Opium Fiend

by Steven Martin

  But for Hoorde, the night was not without its complications. During the previous day he had told me that a third of the items on display belonged to an old friend of his, another Dutchman named Cees Hogendoorn, who was confined to some sort of institution. Hogendoorn had self-published an unusual book, whose cover claimed it was a “supplement” to Hoorde’s catalog and, much to Hoorde’s chagrin, Hogendoorn managed to get his book on the shelves of the Kunsthal Rotterdam bookshop. The book was oddly named Opium: The Art of Lost Collections, and between photos of the author’s opium antiques was the story of how he had come to be institutionalized. Hoorde told me about how his old friend had agreed to lend his collection for the exhibition but then later became convinced that Hoorde would keep the best pieces for himself. Was Hogendoorn really justified in thinking that his collection was “lost,” or was this an example of the collecting impulse taken to its furthest extreme—a descent into madness?

  Confiscated opium paraphernalia, including hundreds of pipes, are publicly burned in San Francisco in 1914. Though this was common practice during official campaigns to combat opium use, this particular pipe burn is notable because San Francisco’s mayor saved the most opulent pipes from incineration and had them donated to the city’s Golden Gate Museum. (From the author’s collection)

  After having dinner at a restaurant with Hoorde, his family, friends, and the museum staff to celebrate opening night, I accompanied Hoorde and his family back to their apartment where all of us—except Hoorde’s wife—had a smoke. Later Hoorde explained to me that his wife did not approve of his opium smoking, but that he and his daughter often smoked together. “I’m afraid Pearl likes it a little too much,” he said.

  I had taken an immediate liking to Pearl. She was one of those young people—in her mid-twenties at the time—whose maturity allows them to mix naturally with adults twice their age. I sat next to her during the opening night dinner, and my conversations with her didn’t make me feel old—as encounters with young people sometimes can—but instead her infectious enthusiasm made me feel half my age. Pearl had tried to talk me into accompanying her to one of Holland’s famous “coffee shops” to sample the marijuana, hashish, and mushrooms. It would have been fun with Pearl as a guide, but I begged off. Experiencing the sights and sounds of Europe for the first time was exciting enough. There was no need for hallucinations when I wasn’t yet bored with reality. Besides, I was convinced that nothing was better than opium.

  I was also beginning to acquire a taste for Hoorde’s drossy concoction. The high-morphine content gave me a buzz that I remembered from smoking at the opium dens in Laos. It was a feeling I thought I would never go back to after experiencing the sophisticated bliss produced by Willi’s fabulous chandu, but by day three in Holland I found myself craving that numbing buzz. Dross has a bad reputation that stretches way back. There are nineteenth-century paintings on rice paper done by forgotten Chinese artists that depict wretched dross smokers begging for handfuls of the potent opium ash to sustain their habits. In old China, smoking dross was the end of the line—a smoker’s declaration of abject poverty and failure.

  In old American and Canadian accounts, dross was known as “yen shee,” a loanword from Cantonese. When opium was cheap and plentiful, yen shee was used in North America as it was in China—as a way of cutting pure opium to make it last longer and give it a kick. Later, when opium in America became scarce as a result of the enforcement of anti-opium laws, the much cheaper dross was smuggled in from China as an alternative. Opium ash by itself was difficult to smoke—rolling it into a pill shape was not always possible—but dross could also be mixed with coconut oil and made into pellets that were taken orally. If mixed with sherry or port wine, yen shee became “yen shee suey”—a colorful example of an American-coined pidgin Cantonese term. However, like the drinking of laudanum, the oral consumption of any dross concoction was considered by opium smokers to be a barbaric, last-resort substitute for smoking. Dross was said to be extremely hard on the liver as well as to cause a number of uncomfortable physical side effects, such as chronic constipation. This leads us to yet another piece of vintage slang: the dreaded “yen shee baby.” This was when weeks of constipation brought on by the smoking or eating of dross culminated in a large and painful bowel movement that one imagines was accompanied by teary eyes and much cursing.

  Despite knowing the history of dross, I wasn’t too worried about smoking Armand Hoorde’s dross-heavy opium. I saw my all-expenses-paid trip to Europe as a grand holiday—something I might never in my life be able to do again. Why spoil the fun by putting limits on my opium intake? I could always cut back when I got home to Bangkok.

  The day after the exhibition opening, Hoorde declared that he was ready to take a road trip to Paris. Hoorde, Pearl, and I climbed into a black SUV and drove south through Belgium, bringing along Hoorde’s basic layout, including the ivory and tortoiseshell pipe, and a quantity of opium. He explained that France was in no way as lax toward drugs as the Netherlands, and that it was not unusual for vehicles coming from Holland to be searched at the French border. Was he joking? That was enough to sour me on the idea of a cross-border trip. Hoorde claimed that he’d done such a journey before and that we didn’t have to worry because we didn’t fit the drug-smuggler profile. If this observation was meant to be a calmative, he quickly reversed it by launching into a story about how he had narrowly avoided being searched at a police roadblock in Paris by acting like a lost tourist.

  Because I naturally tend to fall asleep when I’m worried, this information had the effect of knocking me out. When I woke up we were at a rest stop in northern France. Relieved, I asked Hoorde how the border crossing went. He laughed: “Both you and Pearl were sleeping like angels when we passed through the border. The police were there stopping cars today but they were busy searching a carload of Muslims when we came along and they let us drive right through.”

  I wasn’t sure if Hoorde was pulling my leg or not, but if it had really been a close call, I didn’t want to know. Suddenly I had a strong urge for a pipe, and I laughingly admitted this to Hoorde. “Oh, don’t worry. We will have a session as soon as we check in to the hotel. It won’t be long now!”

  On the expressway into central Paris, Pearl spotted the Eiffel Tower in the distance and pointed it out to me. “Seen it,” I quipped. I had meant to sound cheekily dismissive, but the tone was lost on them. Then, remembering how Hoorde had felt obligated to drag me to a handful of less-than-fascinating tourist sites in Holland, I thought I’d better make clear my complete lack of desire to see the famous cultural landmarks of Paris. No Champs-Élysées or Arc de Triomphe for me; no cathedrals or monuments or museums. A view of the Eiffel Tower from the expressway was more than enough. What I wanted to see were the antiques shops. I wanted to see opium accoutrements that had been carried to France on steamships; pipes that had been slowly seasoned in the sleepy ports of French Indochina; lamps that had last been lit when Brassaï was posing prostitutes around them.

  Hoorde agreed. He said that he needed to make some calls after we arrived but promised we would visit all the relevant antiques merchants. “All you have to do is help me out. I have a small favor to ask of you. Just let me confirm things first and then I will fill you in. If everything works out we will be spending many hours at the biggest Asian antiques store in all of France.”

  By late afternoon we had checked into Delhy’s Hotel, a small inn hidden down a flight of stairs in an alley off La Place Saint-Michel. Hoorde said he always stayed at this one-star place because it was quiet, cheap, and comfortable. We all shared a room on an upper floor overlooking the alleyway. Before I had even removed my coat, Hoorde and I were scouting the room for a convenient place to recline. The small room was crowded with two beds, so there wasn’t enough space on the floor to smoke. We next tried the beds themselves, but these were too soft. Because we had only a small lamp tray and lacked a wide layout tray, any movement might cause the top-heavy opium lamp with its ta
ll glass chimney to tip over and possibly spill oil on the bedclothes. Finally, we hit upon the idea of using a large coffee-table book as a foundation for the lamp tray.

  It worked. As the light outside began to wane, we pulled the curtains across the windows to ensure that nobody from the building opposite could observe our smoking session. To record the moment, Pearl stood on the bed and took photographs from above, one of which I am looking at as I write this. While Hoorde takes a draw on the tortoiseshell pipe, I stare into the glowing lamp, hypnotized.

  Later that night we took a walk along the Seine, crossing a bridge to the Île de la Cité. While descending a urine-reeking staircase we were approached by a spike-haired Arab youth who offered to sell us heroin. Instantly, Hoorde and I burst into loud guffaws, causing the drug dealer to step back and look about suspiciously before hurrying away. If only he could have seen that our eyes shone with a sharp twinkle, that rare, pupil-less glimmer that only a century ago would have been instantly recognized in Paris as the mark of an opium smoker.

  We strolled along the edge of the island, past young people strumming guitars and drinking in cross-legged circles. There was nothing menacing about the scene, and had I been tipsy with drink I might have been tempted to linger and enjoy their high spirits, but the easy bond that ties opium smokers to one another does not extend to nonsmokers, no matter how sympathetic. We walked by them as we might have strolled under a tree full of songbirds—charmed by the serenade but aware that attempting to interact with such a distant species would likely disappoint. Back at the inn we lit the lamp and smoked until the wee hours. I imagined that the grateful ghost of Jean Cocteau discovered us by following tendrils of fragrance that slipped out the window and wafted over rooftops. Hovering above our session in that little hotel room, he thanked us for bringing the pleasures of opium back to the city once known for its decadent dens in Montmartre.

  In a 1910 book about drug use called La drogue: fumeurs et mangeurs d’opium, by Dr. Richard Millant, is a photograph of an opium smoker in a Montmartre den. This wonderful photo is perhaps the best surviving image of a lavish opium-smoking establishment in France. Captioned “Un coin de fumerie Montmartroise,” it depicts a young man, looking slightly effeminate in a full-length robe and with his hair parted down the middle in the style of the 1910s, reclining on a plush couch. A Japanese screen lends privacy as he tends his ample layout, which sits on a coffee table before him. Like the Manhattan opium den described by The New York Times, the room is a mélange of Asia, an Orientalist’s fantasy of the East; not an accurate depiction but an idealized version—which is exactly how opium smokers prefer to view life anyway. The face of this mystery smoker is like a mask—ageless, unlined, serene. It is clear that he is savoring every moment of his vice.

  I had seen photographs of Jean Cocteau and knew that he did not look like this smoker in the old book, but when I imagined Cocteau smoking, this was how I saw him: pre-cure and contentedly preparing pipes, reclining on a couch in some Parisian den so willfully outlandish that it could be mistaken for the lobby of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. On that night at Delhy’s Hotel, I was certain Cocteau’s ghost was hanging like an imp somewhere above and watching—perhaps gazing down at us from the same vantage point that Pearl had captured in the photograph.

  There is another photo of me taken by Pearl during that session, and in that one I am smiling. Anyone who happened across this photo without knowing the circumstances would assume the subject was a grinning drunk lying on a rumpled bed. But it was at this exact instant that I realized why Cocteau’s cure hadn’t taken. As Pearl snapped the shutter I was celebrating Cocteau’s weakness. Of course he had gone back to the pipe. Was there something so wrong about being hooked? Wouldn’t it simply mean feeling like this all the time?

  I toasted Jean Cocteau with a last pipe and then, stunned by the dross, I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  A photograph of an opium smoker in a den in Paris from the book La drogue: fumeurs et mangeurs d’opium by Dr. Richard Millant, published by René Roger, Paris, 1910. (From the collection of Aymon de Lestrange)

  Adam Kahn was the godfather of opium antiques in Paris. We found him at his shop, after a long walk along the Left Bank that would have seemed much longer had it been anyplace else. Kahn was dressed in a suit and tie, and I later heard that he was a Holocaust survivor and wore a fresh boutonniere each day as a way of giving thanks for having survived the Nazi death camps. To me he looked presidential, less a merchant than a patient head of state who just happened to be sitting in a room full of opium pipes. Hoorde had brought along a copy of his exhibition catalog, and he and Kahn leafed through it while I browsed the shop. Kahn had generously allowed me to take photographs, and I was trying to contain my excitement and control my shaking hands so I wouldn’t have to use a flash in a shop that surely tolerated very few cameras.

  Spotting a rosewood and silver travel kit on a shelf, I spent much time trying to get a sharp shot of the intricate repoussé and chased work that some nameless Vietnamese artisan had hammered into the kit’s silver components. This was the sort of thing I had wanted to see up close, the opium relics brought from Indochina by expatriate French returning home. I am convinced there are more opium antiques in the basements and attics of France than anywhere else in Europe. But the French value their antiques, so when these items appear in shops, prices are always very high. I was lucky Monsieur Kahn allowed me to take photos—there would be no souvenirs for me from his shop.

  After visiting more shops in the same neighborhood, Hoorde and I went back to the hotel to prepare for that evening’s activities. Earlier he had given me the details of the favor he wanted to ask me. The “biggest Asian antiques store in all of France” that Hoorde had mentioned the day before was owned by a couple who were dear friends of his and who had supplied him with many opium artifacts over the years. They were also renowned for procuring antiques for some of the most discerning patrons of Asian art in Paris. The dealer couple had asked Hoorde if it would be possible to arrange a demonstration of old-time opium smoking for some of their most favored clients. Hoorde had agreed—this was why the bare-bones layout had been brought along to Paris. But the dealer couple wanted to ensure that their special guests were greatly impressed. The demonstration had to be the event of the year—and something that would be whispered about for years to come.

  Hoorde asked me if I would be comfortable preparing pipes before a live audience. I couldn’t think of any reason why not—as long as I was allowed to smoke some of the pipes I was preparing. Hoorde thought we might need one more alternate roller, and asked Maurice, the half-Lao gentleman I had met in Amsterdam, if he, too, could participate. Then Hoorde set about borrowing from a local collector the pieces of paraphernalia that were needed to make two complete layouts.

  That afternoon, Hoorde and I drove to the outskirts of Paris for the demonstration. The antiques store was a big, concrete-block box located in a strip mall—not the kind of place one pictures finding in Paris. In fact, the surrounding area could have been mistaken for suburban San Diego. Fortunately, things got better once we entered the building. Inside the cavernous store was a wooden “tea house”—a one-room structure that Hoorde claimed had been shipped from China piece by piece and then reassembled within the store. Here the dealer couple served tea to their clients while discussing the merits of items that were brought in from the larger store “outside.” From inside the tea house it was possible to forget what lay beyond it, especially after the sun went down and the dwindling ambient light through the larger glass-fronted building allowed the store to darken. Before this could happen, however, I had a chance to look over the offerings in the store’s jam-packed display cases.

  I had already told myself not to expect any bargains in Paris, but within minutes of browsing the displays I spotted a small, conch-shaped pipe bowl. The conch shell is a Buddhist symbol, and although opium paraphernalia is rife with Buddhist symbolism, I could recall seeing no more than three
or four such pipe bowls in several years of collecting. I stood there and debated whether to ask the price. The cups of oolong tea they were serving cost more than what I usually spent on a week’s worth of meals in Bangkok.

  I finally got up the nerve to ask and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the bowl was fairly priced at only 190 euros. I paid for the bowl and then showed it to Hoorde, who had been preoccupied and hadn’t seen the transaction. I did this with some dread because, despite Hoorde’s usual joviality, I had gathered that he could be ruthless and unstoppable when there was something he wanted—not to mention the fact that I was traveling on his dime. But I had to show him; it seemed wrong to hide it from him. Upon seeing the bowl his eyes bulged, his nostrils flared, and his face flushed in that way collectors’ faces do when they’ve lost out on something. I quickly offered him the bowl as a gift—and was relieved when his face relaxed into a smile. In the end, he let me keep it.

  It was nearing 10 P.M. by the time all the guests had arrived. The dealer couple locked the doors and all the lights were put out, except for two or three dim ones within the tea room. The spectators were mostly older couples, dressed to the nines, which I thought was appropriate: Opium smoking is such a rare ritual that it should be a black-tie affair. The guests occupied three sets of tables and chairs carved from rosewood. Tea was served, and then Hoorde said a few words to them in French before he, Maurice, and I took our places upon bamboo mats that had been spread out on the floor. The layout trays were perfectly arranged, the opium lamps were lit, and soon the unforgettable smell of opium permeated the room as pills were carefully toasted.