Opium Fiend

by Steven Martin

  A few weeks after Willi had promised to introduce me to that mysterious American with an old-time opium habit, I was back at the Chamber. It was late March and the day was brutally hot. Whenever I visited during Vientiane’s oppressive summer, Willi and I spent a significant portion of the session debating the merits of installing air-conditioning. Being a purist, I resisted. How could we have an authentic experience with an air conditioner droning in the background?

  I had arrived mid-morning and by late afternoon both Willi and I were half-cooked. Through heavy lids I watched Willi holding a needle poised over the tiny wok of bubbling chandu, the yellow glare of the opium lamp reflecting in the beads of sweat that speckled his forehead and upper lip. My silk singlet was clammy with perspiration and clung to my back, but the porcelain pillow felt blessedly cool against my cheek. Willi finished preparing the pill, inhaled it with a series of short, gulping draws he called a “De Niro hit” (from the opium den scenes in Once Upon a Time in America), and let out a satisfied sigh as he blew the vapors toward the ceiling. He then announced a break by calling for the servant to bring iced coffee in the Vietnamese style—with generous dollops of sweetened condensed milk and chasers of hot tea. The coffee arrived with a plate of crumbly almond cookies, but these went untouched—it was simply too hot to eat. I sat upright on the opium bed just long enough to drink my coffee and then I let my eyelids slide shut and allowed my mind to drift, the heat and humidity forgotten. Willi and I lapsed into a comfortable silence and didn’t speak again until the sound of a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi puttering up the gravel drive made us suddenly alert. “It’s Rox,” Willi said, sliding off the bed and making his way out to greet her.

  I could hear their conversation through the vents in the walls up along the Chamber ceiling. Willi paid the taxi driver to save Roxanna the trouble, and then I could hear her steps—an unsteady crunch on the gravel—as Willi led her around to the back of the house so she didn’t have to climb any stairs.

  “Oh my, it’s dark in here!” Roxanna said as Willi guided her through the back door. She stood just inside the Chamber, letting her eyes adjust. I recognized her and noted that she had not changed at all in the ten years since I met her in Chiang Mai. Willi made introductions, but Roxanna didn’t remember me. No matter—there are no strangers in an opium den. Her pleasure and excitement at being with us was obvious, and it made me want the visit to live up to her expectations in every way. I cleared a place on the opium bed for her, moving the layout tray toward Willi’s side of the bed and putting away the picture books that he and I had been leafing through.

  Roxanna complimented Willi on the Chamber’s décor—it had been more than a year since she’d seen it last and there were many new items on display. Willi graciously pointed out that much of it was my doing and asked me to field Roxanna’s queries about the provenance of each new piece. She was most interested in some ceramic pipe bowls that had been crafted a century before in the town of Jianshui in China’s Yunnan Province. The small town was famed for an ingenious inlay technique that used clays of contrasting colors to make designs on the surfaces of ceramics such as opium pipe bowls. The breakthrough caused a sensation among opium smokers in the nineteenth century: Here were bowls that could be intricately adorned with any design imaginable—bucolic landscapes, charming still lifes, scenes from legends, poetry in characters that mimicked brushstrokes, even personalized dedications—and yet the decorated surface was perfectly smooth for rolling and impervious to heat.

  “Do you use these?” Roxanna asked, gently lifting one of the inlaid bowls from its shelf.

  “Of course,” Willi replied. “Pick a pipe stem from the rack and any bowl from the cabinet. Steven here is my pipe boy. He doesn’t yet know how to roll, but he can do just about everything else.”

  Roxanna laughed at the reference to a long-dead custom. In old China, overseas Chinatowns, and everywhere else that old Chinese culture was transplanted and took root, wealthy opium smokers employed the equivalent of a personal valet specially trained in the maintenance of opium accoutrements and, most important, in the art of preparing pipes. The pipe boy usually apprenticed in his early teens, when sharp eyesight and nimble fingers made training less of a challenge. Besides rolling, duties might also include ensuring that enough chandu was on hand in case a guest arrived unexpectedly; tending a charcoal fire during winter months to boil water for tea as well as to keep the oil for the opium lamp from congealing in the cold; scraping opium ash from pipe bowls and then collecting and storing the dross until there was a sizable enough quantity to resell to the local opium merchant for recycling. An accomplished pipe boy might also be able to play a repertoire of soothing ballads on a musical instrument such as the moon guitar.

  Some smokers prohibited their pipe boys from using opium, lest they become addicted and lackadaisical in their tasks, but secondhand vapors usually ensured that nonsmoking pipe boys in the employ of heavy smokers developed a habit over time. If a boy turned to thievery to pay for clandestine trips to public dens or began to pilfer opium from his master’s stash, it was time to apprentice a new pipe boy. On the other hand, if after years of service a smoker became attached to his valet’s skills, he might purposely get the young man addicted to preempt him from thinking seriously about looking for a wife and starting a family.

  In France’s colonies in Indochina, the practice of employing a pipe boy was such a status symbol among French opium smokers—the addicted colonials seemingly always reclining in the cool shadows alongside shirtless Vietnamese boys—that nonsmoking colonials became convinced opium could turn any virile Frenchman into a keeper of catamites.

  Roxanna chose a pipe stem from the rack of six: a lady’s pipe crafted from a gracefully slim length of bamboo and fitted with a layered Yunnanese saddle and jade end pieces. She took her time in choosing a bowl from the cabinet, holding up each to a candle as she examined the inlaid designs and chop marks. I used the delay to pass a ramrod through the pipe stem and buff its surfaces with a damp cloth.

  Roxanna’s final choice was telling: It was the obvious pick of a confirmed smoker. The bowl was from northern China, short on decorative frills but made from the absorbent Yixing clay that to this day is favored for making fine teapots—due to its purported ability to produce a more flavorful tea with each successive serving. Such pots are never washed with soap as this would strip away the delicate residue of countless teas that have steeped within them. Opium pipe bowls made from Yixing were thought to possess this same quality. As long as the bowl absorbed vapors of only the best chandu, its porous interior surface would retain a trace of the rich flavors that passed through it. With each and every pipe inhaled, the user of such a bowl came ever closer to having the perfect smoke. However, if the bowl was exposed to a single hit of oily smoke from inferior dross-laden opium, the mellow taste that it once imparted would be lost forever.

  “I’m not particularly fond of jade,” Roxanna said while wiping the end of the pipe’s mouthpiece with a crooked thumb, “But I haven’t used a lady’s pipe since the war, and something tells me this one doesn’t get much use.”

  “Then let’s breathe some life into it,” I said, taking the pipe from Roxanna and firmly pushing the bowl into the saddle’s socket. She made her way across the room and I noticed for the first time that she was using a cane. She propped it against the opium bed and sat down, the bed’s walled configuration necessitating that she slowly pull herself backward onto it. It was then I realized that one of her legs was a prosthetic.

  Willi switched on a gooseneck desk lamp that beamed down on the layout tray. I handed him the pipe and he inspected it under the lamp. Roxanna was reclining on her right hip and examining the contents of the tray. She was wearing a sleeveless smock of Khmer silk in burgundy tones that matched her short-cropped, henna-rinsed hair. Again the mother image came into my mind. Perhaps it was just that her age and petite size reminded me of my own mom. Yet I was about to discover that behind her unassuming faça
de—the frail gait and amused smile—was an eccentric character whose past was more complex and fascinating than that of any other Westerner I had met in Asia. My search for an authentic old Asia hand in Chiang Mai had been wildly successful—it just took me a decade to realize it.

  I moved one of the two drum-shaped porcelain stools at the foot of the opium bed and positioned it so that I sat between Willi and Roxanna, giving me an intimate view of them facing each other over the layout tray. Willi used an eyedropper to count seven drops of chandu into the tiny copper wok and then, pinching its ivory handle between thumb and forefinger, he perched the wok on the chimney of the opium lamp. We all watched in silence. After the first pill had been rolled Willi handed the slender pipe to Roxanna mouthpiece first, keeping hold of the end piece so he could guide the pipe bowl over the flame as she inhaled deeply. Save for the sound of the pendulum clock and the burbling of the bowl, the room was silent. Roxanna exhaled slowly with her eyes closed, and a gentle smile crossed her face. Willi began rolling another pill. “You have some catching up to do. Steven and I are way ahead of you.”

  Willi rolled five pills for Roxanna over a period of twenty minutes, and during that time I sat and listened as they talked themselves up to date. When there was finally a lull in their conversation I jumped in with a question I had been eagerly awaiting a chance to ask: “So you were in Vietnam during the war?”

  “Yes, there and Cambodia and Laos.”

  “You were in the military?” I asked.

  “I was a journalist. Freelance.”

  Roxanna took the mouthpiece of the pipe in her left hand and held it to her lips, again letting Willi steady the pipe bowl over the lamp. I noticed that she did not hold the vapors in her lungs as Willi and I habitually did—she immediately exhaled and did so with her eyes closed. When she opened them again she looked up at me and smiled, which I took as encouragement to ask another question.

  “Did you know Michael Herr?”

  “I knew friends of his.” Again, a short answer followed by a smile that I was having trouble reading. Opium makes one hypersensitive to everything, including the feelings of others. In this matter it has nearly the opposite effect of alcohol. Booze shatters inhibitions; opium fosters empathy. I wasn’t sure whether Roxanna’s reaction to my questions was a soft rebuke. I decided to make one more attempt before dropping it.

  “Tell me about somebody I might have heard of.”

  Roxanna took another draw from the pipe and then carefully shifted onto her back, rolling her head on the porcelain pillow until she faced the ceiling. Her eyes were shut and her features seemed to soften as the opium caused her facial muscles to relax. I was sure she would decline to continue the conversation—maybe even refuse to talk to me again. Willi shot me a look that said, Let her be, and just as he did, she opened her eyes and began to tell a story.

  “I was with my friends. There were about six of us, all journalists and photographers. Saigon was expected to fall that week and we were all of us there in the city. There wasn’t any need to fly out of Saigon to look for the war. The fighting was all around us.”

  Roxanna’s smile was in evidence again and I found it baffling. Later—much later—I understood her smile to be a manifestation of her acute shyness.

  “We were all at the bar of the Continental Hotel. Not the famous bar on the terrace—that was closed for fear of rocket attacks. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but the bar at the Continental was the place to go to catch news or at least rumors. I remember we were talking about the best way to cover the fall, and how we were going to get out of South Vietnam after it fell, and when. And then this stranger walked in and looked around the room like he was expecting to find somebody.”

  Willi quietly began preparing another pipe for Roxanna, his movements concise and understated so as not to distract from her story.

  “There was something about this man that made him stand out. He was very ordinary looking, and at first I couldn’t put my finger on it. He stood there between the tables looking around, and then he accidentally dropped his notebook on the floor, and when he bent down to pick it up, some other things like a pen and a pair of sunglasses fell out of his shirt pocket and hit the floor, too. The guy stooped down to get his things, and two Vietnamese waiters were also down on the floor trying to help him, giggling in that way Vietnamese do when somebody embarrasses themselves. By then we were all watching, and one of my friends said, ‘Who is that asshole?’ and right away I answered, ‘That’s Hunter Thompson.’ ”

  I sat straight up on the porcelain stool and asked, “Hunter S. Thompson?”

  “Well, yes. Rolling Stone sent him to cover the fall of Saigon. At the time I happened to be reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I must have recognized him from the author photo. I don’t remember now how I knew, but in that instant I just knew who he was.”

  “Did you get to meet him?”

  “Oh, yes. We invited him to sit with us and he did. Every one of us was very much in awe. Here we were a bunch of journalists, most of us freelancers or stringers, and in walks this famous writer on assignment for a magazine that we all admired. He ordered a drink, and the others were kind of stunned into silence, and since I was reading his book, I ended up doing most of the talking.”

  Willi had finished rolling. The pill of opium was stuck to the bowl and just waiting to be reheated. Roxanna noticed this and reached across the tray, prompting Willi to hand her the pipe. She didn’t speak as she took the pipe into both hands, this time holding it over the flame without any assistance. It was a long, sustained draw on a pill flawlessly rolled and perfectly vaporized. Roxanna closed her eyes and slowly exhaled with a sigh that concluded in a barely audible coo of bliss. For long seconds she lay silent, and I guessed that her opium-rushed memories were becoming vivid.

  “Hunter offered to buy me a drink, but instead I asked him if he wanted to go back to the apartment to smoke opium,” Roxanna said with a chuckle. “He said he’d never tried it and he didn’t seem too keen, but the others were excited at the idea of having Hunter Thompson as a guest at the apartment, and everyone was saying, ‘Come on! It’s just down the street!’ so he finally agreed.”

  “Was the apartment on Tu Do Street?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember exactly. It was so long ago. It wasn’t my place—I lived with a Vietnamese family in another part of town. The apartment was rented by some friends, and it was where we used to hang out whenever we were in Saigon.”

  Saigon! Hearing that city’s former name always gave me a thrill. I had visited Ho Chi Minh City for the first time in April 1993. Vietnam had just opened its doors to unrestricted tourism the week before I arrived. No longer was it necessary to hire a government guide—really an official babysitter—at an exorbitant rate. No longer was most of the country off-limits. Except for Russians, Ho Chi Minh City had hosted very few Westerners since 1975 and the city still had an occupied feel about it. Vietnamese men and women approached me constantly during my stay, stopping me with a tap on my shoulder or by clasping my arm—alarming to somebody who has grown accustomed to Thailand where grabbing at strangers is considered rude. The Vietnamese wanted to know if I was American, and then they grilled me about lost relatives who had fled to California or Texas or some state they couldn’t remember how to pronounce.

  In Ho Chi Minh City at the time, one of the only sites being actively promoted by the national tourism authority was the Museum of American War Crimes, a hall in which the walls were covered with greatly enlarged photographs of Vietnamese civilians with horrific wounds, and the display shelves were crowded with ghastly jars of pickled fetuses said to be victims of Agent Orange. Partly to assuage my guilt after emerging from this chamber of horrors, I lingered at the museum gift shop and ended up buying a green pith helmet of the type the North Vietnamese Army had worn during the war. While riding in a pedicab back to my hotel I unthinkingly put the hat on, but not more than a few seconds passed before the pedicab driver leaned into my
ear and whispered with real anger, “VC no good!”

  The helmet, of course, immediately came off.

  On a subsequent visit to Ho Chi Minh City a mere two years later, I found that the mood of the former capital of South Vietnam had changed. Those intimations that old Saigon was an occupied city—displaying all those Uncle Ho portraits against its will—were gone, and I walked the streets alongside crowds of backpackers, eliciting no more attention from the locals than anyone else.

  I tried to imagine the Saigon that Roxanna had known, a desperate place that I could detect only hints of during my first trip in 1993. What I hadn’t seen were any signs of the decadence and hedonism for which the city was known back when it was a springboard to war. In Ho Chi Minh City of the 1990s there were no prostitutes on Hondas yelling bawdy offers in pidgin English. There were no bars with names meant to elicit homesickness in young American soldiers. There were certainly no longer any opium dens to be found. I envied Roxanna her exciting past—the Southeast Asia she had seen and lived.

  “Opium was illegal at the time but then so was prostitution and gambling and everything else Saigon was known for,” Roxanna continued. Willi was unhurriedly preparing another pipe, pausing between steps to give full attention to her story. “There was one opium den we used to go to, but we couldn’t go as a big group because there just wasn’t enough room and it would have been too disturbing for the other patrons. I often used to go by myself, sometimes with one other person, but if there were more than two wanting to smoke, the apartment was much more comfortable.”

  “Did you roll your own pipes?” I asked.

  “I could roll for myself and maybe one other person, but if there was a crowd I wasn’t fast enough to keep people from getting impatient. So whenever a bunch of us wanted to smoke at the apartment we used to telephone the opium den and ask them to send over one of their attendants to roll for us. Half an hour later he would show up on his bicycle with a pipe and lamp in a wooden carrying case. Inside was a kit full of little drawers and everything you needed to smoke opium—all the tools, oil for the lamp, all of it was there.”