Ylang Ylang
My father was a very moral man, but he had his own rules. He would never sin against any person, but lacking sophistication, he saw nothing wrong in breaking laws that he did not understand. Victimless crime. Thus he never questioned his right to pass contraband across the customs and excise. He earned our crust by travelling from home, Mauritius, with goods from the country to neighbouring islands of Reunion, Madagascar which were French colonies, and Rodriguez, which was a dependency of Mauritius, and came back with
produce from there. We were eleven mouths to feed, and his was a precarious trade. Also, admittedly he was not cut out for the job; he could never remain deaf to people who wanted to buy what he had but had no money. Nor did he believe in excessive profit. One of the commodities he traded in was cattle. He would usually buy 10 to 12 cows or oxen in Rodriguez Island and get them on board the SS. Zambezia which took three days to reach Port-Louis. In those days, few people worried about animal welfare, and if on arrival (say) 6 heads of cattle had perished, out of about the fifty the ship was transporting, three of them would be my old man’s. This was because people knowing his good heart would foist their sick or dying animals which no one else would buy, on him, and he could not refuse to buy them. On top of everything, the butchers who bought his stock haggled and were reluctant payees.
My mother had to be ruthless for both of them, for she was the one who had to hold the fort, with father away about six months a year. We lived on meagre payments from butchers and from sales of chicken which were also brought from Rodriguez, or whatever commodity the old man had left behind from his last trip. In those days, chicken was a delicacy which only the rich could afford, and we raised a dozen or so in our small yard, and sold them either to poultry merchants or to rich neighbours. They were caught, tied, and weighed and sold by the pound (500gms). The sale of one would see the family through a week in matters of food, bread and milk. Maman, however, would not content herself feeding the chicken earmarked for selling; she would send me to the Chinese corner shop to get ripe unsaleable bananas for a pittance, and it was my job (I was 7 or 8) to grab the hen, open its beaks and force a whole rotting banana down her throat, little bits at a time. Which later, I would learn was what they do in France to ducks when making pâté de foie gras, but for different reasons. If this did not turn lead into gold, it at least turned rotting bananas into a commodity selling at Rs 2.50 a pound.
Maman dabbled in a variety of other gainful activities so we would not go hungry. She would buy ten sacks of coal and sell them to neighbours by the bucketful. Another very painful task was sewing for the rich neighbours; I remember her at her Singer machine until midnight sometimes.
But this is a story about Ylang Ylang. This is produced in Madagascar.
Apparently tons of the Ylang Ylang flower have to be processed to extract one litre of the essence, and this, understandably cost a fortune. This was destined for the French perfume industry. After the distillation, the liquid gold was placed in bonded warehouses pending shipment to the metropole.
Unsurprisingly people operating the bonded place knew ways and means of deviating part of the treasure. But who would buy it? My father, for one. As it happens, we have a substantial Muslim population in Mauritius, and according to the Hadith, the prophet Mohammed loved to have a drop of attar on his person when he went about his daily chores. So, Muslims everywhere love a daub of attar. Now the Ylang Ylang is not really an attar, but a powerful alternative, just as fragrant and with an overpowering aroma. One drop would be too much, one poured one drop on a handkerchief, and this was passed to all the members of the family who would press the cloth against their shirt or blouse. Obviously it was forbidden to (a) steal the product, and (b) export it. But Customs Officers are known to lose their sense of smell if there is some financial inducement. And my father was not against offering such blandishments.
We would often have 2 or 3 litres of Ylang Ylang or geranium essence at home. My brother had a “chemistry box”, which was specially designed for him to ferry his tubes, flasks, pipette and spirit lamps to school when he had practical chemistry lessons, and was therefore properly equipped to carry out Maman’s instructions. A Koran reader, Syed Ahmad, would normally come in once a week to read a surat or two to bless the house, and this man, earning only a pittance for spreading the word of Allah, had to eke out a living by doing odd jobs, one of which was selling attar. He could also repair tables and chairs and fix hinges. We would buy hundreds of empty 5ml phials of dye and my chemical brother would then meticulously pipette small quantities into the small containers, which the Syed would then sell for us. We expected Rs1.00 per phial, and suppose that he sold them for Rs1.25 each. This was perhaps the most lucrative source of money for the family. But of course we were always in need! So Maman came up with the idea of diluting the essence. It would obviously not mix with water, but alcohol was a suitable solvent. So, big brother was given the task of mixing one litre of Ylang Ylang with one litre of spirits, thus doubling our profits at a stroke.
For a few months we were swimming in ill-gotten money, but this was not to last. Syed Ahmad was a very resourceful man; he had been in the army and knew a number of things. For example, he showed us once how to make a hole in a copper coin with a needle. He had come for a fresh batch of Ylang Ylang, and whilst drinking a cup of tea, he began complaining about the competition. There are people doing this trade who are completely unscrupulous, he said. Maman asked what he meant. Well, Captanine, he said, would you believe that those rascals don’t think twice about mixing their attar with haram (forbidden) alcohol. Obviously the Captanine would not stoop so low. Maman laughed dismissively. Thing is, Syed Ahmad pursued, it is so easy to catch them out. Bring a nail, he told me, and I rushed to find him one.
Now, your product is as pure as it comes, right? Maman nodded negligently. Were I to dip this nail in your product and light it, nothing would happen, but with the impure product, it would catch fire. The alcohol, you see. We all watched in wonder, hoping that was the end of the story.
‘Alcohol is haram to us Muslims. One drop of alcohol on the dress of a worshipper cause untold offence to Allah. Those rascals will burn in the flames of Gehenna.’ That was not the end of the story either.
‘Bring me a matchstick,’ he said to me. Maman was quick off the mark.
‘Syed’, she said, ‘we believe you, why teach the kids to play with fire?’ The Koran reader nodded. ‘And in any case why waste matchsticks, they cost money?’
The Syed nodded, ‘Your mother is a wise woman’, he said, and that was that.
We were all heart-broken, but Maman, practical as ever, decided that she would no longer incur the wrath of Allah, but not before the current stock had been disposed of.
‘Allah is merciful,’ she said, ‘he protects widows and orphans and understand the poor.’
