La
Licorne
FIRE
in LAHORE
While the team was
being split up for several days we started working on the inputs for the
mission report. Jens from Dean's, Rafique and Mehjabeen from their respective
homes and myself from the house of our friends in Lahore who had gone on leave.
Jens joined us in Lahore on Thursday the 16th of June when he checked in at
Hotel Faletti. The next morning Mieke and I went over to see if he was settled all
right.
A hotel from colonial
times such as Faletti consists of no more than a series of barracks, laid out
in a park-like setting. In the old times the accommodation must have been all
right, and the garden well kept. Now, however, time and greed have taken their
toll, leaving the whole place in a marginal -though just livable- state. A
covered passage links the reception and restaurant with the apartments, which
are fairly spacious, having a living room in front and sleeping facilities in
the back. Jens enjoyed Room 60, which was a so-called renovated room for which
he paid an extra charge. This meant that the bathroom had been updated, the
furniture renewed and everything freshly painted.
That very morning we
installed ourselves in the front room, where I drew my notepad and Jens started
preparing coffee somewhere in the back. When he returned we really took to work
and in no time the floor was covered with reports, maps and odd papers. Of
course, Jens was looking after the coffee as well. At a certain moment I became
vaguely aware that his attention for our important business slipped away, but I
was so deeply involved in the work myself, that I didn't notice he was going up
and down to the rear with a frequency, which could not be explained by the
fixing of some simple cups of coffee. When Jens returned once more, now with
stained face and a plume of smoke in his trail, I grasped something must have
gone very wrong there in the back.
As it turned out,
after reaching boiling point the boiler had evaporated all its water content and
had then continued heating up to the point of setting itself into flames. These
had found ample fuel in the fancy new Plexiglas bathroom fittings, which
converted into a formless sticky mass, and plenty of black smoke. When checking
on the coffee and finding the bathroom in flames, Jens had courageously started
to combat the fire. With a fine sense of manners he had tried to simultaneously
entertain his guests and to conceal the matter from them. This explained why he
had been coming and going. Alas, the smoke had given him away. Jens looked
beautiful with his mucky face, messy hair, silver eyebrows and glittering
eyelashes. We couldn't avoid having a lot of fun about this, and also Jens
acknowledged the humor of the situation, especially after the matter was
settled for a hundred bucks or so.
read on for
EPILOGUE in MOUNTAIN
TRACK