The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

interlocutor, ignoring Kurilov’s question. “We would like to ask you to compile a verbaldescription of the Afghan ministers who are hiding at the villa. Would you be able to dothat? We would like the verbal portraits to be as comprehensive as possible, so theycapture not only their facial features, but their manners, peculiarities of behavior andspeech, and so on.”“We were taught how to do this during our training in Moscow. I will need to spendmore time with the three of them in order for me to fulfill the task though.”“That’s fine.” The balding man looked at Junior Colonel Dolmatov and said, “Youshould provide him with what he needs to fulfill the assignment.”The assignment was an opportunity for Valery to get close to the fugitive ministers.Several times at night he and Sarwari took walks around the courtyard of the villa. Sarwariwas neither pretentious nor condescending, but rather spoke eagerly and animatedly withthe junior officer. He complained about Amin, called Amin an American spy, and said thatthere were numerous enemies around them who must be eliminated. Sarwari spokedecently in both Russian and English. Once he even admitted to Kurilov that his goal was tolose twenty pounds and that he had begun some popular Western weight-loss program todo so.Gulabzoi was also eager to speak with the young Soviet operative. Gulabzoi still hadhis prized possession, a Soviet-manufactured pistol of recent origin that was reservedexclusively for the use of colonels and generals. He would retrieve the weapon and say toValery, “Look, it’s a gift from your minister of the interior. Did you know that ComradeSchelokov is a very close friend of Comrade Brezhnev? You don’t think they would abandonus, do you?”574