The Leveling

The Russian driver’s eyes were even deeper set than his own, though. With dark circles under them.

Mark wet his finger, dipped it into the coffee-can ashtray on the floor, and rubbed in some ash under each eye. Then he smeared ash on his teeth near where they met the gums.

He glanced at the passport photo again. The Russian’s hair was brown and Mark had dyed his black, so he tried to push more of his hair under the bandana he now wore on his head.

Hanging from the rearview mirror was a set of well-worn worry beads. He took them down and placed them in his pocket. A half-empty pack of Java cigarettes, a Russian brand, lay on the dashboard. He pocketed those too.




Mark pulled up through the gates without stalling and stopped where he was told. The Turkmen soldiers descended, pulling up the front hood and loosening the canvas sides of the trailer. World War II–style canteens dangled from the soldiers’ belts, and their pants were tucked into black army boots.

It was almost seven thirty. The sun had just dipped below the mountains, but the overhead lights hadn’t been switched on yet, for which Mark was grateful—shadows would help.

He stepped out of the cab. He handed the Russian driver’s passport and the inventory papers to a Turkmen official with a sergeant’s chevron on his shoulder. The Chinese embassy guard and his Guoanbu minder were so focused on the search of the trailer that they hardly even glanced at Mark.

“Where do you go?”

Mark took a step to his left, so that he was in the shadow of the truck. “Mashhad.”

He pulled the pack of Java cigarettes out of his front shirt pocket and silently offered one to the army officer, who shook his head no.

“And what do you carry?”

“Textiles.” He spoke Russian. A hundred feet in front of him, a row of Turkmen flags hung limply by a wrought-iron gate. Past the gate stood a row of Iranian flags and a few Iranian soldiers. A sign posted in front of a beige-colored building read, in Farsi and English, Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

They discovered Daria in the trailer. She was dressed head to toe in a black chador and had fashioned a veil for her face.

“And who is she?”

“My brother is friends with her brother. She goes to Mashhad.” Mark lit his cigarette, and the smoke swirled around his head. The clothes he was wearing stunk of vodka sweat.

“Does she pay you?”

Mark made a face, as if offended. “No. Her father has died. She goes to Mashhad to mourn.”

“Does she have papers?”

“Yes, yes, of course. She is Iranian.”

Mark glanced at Daria. After some commotion, a female border guard appeared. Daria was taken away to be questioned in private, without her veil. The older Chinese guard inspected the underside of the truck.

Ten minutes later, it was over. Mark’s papers were signed. Daria reappeared, and the solicitous border soldiers formed a makeshift staircase out of packing crates so that it was easier for her to climb into the back of the truck’s trailer. As he drove off toward the Iranian border, Mark saw the Chinese guard staring intently at the Niva, as though it might contain the people they were looking for. Instead, they’d find a Russian who would be turned away at the border because he’d left his identification papers back in Ashgabat.




The truck was searched again on the Iranian side. After having their passports stamped in the customs hall, under a large photo of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khorasani, they were told they could leave.

Mark drove toward a gate topped by a sign that read Islamic Republic of Iran Border Terminal. Beyond the gate, a couple of kids were kicking a soccer ball in the road, taking advantage of the bright border-terminal lights that had just come on. On the shoulder of the road, truckers stood next to their parked rigs, smoking as they waited for what could be days to cross into Turkmenistan. Even in normal times, the Turkmen were paranoid about how many trucks they let in.

An alarm began to sound.

At first Mark didn’t realize it was directed at him, nor did the final Iranian border soldiers, who seemed inclined to let him pass. Then someone called out in Farsi from across the wide stretch of pavement, and one of the soldiers manning the last exit blew a whistle.

Mark laid on the horn, pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and shifted through the gears as quickly as he could. The final border checkpoint flew by him as cars veered to the side of the road.

A minute later, he was through the tiny town, thundering past little concrete-walled shops fronted by metal security gates. He began to gather speed more quickly now that he was hurtling downhill. The mountains on this side of the border loomed up as dark brown shadows, drier even than the Turkmen side, without a hint of green.