Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
us. We pulled in, the gates were swiftly closed, and Ray embarked
on elaborate cheek-kissing and introductions. After the warmth of
the car, the air into which we stepped chilled us.
Into the throng came a bony Westerner, thirty-something and
balding, his fair hair sprouting in untidy fronds that hung over
wire-rimmed spectacles and a pinched nose.
'This is Gunther,' announced Ray. 'He's my scientist - aren't
you, Gunt?' Gunt nodded blankly. I never once saw him smile. A
flaxen-haired girl holding a child of perhaps two and indeterminate
sex stood in a doorway. Mrs Gunther, I assumed, with baby Gunther.
Packing cases were being unloaded from the Range Rover, and,
introductions completed, Ray ushered me into what he termed his
'dharbar hall.'
This was a single huge room hung with elaborate woven Swati
fabrics and furnished with a low mammoth bed strewn with huge,
bright cushions, several carved armchairs, tables, and cupboards -
one of which contained state-of-the-art stereo equipment. Inside a
building with five-foot-thick walls, it spoke of loneliness.
The whole point of the remote outpost, I learned after a meal of
bread and mutton curry, was a building at the rear of the compound.
For some reason it made me think of a high-tech moonshine still
with its elaborate equipment. All of this was wired to banks of car
batteries. Most noticeable, though, was the reek of hashish. This was
where Ray manufactured his hash oil.
'The trick's in the filtering,' he told me more than once.
When the Pathans tried manufacturing hash oil on their own,
they neglected to use pure charcoal filters and ended up producing
something that smelled, looked, and smoked like old engine grease.
'You can't even
give
the shit away,' Ray yodelled incredulously.
'That's why Gunther's here.'
Dozens of portable typewriters in injection-moulded cases were
conspicuously piled in the laboratory. Here was yet another of Ray's
tricks. The cases were hollow, with about half an inch of space
between the inner and outer layers. He drilled two small holes in
them, filled them up with oil, resealed the holes with epoxy resin,
