukee was magnificently beautiful and dramatic with its lakes, pouring rains, and lightning and thunderstorms. Just like Kareem had promised. I was happy to see him because I had missed our talks, our sex, and sleeping together, and so had he. But just like before, our conversations nearly always deteriorated into my questioning him about Islam and his inability to provide me with satisfying answers.
One night, when we were locked in a particularly tense argument about our favorite topics, submission and slavery, I lost control and stormed out into the night. It was pouring rain, but I was so upset, it didn’t register that I was cold and soaked until I got to the edge of the lake. I climbed a huge boulder and sat there for close to an hour, shivering while the freezing rain poured down on me. I stared out into the iridescence of the choppy water. Lightning flashed through the sky, thunder clapped loudly, and I prayed that a wave would wash me away forever and end my pain.
It was a bad cosmic joke that I was with a man who seemingly had everything. I loved him, the world loved him, he loved me, and he promised to marry, protect, and cherish me and take care of our children. But all of that was contingent upon my embracing a religion that was bigger than both of us and our love. I didn’t feel the draw.
There were too many red flags, and I couldn’t fake it because I respected Kareem and myself too much.
The rain continued to pelt the ground as I stood up on shaky legs. I was cold and miserable, and I wanted to get warm, when I lost my footing and slipped down the side of the boulder. I landed hard on my back and hit my knee while the rain poured down like the devil’s flood. When I realized after more than an hour that Kareem had not come to look for me, I wished the storm would drag me out to the lake and drown me. Why hadn’t my man come to save me? He was probably concerned that if he slipped and fell while he was walking in the rain, it would adversely affect his basketball career. It didn’t matter if I hurt myself. I obviously had nothing much to lose in his eyes or he would have come out to find me and take me home.
Trembling from the cold, bleeding from my knee, and hurting badly, I made my way back to the apartment. Kareem had not come to save me. I knew he never would. I walked inside to find him standing over the stove, cooking a lamb curry stew. Without looking at me, he said calmly, “Did you have some time to think?”
When he turned, however, and saw the blood dripping from my knee and how violently I was shivering, he grabbed towels and began to dry me off.
“I need to leave,” I said between shivers and sobs. “Right now.”
“There are no flights out tonight,” he said.
“Then I’m leaving in the morning.” He didn’t argue and I didn’t eat. I went straight to the sofa and spent a sleepless night there, shivering and aching, wishing I’d drowned in the lake. When Kareem drove me to the airport in the morning, he dropped me off and said, “I still hope you’ll think about converting. I love you and really want us to marry.”
“I’m doing my best,” I said, “but you’re not giving me enough time. You’ve been studying this for nearly two years. Maybe three. For me, it’s only been four months. You have to be patient.”