The Leveling

“He means the opium.”


Even if staying sharp hadn’t been a factor, which it was, Mark didn’t trust himself with opiates. It had been over twenty years ago, but for a short time he had been a heroin addict—the result of being abducted and interrogated for months on end by the KGB. The idea had been to get him hooked and then withhold the drug to entice him to talk. The tactic would have worked if he’d had anything of value to tell his captors. Since then he’d stayed away from the stuff.

“Tell him I’m sick and that tea will be more than enough.”

Sounding embarrassed, Nuriyev said, “I already tell him I am sick.”

“Then I guess I caught what you had.”

Nuriyev’s uncle looked unhappy about the refusal. Mark figured the old man needed his fix but didn’t want to violate some unwritten rule of hospitality by smoking alone. The tea soon came, brought out in a metal thermos. Mark accepted a cup and a cube of sugar.

Switching back to Turkmen, Nuriyev said, “I must tell you this is not entirely a social visit, Uncle. Do you remember my brother Alty?”

Nuriyev’s uncle placed three cubes of sugar into his tea and listened with a bored look on his face as Nuriyev launched into a mostly fictional account of why he thought his brother may have crossed into Iran.

“Have you seen him recently?” asked Nuriyev.

His uncle began to cough, and then he took a Camel cigarette—a rare luxury in Turkmenistan—from a pack that lay on the floor by his feet. “Your father is a stubborn man.” He rolled the cigarette between his tobacco-stained thumb and index finger. “Surely you know that he would not allow Alty to visit us.”

“I am here.”

“And does your father know?”

“I am not my father.”

Nuriyev’s uncle lit his cigarette with a wooden match, which he then blew out and carefully placed on top of an overflowing ashtray. “I have not seen your brother. If I do, I will send word.”

“What about Murat?”

“My son has not seen Alty either.”

“They used to be friends.”

“Your father ended that.”

The power went off, causing Nuriyev’s uncle to yell something about a generator to his wife. Then he turned to Mark. “Every day at this time the electricity goes off. But does it ever go off in Ashgabat? No, there they have all the electricity they want. Nobody cares about the villages.” A minute later a loud engine started rumbling, the television came back on, and the house began to smell of diesel exhaust.

“Alty told me that Murat came to see him at the British Pub one year ago,” said Nuriyev. “They have been in contact since then, I’m sure of it.”

The old man took a sip of his tea.

Nuriyev said, “I need you to ask Murat about Alty.”

“You don’t tell me what I need to do.”

Nuriyev lowered his head. After a time he said, “I am not telling you, I am asking you, Uncle. I am asking you to help me.”

Mark waited a moment for Nuriyev’s uncle to respond. But the old Turkmen just sat there smoking like some debauched Buddha, so Mark stood up.

“Enough of this crap,” he said in English. With one kick, he sent the old man’s tea thermos and pack of Camel cigarettes sailing across the room. The thermos hit the far wall and splattered tea everywhere, and the cigarettes flew out of their box. Switching to Turkmen, he said, “I’m here as an observer from the United Nations, as part of a group that is monitoring opium trafficking. Alty is important to us, for reasons I don’t intend to discuss with you. If you want to stay in business, you’ll help us find him. If you don’t, I’ll have your pathetic smuggling operation shut down tomorrow.”

The room went silent.

Nuriyev looked utterly appalled at what Mark had done. To his uncle he said, “I did not come here with the intention of interfering with your business.”

“I only trade alcohol now,” muttered Nuriyev’s uncle. Mark observed the old man’s fingers shaking slightly as he took a long drag off his cigarette.

Wagging his finger, Mark said, “I can tell you this—nobody gives a donkey’s ass about your business right now. But they will soon if you don’t answer the questions.”

The old man turned to Nuriyev. “You bring this filth into my home?”

“Get Murat,” said Mark.

At that moment the front door opened. A stunted, emaciated young man of about twenty, with the same olive skin and almond-shaped eyes as Nuriyev, appeared. He wore a button-down short-sleeve polyester dress shirt and an old World Wide Wrestling Federation baseball cap that accentuated his big ears. Mark noticed his thumb and index finger were tobacco stained, like the old man’s.

“Leave, boy!”

Murat dismissed the old man’s order with a disgusted wave of his hand. “Come,” he said to Nuriyev and Mark. “I heard what you need.”

“Did you help Alty cross to Iran?” asked Nuriyev.

“Yes, yes.”