OneKAZAKHSTAN/UZBEKISTAN BORDER, 21ST CENTURYThey had reached the border early that morning, leapfrogging the grim skein of industrial towns that strung from Almaty to Chimkent. The early part of the journey now seemed remote: a grimy memory that made Elena's skin crawl with remembered pollution. It had taken almost four hours to reach the Uzbek border, crawling all the way, with the powerful wipers of the Sherpa grinding the snow into a grey slush that accumulated at the bottom of the windscreen, periodically slewing down the hood and turning to packed ice beneath the wheels.Atyrom's sister, Gulnara, had gone to sleep on the backseat. Atyrom drove without speaking, occasionally groping on the dashboard for cigarettes. He smoked Marlboros, which Elena could not afford. Acrid smoke filled the van like the ghost of an American dream.He offered Elena one, but pride made her say, "Thanks, I'll stick to the Polyot." She reached for her packet of rougher local cigarettes and lit up. Atyrom said nothing, but the lack of conversation was compulsory, since he insisted on playing Uzbek rock at a level that could have woken the dead. It veered from maudlin ballads to aggressive nationalistic anthems that made Atyrom pound the steering column in erratic accompaniment.Bleary with lack of sleep, Elena stared out across the pale and endless expanse of the steppe. In summer, the land was constantly changing under the light: alternately subtle and harsh, depending on the time of day. Sometimes in summer, she and her sister would borrow her cousin's car and drive out to Lake Kapchugai, to sit by the quiet water and watch the shadows lengthen across the steppe,the afternoon sun striping the land with colors that had not changed since prehistoric times: ochre and mauve and red. Now, in late February, the steppe remained featureless beneath the snow; they could have been driving over the moon. Shortly before seven in the morning, they