Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale (4 page)

After hesitating remarks in various languages, like a musician tuning his instrument, he finally found the correct note and addressed me in
French, before I had uttered a single word which might have revealed my nationality.

Mr Ki, with exquisite courtesy, begged me to enter his modest dwelling, as ceremoniously as if it had been a palace. His companion had just wakened up. He looked younger; he was probably Mr Ki’s son or else his servant. He greeted us with that Chinese smile which renders the face absolutely inscrutable and devoid of all expression. It is an impenetrable armour, a wall of defence behind which the Chinaman can see without being seen, through the narrow slits of his eyes.

Mr Ki told me he had been coming there for several years. In September he left for China with his cargo of trepangs. He had a fleet of twenty ships fishing for him on the neighbouring reefs, and he spent his days and weeks waiting for the return of the fishermen. His occupation of preparing future’s swallow’s nest left him plenty of leisure, so to give himself something to do he sold a lot of odds and ends, of trifling value in themselves, but which were greatly prized by the crews of the trocasfishing
boutres.
He sold matches by the dozen, for example, on condition that the empty boxes were returned to him, and incense, cigarettes in packets of four, fish-hooks and string.

Mr Ki slept on a mat, and in a corner was an empty petrol tin, converted into a tiny chapel for a little ebony Buddha. Beneath it glimmered the small flame of an opium lamp under its brownish glass chimney. I looked at it with a smile, and Mr Ki answered me with another smile, but a living, expressive one this time, as the mask fell for a moment from his face. This Chinaman could have spoken by smiles only. He said:

‘So long as I have that, I am at home anywhere, and everywhere I am happy. Do you smoke?’

‘Yes, sometimes; I have no prejudice against opium.’

Mr Ki smiled again. This smile meant:

‘You think you smoke, poor barbarian, but all you do is to profane a marvellous thing meant only for those who follow the teachings of Buddha.’

And probably Mr Ki was right.

Then we had tea, a special blend which he brought from China for his private and particular use, whose subtle aroma did not desecrate this sanctuary where Buddha kept watch.

I mused over the immense gulf which separates us from this race, with its so ancient civilization. I had before me the two ends of the chain – on the one hand the primitive Dankalis, finding pleasure in a mouthful of
kecher
and a chew of tobacco, and on the other hand this subtle Chinaman, living half-naked on a sandy islet, and drawing exquisite satisfaction from his mental reactions alone.

I felt like an animal about half-way between them, capable more or less of understanding both of them, but incapable of imitating either.

Fishing for trepangs is carried on on sandy bottoms with about fifteen feet of water, in much the same ways as
sadaf
fishing, that is to say, from
houris.
Divers scrutinize the bottom through a
mourailla
(box with one side of glass).

Trepangs are holothuries about six or eight inches long and as thick as a child’s wrist. They resemble soft, fat, round worms, brownish in colour. When they are kneaded gently with the fingers, they get hard and swell out, finally stiffening in a sort of spasm and sending out a jet of water at one end. Immediately after this, they become flabby again.

This curious way of expressing itself has caused this creature to be dubbed Zob-el-Bahr by the Arabs. This virile name is most suggestive. The Chinese, perhaps because of this strange behaviour, believe that the trepang has aphrodisiac properties. They consume great quantities of them, perhaps from choice, but more likely from necessity, for every respectable Chinaman has numerous wives, and he makes it a point of honour to fulfil his duties in a fitting manner.

As soon as the trepangs are fished, they are buried in the sand for four or five days. There they lose the qualities to which they owe their name. Good-bye for ever to these noble swellings; when they are dug up, they are withered and contracted and permanently flabby.

They are then plunged into boiling water and cooked for about half an hour. Then they are cooled in seawater, cut in two longwise, and dried in the sun. In this form they look rather like horn knife-handles.

Mr Ki also bought the pectoral fins of sharks, from which, on cooking, a stringy substance rather like vermicelli is extracted. This is an aphrodisiac too, and if not more efficacious than the trepangs it is at least much more expensive. This is a special food for aged mandarins.

There are many other things in the Oriental seas which are supposed
to be aphrodisiac; an atmosphere of the Arabian nights still hangs about them. Despising love, the races of these countries care only for the act of reproduction and they live to render it constant homage. It is easy to understand, in these conditions, that there comes a moment when it is necessary to give nature some support. In Europe we content ourselves with spiritual affection, platonic love, and so on, when virility fails.

I have never tasted these strange foods to see if they deserved their reputation, but one thing I have noted, and that is that the flesh of the shark most definitely has aphrodisiac properties. When the crew, condemned to the chastity of a long voyage, eats shark, either fresh or dried, the poor cabin-boy has often to stand the consequences. This seems quite normal to the Arabs and Somalis, and nobody thinks of being shocked or even amused… One more difference between them and us Europeans.

So Mr Ki on his forgotten islet worked for the greater happiness of thousands of his fellow-countrymen. Perhaps that was a satisfaction to him as he dreamed beside his secret little lamp, while the smoke of his drug bore him off to realms of bliss where access is forbidden to barbarians.

I rejoined my wife and daughter in the temporary shelter which I had set up at Ras Madour under the great lighthouse facing the sea.

The next business was to send off the three hundred tons of trocas I had collected. Although these sea snails had been emptied and cleaned, the horrible smell of carrion which has caused trocas to be classed as evil-smelling merchandise still rose from the bundles. The Compagnie de Navigation refused to take them on the packet
Roma
due to pass in three days, because the Duke of A— was on board on his way home from a cruise to Mogadiccio. This annoyed me, for the trocas market was rising,
and I was ready to make any sacrifice in order to get them off as soon as possible.

The
Roma
was a small vessel, only three or four thousand tons burthen, very spick-and-span and elegant – almost a yacht. The holds were empty and I was determined that they should take my goods.

I went to see the second in command, and held a long conversation with him about the evil reputation of trocas. A gift of seemly proportions easily persuaded him that my bundles were so well sewn up that no smell could come through. Besides, the holds had stout doors, and were in the stern, so the Duke would notice nothing. I got a first-class passage for my wife and daughter. Later, they told me the details of this voyage, of which they preserved happy memories. But my trocas gave rise to a comical incident once the
Roma
was out at sea.

At first, all went well – nobody felt any odour; but after the ship passed Suez, strange clouds of small flies of unknown species invaded the liner and made the passengers’ lives a burden. The Duke asked the captain for an explanation. He consulted his officers, but nobody could tell him whence they came. Then the second, fearing that the ducal curiosity might prove inconvenient if not satisfied in some way, told a story of how the same thing had happened to him once before as he passed through these regions on a small cargo boat of which he was at that time captain. The flies, he stated, were of an extremely rare species, brought by a special wind from the mountains of Sinai. Shades of Moses!

The Duke was quite satisfied with this explanation, in view of the sacredness of the mountains involved, and in the end he did as the poor fishers do: since he couldn’t stop the nuisance, he just put up with it.

When I got back to Djibouti, I found Floquet very busy on the beach at Boulaos, digging out of the sand immense heaps of trocas which had been abandoned there some time before by an unlucky speculator. This poor devil had put all his own money and that of several others into the purchase of enormous stocks, which he was to hold until the price went up. But he waited too long; prices fell, and he ruined himself and was put in prison by his creditors when he returned to Europe. Later on, the unfortunate fellow blew his brains out, and his trocas were left where they were, on the beach at Boulaos. The sand drifted over them, the years passed by, and they were forgotten.

When Floquet saw that after so many years of inactivity there was a fresh demand for trocas in the market, he exulted. Nobody fished them any more, so there would be a scarcity. He proposed to the representatives of the dead man’s family to buy these old shells which, he said, were only good for making lime. Secretly he hoped that the mother-of-pearl, buried away from the sun, had remained in good condition, and sure enough, he found three hundred tons of trocas perfectly preserved, which he was able to send off as freshly gathered.

He sold them at an enormous price. The suicide’s speculation had turned out all right after all, but another reaped the benefit, and his children in their poverty never guessed that they had sold their fortune for a song.

This is only a very commonplace incident in that jungle of treachery and ugliness known as ‘business’. Foquet, according to its laws, was quite justified in acting as he did. I should probably have done the same if I had been in his place. I might have had a little trouble with my conscience, when I thought of those four children living in poverty, and I might have thought of sending them some compensation. Half of the profits really belonged to them… then I should have reflected that a quarter would be ample… and in the end I should have kept the lot. Only, in the bottom of my heart there would have remained a drop of bitterness which would have poisoned the rest of my life. Lucky are those who can act in such a way that they will not afterwards despise themselves, and who can live
satisfied to receive admiration for virtues they do not possess. These are the only people who should go into business – they will get on all right; but the others should abstain, for they will be victims in one way or another, either of the jungle or of their consciences.

For these only the pursuit of science or the arts is possible, unless they simply till the soil, which is one form of the struggle with nature. But most of them form part of the vast herd of human creatures resigned, envious or rebellious, who don’t realize the great happiness they possess in having no wrongs on their consciences and being able to look every man straight in the face.

At this time I did not utter these fine sentiments to myself, for everything in me was subconscious; I acted on impulses which I did not seek to analyse, and only much later did I formulate the motives which had directed my life.

At the moment, I was lost in admiration at Floquet’s cleverness, and was delighted at the magnificent deal he had pulled off.

The price of trocas was still rising. Those I had shipped from Massawa on the
Roma
must have reached their destination long ago, and I insisted that Floquet should sell at once.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said, ‘my agent is a prudent and clever fellow, you can be sure that all that is needful has been done, and we shall soon be getting the statements.’

I kept in touch with the quotations for trocas by almost daily telegrams; suddenly the prices began to fall.

‘Are our goods sold?’ I asked Floquet.

‘Sure to be,’ he answered, ‘for they have been at Le Havre for over three weeks.’

Two days later, the market crashed, and from seven thousand francs a ton trocas fell to fifteen hundred.

Still no statements from Le Havre.

At last, by the following mail, they arrived. Floquet, colourless as usual, announced to me in his listless voice that our cargo had been sold the day after the crash. He stood up to the blow without wincing, like a good sport. Sold at this rate, he lost two hundred thousand francs on our cargo. As for me, I lost all the capital I had engaged in the enterprise.

I could not admit that such a catastrophe was possible. Why had this famous agent waited for three weeks, in spite of orders to sell at once,
and then sold the day after the fall in prices? I hinted that there was something not square about this, but Floquet protested vehemently. Besides, the agent gave most detailed and solid explanations, as they always do in such cases. He had sold the merchandise as soon as it arrived, but as he had been told to sell ‘in the best conditions’, he had thought he was doing right in fixing the payment thirty days later ‘at market price’, so sure was he of the rise. And indeed, the demand increased steadily, and no fishing expedition had yet been organized.

Yes… but… the three hundred tons of trocas from Boulaos which Floquet had thrown on the market and which were supposed to be fresh goods had stampeded the speculators; there had been a panic and the fall had been terrific.