Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories

by Howard Marks

  Petros went off immediately to fetch a sample of his hashish. I wondered how I was to give an intelligent opinion on it, and not betray the fact that it was the first I had ever seen. I didn’t even know how the quality was indicated. I was afraid of making a fool of myself and revealing my ignorance, for after that I could be sure that all the poor stuff which had been unsaleable would be joyfully palmed off on me. I fell back on a method which is often useful. So far as possible, I would be silent. Petros came in with a fragment of brownish matter in his hand. He immediately gave me the clue to how to test the value of his merchandise, by proceeding to sniff. Then he took a piece and rolled it between his fingers into a slender cone, to which he put a match. It burned with a tiny and rather smoky flame, and when he hastily extinguished it, a heavily perfumed white smoke arose from it. In my turn I took a piece and went through exactly the same manoeuvres, only, having noticed how quickly he put out the flame, I on the contrary let it burn. Then in silence, with a cold and rather disdainful air, I held it out to him. He interpreted my silence according to his fears, and instantly exclaimed: ‘Oh, but don’t be afraid, I have better stuff than this. Only I thought this might perhaps interest you; it is much cheaper.’

  I replied with dignity: ‘I have not come such a long way to buy cheap stuff. Please show me your best at once.’

  He vanished, and returned in a moment with a piece of the same matter, but less brittle and of a greenish hue. He went through the same gestures, but this time the flame was long and very smoky, and he complacently let it burn. That, thought i, is probably the sign of really good quality. Now I knew how to buy hashish. I declared myself satisfied, and we settled on the quantity I was to buy, four hundred okes (six hundred kilograms), at the price of twenty francs the oke. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘we’ll go and fetch the goods from the warehouse where they are stored.’

  A servant girl brought us little wax torches, and two hefty workmen armed with huge cudgels accompanied us. Petros opened a vaulted door, behind which a stone staircase led down into the cellars. A musty smell of damp rose from this underground passage, and almost at once we came to a crypt hewn out of the living rock. In this vault, which was circular in form, sacks were piled up; this was the hashish crop of the current year. The two workmen picked out the number of sacks which corresponded to the weight I had ordered, put them in the middle of the floor, then fell upon them with their sticks, in order to break up the contents and reduce them to dust.

  We must have formed a strange group. First there was Papamanoli, the priest, in his flowing black robes, and beside him, Petros, holding in his hand a piece of white paper, into which he put a sample from each sack. Each of us held aloft a little wax taper in order to give light to the men who were beating so furiously on the bulging sacks. Our shadows danced fantastically along the vaulted roof, and the bats, panic-stricken and blinded by the light, bumped their horrid soft bodies against us, making the flames of our candles flicker. I shall never forget this scene, though the others seemed quite unconscious of its picturesque quality. Petros poured the different samples from his paper into a little bag, which he gave me as indicating the average quality of my hashish. The sacks were then carried into a barn, so that the icy cold of the night should prevent the powdered hashish from coagulating afresh.

  Next morning I was awakened by a humming activity which filled the house like the murmur of a beehive. In the barn into which we had carried the sacks, a crowd of workers were going to and fro through a thick dust. In the middle of the room was a sort of table consisting of a very fine metal sieve set up on four legs. On it the hashish was being thrown in spadefuls. A big sheet was wrapped round the outside of the table legs to prevent the fine powder which fell from the sieve from blowing away. Women with their heads swathed in handkerchiefs were spreading out and sifting the powder. After this, men shovelled it into an enormous iron basin in order that it should be well mixed. Madam Petros was sitting before a sewing-machine, feverishly running up little white linen bags. These she passed to a woman who stamped an elephant on them with a rubber stamp. She in turn passed them to a third woman who filled them, weighed them with great care, and finally tied them up. They were then put in neat piles into a great press. When there were a certain number between the steel plates, a muscular workman tightened the vice and the sacks flattened out slowly until they were like square pancakes four centimetres thick. These pancakes were hard as wax; this is the form in which hashish is exported, and the elephant was Petros’ trade-mark. From time to time he himself lent a hand to the brawny fellow who was working the press. I looked at the latter with interest. He was very tall; I could not see his face, as his head was covered with a towel with small eye-holes bored in it, but his eyes seemed vaguely familiar, and suddenly I realised that they were the eyes of Papamanoli. At this moment, having finished, he laughingly removed his improvised cowl, freeing his luxuriant beard and his hair, which had been rolled on top of his head. This priest seemed to take everything as a matter of course, and nobody seemed surprised to see him helping at a busy moment.

  This hashish powder had gradually excited the men and women working with it, and they began to sing at the tops of their voices, and joke and laugh like mad things over nothing. I took part in this crazy gaiety like the rest, and even the plain little niece from Tripolis grew quite flirtatious. Fortunately, the work was soon completed, or I don’t know how it would all have ended. Outside, a plumber soldered the zinc linings of the packing-cases in which the hashish pancakes were to be packed.

  For those who are interested I shall describe briefly how the hashsish comes to the state in which I had first seen it, powdered and stored in sacks in the cellar. The fields in which the hemp grows are carefully weeded and all the male plants are pulled out. The female plants which remain cannot therefore bear seeds, and the result is that the leaves become fully charged with resinous matter. The secretion of this sticky substance is further increased by breaking off the tops of the plants as they grow. When the first leaves, that is to say the lowest ones, turn yellow, the plants are carefully cut down about four inches from the ground, so as not to soil them with earth or sand. Then the crop is dried in the shade and stacked in barns. Some growers only keep the leaves, for the stems are of no value whatever. On very cold winter days, when there is a keen frost and the waxen matter secreted by the leaves has become brittle as resin, the dried plants are broken up by rubbing them between two sheets of canvas. This gives a dust made up of broken leaves and the resin which is the active part of hashish. This resin gives the powder the property of forming a sort of cake when pressed, and of softening when heated.

  All the farms in this district prepared hashish; it was their chief industry. Each estate had its brand, quoted on the market, and there were good and bad years, exactly as for wines.

  Hashish, 1935

  Howard Marks

  Ketama

  CENTRED ON KETAMA (a small village a hundred miles from Tangier which once showed promise as a ski centre and hunting paradise) and on top of pine-covered crests of otherwise barren mountains lies the source of most of the world’s imported hashish. The area increases every year and now covers several thousand square miles, stretching to twenty-five miles from Tangier. Almost every terraced field in the area with a water source is filled with kif plants that are planted in February and harvested in summer, when the raw plants are cut and bundled for donkey and mule transport to the homestead where they dry on hot tin roofs for up to a week. When fairly crisp, the bundles are stacked in the cool interior and stored for one to six months. The timing was excellent: they would be making hashish right now. A few well-placed phone calls to old friends soon provided an invitation to come and sample the latest produce.

  I took the S302 north out of Fez. This was the Route de l’Unite, finished in 1963 and built by the recently deceased King Hassan II as the first north–south route across the Rif, which had previously uncomfortably symbolised both its own isolation and the separ
ateness of the old Spanish and French colonial zones. All travel guides to Morocco, including the Lonely Planet, strongly advise giving it a miss. They warn of hooded drivers of Mercedes cars ambushing unwary visitors and press-ganging them to become dope dealers. I saw nothing like that; I must have come at the wrong time. But the road does go through Ketama.

  Within hours of leaving Fez, I watched as bundles of cannabis plants were beaten with sticks over a tub covered with a sieve. At first just the good resin (destined to become the much sought-after ‘double zero’) got through, then eventually, after dozens of repetitions, the resin-starved powdered leaf. The sieved resinous powder was compressed and heated, binding the vegetable matter. The resin (varying in colour from light yellow brown to reddish brown) was then compressed into blocks and sealed with Cellophane or cloth.

  I waited until sundown and tried the ‘double zero’. A battered cassette player hung from a tree and blasted out a medley of Creedence Clearwater Revival and swing jazz. Mint tea and fruit juice flowed. Birds perched on sacks of hash. Pet monkeys played with wild cats.

  Maria Golia

  Nile-Eyes

  It’s good to know the truth but it’s better to speak of palm trees.

  – Egyptian Proverb

  CAIRO’S HASHISH QUARTER, inner sanctum of the medieval portion of the city, was called ‘Batneyya,’ a poetic nomination since the word derives from the Arabic for ‘belly’ and ‘nourishment.’ There was a market place, a small clearing or square surrounded by cafés, shops and houses, like anywhere else in the Old City. Fellaheen herded sheep, goats nibbled piles of alfalfa, chickens squawked from their cane crates, women hawked vegetables from hemp baskets while their barefoot children played beside them. The only difference was that in the center of this rustic scene was a row of wooden tables furnished with scales and bricks of yellow and red Cellophane-wrapped hashish.

  Men crowded around the tables and made their purchases in units called ‘ersh,’ equal to about four grams. Cigarettes were used to counterbalance the scale. Orders were placed and small chunks removed from the mother-hunk with startling precision either by tooth or knife. The going price was about a half-dollar per gram. A more elite public shopped from the relative discretion of a house just behind the square in a cul-de-sac. It had three grilled street-level windows in the façade, each one corresponding to a different grade of hashish. People lined up according to their preference for Lebanese fresh or Lebanese aged and compressed, or, for the economy-minded, Lebanese moldy, something that had suffered somewhat in the transport.

  A man named Mohamed Marzouk, a fearless dealer whose exploits were the stuff of popular odes, operated this little convenience shop. At a time when the TVs and radios were spouting propagandist drivel praising Sadat in saccharine song, parodies were derived from the melodies in honor of this chubby smuggler. The fruit of his efforts was the source of what little enjoyment there was to be had by a large market segment. Mohamed Marzouk was loved and his life and freedom held sacred.

  I was allowed past a long series of watchers and guards into the house. It was empty except for a few chairs and a table where the great man sat counting a thick wad of bank notes with hypnotizing dexterity. When he finished he looked up and greeted me, slapping my hand. He was somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, balding and stout, dressed Western style with a large turquoise ring set in gold. He asked me if I had completed my military service yet. This was his little joke, referring to the fact that I dressed like a boy. I had my camera and wanted very much to photograph Marzouk.

  ‘Still working for the Israelis?’ he asked amiably.

  ‘Only on Saturdays,’ I told him and he chuckled. We’d met in a nearby café operated by one of his lackeys and he’d remarked my ability to imbibe an astounding number of gozas in a single sitting. This talent attracted attention and rumors circulated to explain my frequent presence in the district. I was an Israeli or Egyptian spy. I was a whore, a lesbian, a transvestite or mad. Marzouk, an excellent student of human nature, knew that I wasn’t and rewarded me with lumps of provender.

  ‘Look, I’d like to take your picture sometime, OK?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re beautiful,’ I extemporized. He guffawed and slapped his thigh and called out to one of his lackeys to bring him something. His man came running and thrust a fist-sized chunk of hashish into Marzouk’s hand. He admired it for a moment, turning it around and around, then bit into it like an apple and gave me a piece glistening with saliva and bearing the imprimatur of his incisors. I thanked him profusely and headed back toward the square where I saw my good friend Samy who was doing some shopping.

  Latter-day dragoman, linguist and procurer, Samy was an Egyptian youth who helped me to navigate the labyrinth of Cairo. He was a trifle bug-eyed but had exemplary teeth that he habitually covered with his hand when he spoke as if to reveal their perfection would be unseemly. His father had recently died, having spent the last years of his life immersed in the Koran and making the annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. In response to his death Samy started to lose hair and take tranquilizers. He was just eighteen. Flattered by my interest in his neighborhood, he led me deeper and deeper into the less accessible areas. We paused at regular intervals to visit the numerous cafés serving coffee, tea and more potent refreshment, hashish, ‘fresh from the trees’ as Samy said.

  Samy contributed to the local economy by lightly fleecing bewildered tourists who ventured into the souk where he was born and raised. Hands in his pockets with his slouching, easy gait he made his approach: ‘Hello my friend, how can I help you on this beautiful day?’ He had a spiel in seven languages including Japanese and Russian. He singled out straggling, sweating victims from the mainstream of pedestrians with the precision of an Arab archer picking off sun-struck Crusaders.

  He took them to a quiet courtyard that was once a silk caravansary, set them down to cool and served them mint tea. Then he produced the articles they had seen along the way that had interested them; brass trays, cotton scarves and papery leather poufs. Samy made a show of negotiating with the tourists, implying that they were tough bargainers. When he felt they were gratified, rested and thoroughly broke, he gathered them up and returned them to their group or their bus like the most conscientious of sheep dogs. Then he pocketed a commission from the happy tourists and his friends, the local merchants, sometimes in the form of fragrant morsels of hash, this being one of the quarter’s many negotiable currencies.

  Samy and I took a liking to each other. We profited from our friendship by asking questions regarding our cultures. Like most Egyptians his age Samy visualized America as a combination of Disney Land, Times Square and cattle ranch peopled by eccentric Texas billionaires, hard-nosed detectives, gorgeous blondes and pistol-packing troublemakers, all of whom drove big cars and ate steaks on a regular basis. This, to him, was clear. Other aspects of daily life were less understandable. One evening as we made our way along the tangled paths to Batneyya, Samy broached a difficult subject.

  ‘So, when they die in America,’ he hazarded, hands stuffed in his pockets, ‘do the women go screaming through the streets, like they do here?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I was busy trying not to stumble while dealing with the narrow pitted streets and the hillocks of mud and sand displaced by daily hosings and endless human and animal traffic.

  ‘And what about when they go into the hole?’ Samy persisted, smoothly veering to the right to allow a man riding a bicycle balancing an immense rattan tray holding fifty kilos of flat bread on his head to pass.

  ‘Well, they put them in a box, then they put them in a hole,’ I replied, distracted by the appearance of a young girl skipping rope without the rope.

  ‘With the box and everything?’ Appalled, Samy turned to me in a rare moment when we were able to walk abreast. I did a neat hip-tuck and barely missed collision with a man exiting a doorway carrying an enormous ball of twine.

  ‘Of course,’ I answered, a trifle strid
ent. ‘What do you think, they just throw him naked into some hole, for God’s sake?’ Samy shook his head in distress at my tone, because that is exactly what his people do, except with a shroud, usually.

  ‘No,’ I continued self-righteously, ‘they put him in a proper box first, then they stick him in the hole.’ Samy didn’t quite get it but we’d arrived at the café belonging to ‘Oota’ (the cat). We greeted the occupants of this vine-covered sidewalk establishment and took our places on wooden chairs whose seats were decorated with the graceful, albeit incessantly humiliated, profile of Cleopatra.

  A twelve-year-old pipe boy placed a tall tin table between us and shuffled off. He returned with a tray of ten crude clay pipe bowls filled with rough-cut, molasses-soaked tobacco. Samy took a piece of hashish from its hiding place behind his ear and started biting off bits that he flattened into dime-sized disks with his gleaming teeth, placing a piece atop each of the pipe bowls.

  The pipe boy returned with the pipe, or ‘goza,’ in one hand, and a small tea strainer full of glowing coals in the other. The goza is made from a big jar filled with water and closed with a rubber plug from which protrude two cane sticks; a short one where the clay pipe bowl fits, and another about as long as a man’s arm, from which one smokes. The boy made the tiny coals glow moving the strainer in small arcs with deft twists of his wrist. It’s a trick of the trade, relying on centrifugal force that makes mesmerizing ruby-red trails of light.

  The pipe boy planted a pipe bowl on the short stick, spooned a few coals on top of the hashish with a worn and bent tin spoon and proffered the business end of the contraption to me. Several firm but not complete draws to get the thing going, then one long pull, straight to the bottom of the lungs, followed by a slow controlled exhalation, preferably uninterrupted by an explosive cough.