Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale (34 page)

Where had I seen this man? When one has only seen someone in sun
helmet and linen suit, it is difficult to recognize him bareheaded and in pyjamas. He was now drawing towards him a youngish but very fat woman with a halo of fuzzy, too fuzzy, hair. She in her turn leaned over the side yawning widely, and her cavalier pointed me out to her with as much excitement as if I had been some rare animal or curious object. I gave a vague smile and salute, still not having the faintest idea who they were, and they disappeared from my sight.

The doctor had had to get up early because of the arrival of the liner, so while he was at it he came and visited the
boutres
too. Three
boutres
, including mine, had come in since the day before. The respective crews were lined up on the quay before the Health Offices, in charge of their
nacoudas
. The medical visit consisted simply in noting that as the men stood upright they must be in good health, and the pratique was given at once. At last the doctor came towards me; he seemed to have kept me purposely to the last. I greeted him in Italian. He smiled and replied in excellent French, then looked at me with lively interest.

‘All your men are in good health, aren’t they? That’s all right then. Well, go back on board your
boutre
, and I’ll send you an askari with your pratique.’

‘Why not give it me now?’

‘I must advise the Commissioner of your arrival; it is the custom when there are Europeans on board a vessel, but it won’t take long.’

I was not at all pleased, and informed him gruffly that I had simply put in at Massawa for provisions. If there was going to be so much fuss and delay, I would just as soon give up the idea and raise anchor.

‘I’m not a prisoner, so far as I know,’ I wound up.

‘No, no, don’t be angry. You know very well that in the colonies things go slowly. If you are in urgent need of stores I can have some sent to you.’

‘I only need one thing urgently, and that is my pratique. I have also a telegram to send to your governor at Asmara,’ I added after a brief silence; ‘it is about a rather serious business, and since you force me to tell you, that is the real reason I put in here. Apart from that I have nothing to do at Massawa.’

The doctor’s face grew grave and he spoke as if to a sick man one encourages in spite of the fact that all is over with him:

‘Take my advice and go back to your ship; I’ll return in half an hour.’

So I waited. What could I do? But I wondered what all this meant. The
minutes went by, and there was no sign of his return. It was already half-past nine, and for two hours I had been watching the bustle on the quay, getting more and more uneasy. Suddenly I saw a man in the crowd making signs to me, and there was the couple I had seen on the liner. Now that he was dressed I recognized him: it was Temel, the captain to whom Besse had introduced me at Aden, when I was building our schooner. (See
Aventures de Mer
.) We shouted a few remarks to each other, and it was agreed that I should come on board the liner as soon as I got my pratique.

At ten o’clock a Tigrean askari came with a carriage to drive me to the Commissioner’s house. We went along the quays in style behind a high-stepping pony, the askari sitting beside me, very imposing with his tall fez adorned with a long feather like a lightning-conductor. The Greek merchants were already lolling on the terraces of the cafés before their glasses of water; they looked at me in astonishment, for they were accustomed to salute this tilbury, belonging to the Commissioner.

The Residency was a sort of Oriental palace, dazzlingly white, reminding one of the architecture of colonial pavilions in fairs like Wembley, where Moorish dancers perform in pasteboard mosques. A young secretary was waiting for me at the door, and took me at once to his chief, who welcomed me courteously and gave me a cigarette. I was installed in an arm-chair and the typist discreetly withdrew.

‘Excuse me if I have delayed your landing,’ began the Commissioner, ‘but I wanted to see you immediately. It was you who wrote to His Excellency the Governor about the affair at Takalaï, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes; it was me, and I came to Massawa on purpose to give you any explanations you might require.’

‘On the contrary, we owe you, not explanations, but apologies for the conduct of this askari who dared to appear before you not in uniform. He has been punished, of course. All the same, though he was at fault, there were some extenuating circumstances. The day before your visit he had been warned that there was a question of a Turkish landing, and that spies would be sent ahead to find out how the land lay. Our troops had not had time to get to this point, which we knew to be weak, and the native guards had been told to be on the alert, so that when he saw you the askari was terrified. You can easily imagine how this unfortunate coincidence accounts for the attitude of this handful of soldiers, already
in’a state of feverish excitement. All that was most regrettable, and might have had very serious consequences.’

I had some difficulty in keeping my face straight as the Commissioner gravely laid forth this official version which had been adopted. But he did not look at me as he spoke, perhaps because he was tempted to smile too.

‘Anyhow,’ he concluded, ‘in spite of the trouble you might have got into, since you had fired on Italian soldiers –’

‘I beg your pardon,’ I interrupted quickly, ‘the first shot was fired in the air to alarm a native whom I had no means of recognizing as a soldier.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, and His Excellency fully recognized this point. All the same, if the minister at Rome had known about it, our Government might have been obliged to take measures, whose severity would have been justified by the fact that we are at war. His Excellency found it preferable to take no notice whatever of your letter, on condition that for your part you kept silent about the whole business.’

‘You can be sure, sir, that I had already guessed how His Excellency would look at the matter, and I came to Massawa especially to assure him of my absolute discretion about an incident due to the carelessness and lack of discipline of one of his subordinates.’

‘It is to your interest to be silent, at any rate,’ added the Commissioner, just to indicate that his delicate courtesy, if not understood, would be backed up by threats.

‘Let’s say “our interest” if you like, ‘I corrected smilingly, ‘and I shall be much obliged to you. Please convey to His Excellency my profound respects, and assure him of the friendliness and admiration I feel for his beautiful Italy, our Latin sister, etc’

And off we went into a regular lyrical duet, assuring each other of the cordial friendliness our two countries had felt for each other since the beginning of time, as everyone knows.

I had still time before lunch to go on board the liner to see Ternel. I asked everybody I met where Captain Ternel was to be found, but the white-gloved stewards and the courteous head steward searched for him in vain. Nevertheless, he was somewhere on the ship. At last a Chinese boy, to whom as a last resource I put the question, grinned ironically all over his wrinkled face and replied:

‘Monsieur and Madame have been shut up together in the bathroom the last hour.’

The head steward raised shocked eyes to heaven. I sent the Chinese boy, since he was so well informed, to tell the young couple that the Trench gentleman’ was waiting for them in the smoking-room. Ternel appeared at last, rather confused at having kept me waiting so long. His wife followed. He felt obliged to explain this prolonged bath on sporting grounds, but at the same time he took a certain pleasure in giving me to understand that it was a very creole sport he had been indulging in. Madame simpered and blushed and nudged him in the ribs, crying affectedly:

‘Oh, Edward, how can you!’

I was afraid they were going to begin again right there in the smoking-room, but luckily the barman appeared and saved me.

‘Cocktail?’ asked Ternel.

‘No, thank you; I know it is the American fashion, but I prefer a glass of port.’

He settled into an arm-chair opposite me, near enough for confidences, and said:

‘I could see you did not recognize me when I said good morning to you. No doubt you were much astonished to see me here. But I had never forgotten you, and something told me that one day my lucky star would bring you across my path. Ah, lucky dog of a Monfreid, you.’

And he slapped me familiarly on the shoulders. In three minutes we were as thick as thieves.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘you have the devil’s own hick. You wonder why I am saying that? Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve been trying to see you, or at least to get in touch with you, for a long time. Not long ago I was at Aden, and I asked Besse where you were, but he shrugged his shoulders and said he was no longer interested in you. Did you quarrel with him?’

‘Not exactly; I’m surprised you don’t know Besse yet. I simply ran through the usual cycle of the friendships of Monsieur Besse. One begins by being his inseparable friend and collaborator, and one ends up by being considered as a boring idiot. That’s what happened in my case. But what are you doing on this liner? Are you leaving India, and why do you say I am so lucky at meet you, setting aside the pleasure I feel at seeing you again?’

‘It’s quite simple; I have just started a wonderful business. It’s not public yet, but you are a friend and I can trust you.’

He looked warily round the empty room, then continued:

‘Don’t let’s stay here, let’s go up on deck. These smoking-rooms have very strange acoustic properties sometimes; one must be on one’s guard. Once I heard a whole conversation, although it was carried on in whispers; I heard every single word.’

‘Perhaps you have very acute hearing. You wouldn’t like anyone to play the same trick on you. You are right, one should always beware of inquisitive and indiscreet people.’

He laughed as if the veiled insolence I had just uttered were the rarest of compliments. We were now alone on the quarter-deck, but in spite of this fact Temel spoke in a whisper.

‘I resigned from my shipping company in order to launch a big business, as I told you. Along with some friends I formed a limited liability company. You must know that in India there is a big trade done in something which grows in the country, and which no one has hitherto thought of exploiting for export. People try to make money in the most complicated ways, when fortune is there in a coster’s barrow.’

What did this wretched creole mean? Surely he wasn’t thinking of the same thing as Stavro had suggested to me? Was he going to spoil everything by blundering into this delicate question I had resolved to study to my advantage? I had beads of apprehension on my brow.

‘But what is this product of the country which the people use, you seem to suggest?’

‘Ah, that’s the question. You would never guess.’

‘Obviously not,’ I returned crossly, ‘since I don’t know India.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you; it’s fresh coco-nuts.’

I thought I was not hearing properly.

‘Yes, fresh coco-nuts,’ he went on. They are sold as refreshments in every street in Bombay. The merchant cuts off the end of a fresh nut and you drink the milk, which is a sparkling, delicious and refreshing beverage. My idea, and you’ll see how clever it is, is to launch this fashion in Paris. You can just imagine the success it will have on the boulevards and in the public gardens. I thought of having dainty little hand-carts brightly painted with designs based on the foliage of the coco-palm, and with the merchant dressed in native fashion, of course. If the nuts were sold at a
franc each, I should have a net profit of ten centimes, and in Paris alone I could sell ten thousand a day. Pretty good, that, a thousand francs profit a day. And when you add all the other towns in France…’

Ternel went off into a dream of millions. The whole of Europe would soon be rolling along on coco-nuts. I wondered if he were pulling my leg, or if he had organized this grotesque business as a screen for something else. But no, he was perfectly serious.

‘We are putting up our shares for sale,’ he went on, delighted with my thunderstruck air, which he mistook for admiration; ‘oh, a very small capital – only fifty thousand francs to start with. I have thought of a name for our company, very simple, once you’ve thought of it. I would call it “The Coco-nut”.’

The relief I felt when I realized he was serious helped me to keep from laughing outright. This fellow was a typical creóle, credulous as a child, seeing everything through the rosy mist of his imagination, and utterly incapable of managing a business. However, these people can become cynical, immoral and dangerous with disconcerting lack of conscience; Ternel was to furnish yet another proof of this later on. This comes from their admixture of Negro blood, perhaps, which no prejudice of caste is strong enough to counteract many generations after it took place.

Ternel went on raving for a little longer, then got round to trying to sell me shares in ‘The Coco-nut’. I gave an evasive reply, favourable enough to let him keep his illusions and be disposed to answer the questions I wanted to ask. In my turn, by various detours I arrived at what I wanted to know.

‘Do you know what the Indians smoke?’ I asked. ‘What is this product that the sepoys get every week as our soldiers get their allowance of tobacco?’

‘H’m… I don’t know; I really never noticed, unless you mean charas or ganja? One is a sort of paste, and the other consists of dried leaves. It is hemp, I think. These products have to be sold as opium is sold in India, in shops which have a special licence.’