I was tired, but too excited to sleep. As we drove out of the development, the variety of home construction sites was evidence of a people rising from decades of thwarted plans to live in harmony.
“Mosul,” I read aloud as we headed east under a directional sign. I asked one last time, “The Library of Nineveh?”
“It is ‘no,’ Mr. Rick. We will go to outskirts of Mosul. Highway then turns north toward Dohuk.”
Nearing Dohuk, the homes we passed were elaborate; many had several balconies, and their facing stones were in pastel colors ranging from muted purples to pale creams. Some entrance pillars looked like highly ornamented notes of accomplishment for the owner, others like artistic statements by their designers. No two were alike. If I ventured on every city street, I thought, I’d not find a duplicate.
We soon saw signs for Zakho—where I’d weeks before imagined spending a night, on a lark, just to put my foot into Iraq. The border town has the hubbub one expects wherever trucks arrive for loading and unloading. Workers put in long days, and drivers accept long waits, so such transit points can be big employers, depending on the seasonal flow of goods. Zakho had a transient air.
“We go to Wargehe Delal,” said Dubba.
“Wargey …?”
“Wargehe Delal. It is the Delal Bridge.”
A remaining arch of this once magnificent bridge spans the Little Khabur River, a tributary of the Tigris. It was an old edifice in a land of many such monuments.
“How would you build Wargehe Delal17 without today’s technology and equipment?” Dubba asked rhetorically. Huge stones had been wedged together to support foot and wagon traffic. We strolled at leisure around a tourist stop in a town without tourists. Dubba wore an expansive white shirt, as clean as white could be, over his pantaloons, with a simple black scarf, long enough to mop perspiration.
As we neared the Ibraheem Khaleel administration unit straddling the border, Dubba pointed to a fluttering Kurdish flag. “The red is for martyrs’ blood, and that never ends. Our white is depicting freedom and peace. Green symbolizes lands, beauty you have seen. All bars are equal across banner.”
I asked about the sun symbol mid-flag.
“It is to say wisdom. It is fire. We call it Roj. Here though, is an Iraq border under Kurdish government management. Our flag flies to say that.”
Türkiye, painted across a high roof’s frontispiece, marked the border crossing and announced the entry point into a new county.
“Mr. Rick, here we will leave you.”
I’d had my hand held by safekeeping locals in a land of dangers, and was now leaving that casual care behind. In a matter of minutes I’d be testing the reentry workings of my Turkish visa. If found wanting, I’d be compromised. And even if I did get through, I still needed to find transportation once I got to the Turkish side of the border. I remembered what Ahmet had advised back in Van: “Find a taxi on the Iraq side of border, with Turkish license plates. They will be going back and might take you.”
The four of us were walking toward the customs building when Huner pointed, “Taksi.” Three drivers were haggling among themselves, and Hemin walked over, asking for a taksi heading to Turkey. “Where, Mr. Rick?”
I’d not thought this all the way through. Tatvan was my ultimate destination, with renewed hope of catching the once-missed ferry across Lake Van. I needed to get to a city in Turkey where I could catch a bus to Tatvan. I’d last looked at the map in Van, with the hotel staff; I knew the eastern route from the border up through Hakkari and Başkale was shortest, but that included the mountain passes where Kurdish rebels were fighting Turkish forces, so that option was off the table. I dug in my pack and unfolded the much-creased map. Hemin and Dubba peered on as Huner and I pressed it against the wall of a building.
“Sirnak,” I said, as it was a prominent spot on the map, and a routing the Van hotel staff had shown me.
“Hmmm. Silopi. Cizre, Sirnak. Yes, that can be your route.”
“Thanks, Dubba.”
“You should be able to get a taksi to take you that far. Better still, ask for Siirt. It is further, yes, after Sirnak. If in a taksi, it is more pleasant ride. I think you should share.”
“Share what?”
“Share taksi. Hang around, Mr. Rick. Wait for taksi to fill up with others who pay part of the fare. Then, you can afford to go further in that taksi.”
Huner held the map against the wall, his hands and elbows bracing it against a breeze. From Siirt, there was a good road to Baykan and from there to Bitlis, and that should mean decent buses, or at least frequent ones. There were two routes from Bitlis to Tatvan. My departure from eastern Turkey by train into Iran was a few days away. I had no place to be until then.
“I will start with taksi to Sirnak, as that gets me across the border into Turkey. I will see if going beyond Sirnak to Siirt works.” I mocked a shout: “Taksi!”
Hemin appeared with a taksi driver in tow. He, Dubba, and the driver spoke with rapid-fire words, and Dubba turned to me. “He is going to Cizre. And he says from there you can get bus to Sirnak. He will leave in two hours.”
“I’m patient, but let’s ask further,” I suggested. “Sirnak is now where I want to get.” We thanked the taksi driver and left him.
Hemin and I approached another driver, and Hemin asked if he was heading to Turkey.
“Yes, I am,” he said in English. He was looking at me, having guessed whom the passenger was, and I could tell he was sizing me up. He was a youngish Turk, with stylish hair—dark, with hair cream to hold parts of it up and back. A white crewneck clung tight to his torso under a black jacket buttoned low. The collar rode high. He had pressed black slacks. His smirk broke into a grin of unusually bright teeth. I felt déjà vu. I know this man, but from where?
Happy to hear English, I was suddenly struck by how complicated all these negotiations would be without Hemin, Huner, and Dubba.
“Siirt?” I asked.
The man danced from foot to foot, his head teetering to the side opposite the stressed foot. It was a negotiation. I picked up his dance step, teetering in sync with him, and smiled. I still couldn’t place his face.
“I can drive you to Siirt, but that is expensive. You OK with that?”
“No,” I answered. “We can find others to share cost.”
“Oh, yes, but I thought you might want to leave this morning instead of tomorrow night.”
Checkmate.
Dubba spoke Kurdish, and he and the Turk went back and forth, with Hemin interjecting. I felt like a box of cereal hoping for a FedEx shipment, sitting around while they dickered about how best to deliver me.
Dubba went into English for my benefit. “If you wait one hour, maybe little longer, he should have another rider. Possibly two. He will say he’s driving to Siirt, but likely only gets someone to Sirnak. You would pay rest all to him. On your own. You agree?”
“Cost?”
They spoke in Kurdish. The driver’s smile glistened. Dubba conveyed the price to me, saying, “It is fair, I think. It should be less if others go in taksi with you—but don’t hope that. Once he has you he has you. Expect to pay this amount regardless. It is how it works.”
Huner brought me a bottle of cold water from the canteen and shook my hand while handing it to me. Hemin said, “Goodbye, Mr. Rick.” Kaka’s face rounded in friendship, the relaxed Dubba personality I’d seen for the majority of my trip replaced by that of a concerned friend. He knew my time in Iraq had been very good for me, but he could not know how touched I was by his kindness and help during my trip. I smiled, aiming to equal the sentiment that his face conveyed: rapport and respect, while alleviating any worries he held about my onward journey. Although Kaka was proficient in several languages, no words came.
We shook hands, and they left.
I turned around. My taksi driver was gone too.
I ran about, searching the taksi stands, as I’d not seen his actual car. I rushed to the café to see if he’d gone in ther
e. I looked in a waiting area, where other passengers might be found.
There was a tap on my shoulder.
“Where’d you go?” the taxi driver demanded. His mannerisms sprang at me as though I’d seen them a hundred times.
“Where’s your car?” I tried to balance his abruptness.
When we were in front of his green hatchback Honda, he let out a drawl: “This is m-y car. It’s t-h-e-e b-e-s-t car.”
“Fonzie.” I said it under my breath. I knew I knew him. His self-assured smirk, his clothing, his talk, made him a dead ringer for the character from the American TV show from the 1970s, Happy Days.
“Give me your pack,” the Fonz said as he opened the car’s hatch. “I need you to put these cigarettes into your pack.” In his trunk I saw dozens of cartons of contraband cigarettes, perhaps ten packets in each carton, wrapped in cellophane, with their American brand labels visible. “They will not check you as we go through border.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“No. I drive through here often. It is OK. They know me,” he said nonchalantly. He had unzipped my backpack and was stuffing three long cartons of cigarettes into it all at once, looking over his shoulder away from me and toward the customs office.
“Look, Fonzie …”
“My name is …”
“Never mind. If you don’t unpack those cartons, I will. And you’ll lose this customer.”
He stared at me. “There are more customers.”
“Then find one to share my fare.”
“You could be nicer.”
“Keep the cigarettes out of my backpack.” With that I reached into my pack and pulled them out one at a time. I threw them onto his trunk floor.
“They’ve got your fingerprints on them,” he said.
I zipped my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. Immediately I thought of Midnight Express, a Hollywood movie I’d absorbed as shorthand for foreign travel gone badly.
We parted in a huff. I still felt we had a deal on the ride though, so I hovered close to his car, glugging bottled water. Twenty minutes later he came back with two businessmen, both with suit jackets on, one wearing a tie.
“They are going to Sirnak. One actually goes a little further, but not all the way to Siirt. Your price holds.” To all of us he said, “We will leave in ten minutes and go through border.”
We three passengers shook hands. The businessmen each placed a suitcase and an overnight bag in the trunk and went off, one to the washroom, one to get a coffee.
The moment they were out of sight, Fonzie said to me, “Stand there, right there.” He positioned me as a shield between the customs office and his car. An accomplice. He lifted the hatch and opened the businessmen’s cases. There was room in them, and he stuffed six cartons of cigarettes into each.
Closing the hatch, he said, “You sit up front with me. It is better.”
It was right then that I should have left. Instead, I got in the passenger seat while he stood outside my door, holding it open. Before he closed it, he first wedged open the interior panel that held the window-winding knob and popped it off. Into that space he stuck more cartons, and then pressed the door panel’s clips together again. When he closed the door, a bulge pressed against my right arm.
“I’m not sure I’ll find a way to thank you, Fonzie.”
While he and I sat in the car waiting for the businessmen, I noticed the long truck lineup. It would be hours of waiting. The two businessmen returned, and we were ready to go; Fonzie shifted out of first gear and into second. The four of us made toward another terminal: two businessmen, a lone traveler, and a smuggler.
The non-truck lineup progressed smoothly. When we were close enough to the first customs official, Fonzie moved quickly. “Put these behind your feet.” He took three cartons of cigarettes from within his jacket and stuffed them under my seat and braced behind the calves of my legs. “Hold them tight.”
When the taksi driver spoke, one of my favorite Fonz quotes was written all over his face: “Stupid, yes. Also dumb. But it is something I’ve gotta do.”
He jumped out of the car with an air of irrevocable self-confidence, walking toward the official, jovial and carefree.
“What is going on?” asked one of the businessmen.
Thinking of the potential consequences, I said, “We may spend more time together than you planned.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well … apparently he’s friends with this border guard.” And under my breath: “I hope so.” I’ve often felt that in a dicey situation, sneaky is best. But the combination of sneaky and the Iraq–Turkey border made my situation increasingly stupid. Stupid makes me calm; I don’t know why, maybe it replaces thinking. I tried that: thinking. Would telling these men what I knew lessen the risk of getting caught with contraband that had my fingerprints on it? I wasn’t willing to take that risk. I could not imagine a good outcome if I sent the businessmen to look in their packs.
“You know something we don’t?” the second man asked. I was inadvertently smuggling cigarettes out of Iraq; there were cartons at my feet, cartons beside my right elbow and, God knows, probably cartons in my pack. We were one misplaced comment away from getting caught.
“Nope,” I said.
The border guard came around to the car’s hatch, which was being opened by the Fonz. The guard asked, “Whose luggage are these?”
“Mine,” said one of the well-dressed passengers.
“And that one is mine,” said the other, sounding over-polite.
The guard closed the trunk. Simple as that. The Fonz jumped back in his seat, wearing a look of cocky entitlement that would probably get him out of jail long before the other three of us saw daylight. I waited for him to verbally slide me his “Aaaaeeeyyyy!”
Instead, the Fonz looked straight at me and said, “Next guard checks inside the car. Give me your cigarettes.”
“My …? My …?”
“Quick. The trunk is cleared OK. I’ll put these there.” His hand fumbled beneath my legs, pulling out the cartons. He couldn’t reach them all.
Hurriedly I handed him the remaining carton from under my feet, leaving more fingerprints. He shoved the goods inside his jacket and casually walked to the back of the car. There was a honk from the car behind, and Fonzie gave it no notice. He leaned into the trunk area, letting the packets tumble unseen from his jacket, and stuck the contraband under the two suitcases. He walked around the entire car and sat down in his driver’s seat, blasé as usual.
He leaned over me and opened the glove compartment. Two cartons of cigarettes fell into my lap, though he was doing his best to gather them into the folds of his jacket. He repeated his shuffling trip to the car’s trunk. When he returned, not a bead of sweat showed on his face. He looked at the two shocked passengers in the back seat, flashing his white teeth while saying nothing. In my head I could hear Fonzie’s classic line: “You ain’t nobody until you do what you want!”
Now he drove slowly up to the next official’s booth. The guard came out and stood in front of the car, immediately moving to my side.
“Out.”
I stood up with my pack in hand. The officer seemed nine feet tall—as far as I could tell his jackboots went up to my waist. He yanked the pack out of my hands and unzipped it. Finding nothing, he flipped open the glove compartment and rummaged about with his hand. He checked under my seat. “Get back in.”
As we drove away, Fonzie turned to me. “Honest. I would have moved them from your bag if you’d let me hide them there. He would not have found them.”
In an unfriendly imitation of the Fonz, I said, “Sit on it.”
But we were not finished with the border. Fonzie pulled beside an unmistakably government building; square, featureless, efficient lines of stone and plaster that ran three stories high. Inside, the ceiling stared down from two floors up, above a counter wide enough so that those behind it were unreachable. Three officious-looking clerks leaned on this m
arble-topped fixture near the entryway. None of them were busy. Fonzie walked over to one, the three of us following in a silent conga line.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“It’s protocol. They need to see your paperwork.”
Fonzie handled everything, taking and passing over our passports. He jabbered away with the female official behind the counter. When my passport was returned to him, he passed it my way and said dismissively, “You are OK. For now. Wait outside if you wish.”
I wished. Outside I walked around the compound, keeping the taksi in sight and waiting for more to happen. Half an hour later, I went back inside and saw only one of the businessmen standing there. He shrugged in my direction.
Outside again, at what was nearly an hour of waiting, the Fonz appeared and said, “It is not you. It is one man’s paper. It’s not complete. So they also are suspicious of other man. Both wear suits.” It would be another half hour before the three of them returned. One more customs post awaited us, but it passed without incident. Our car drove away. We were in Turkey.
“Fonz, we should talk …” I began, bemused and angry.
“We are OK,” he said. “You have no worries. Not now.”
“Look …” I turned toward the two men in the back seat, one of whom was perspiring. This whole thing might have been more familiar to them, who knows, but it wasn’t a type of business travel I was familiar with. Spy novels have this stuff, I thought. I widened my eyes and slowly cocked my head in a gesture asking them, “Any comments, guys?”
“We are through,” said the man wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
The other parroted: “We are through.”
I turned to Fonzie, who was for whatever silly reason nodding his head, and said, “We are through.”
We cruised a multi-lane road through unlovely land full of truck lines, queues of cargo trailers, and pavement that collectively took the eye away from any rugged welcoming the hillsides wished to impart. In ten minutes we arrived in Silopi. I looked behind me to see which man might be getting out, but they both had confused looks on their faces. Fonzie pulled up to a pharmacy and bounced out of the car. He walked in the front door of the place carrying a handful of cigarette cartons from the trunk. When he came out he was pocketing cash.
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