The caretaker of the Bulgarian embassy in Kabul is a big, bearded Tajik called Amruddin. One summer's day in 1992 a rocket slammed into the embassy, wounding the ambassador in the arm. He left that same day, handing Amruddin the embassy keys and promising to be back soon. That was nine years ago.
Since then Amruddin has been stuck in the building, never leaving for more than an hour lest bandits ransack the place. "The last thing the ambassador told me," says Amruddin, "was to 99 percent look after yourself and one percent look after the embassy. He said if they come with guns do not stop them. But do not give them the keys. If they want to come in they must break the doors."
Amruddin was also left in charge of the embassy cars, including the ambassador's Mercedes and a red sports car in a metal container which had been bought duty-free and was awaiting shipment to Bulgaria. As rockets rained down on the city, Amruddin was often tempted to quit his job. But that would have been the end of the embassy and, worse, he would then be out of a job. His absent ambassador proved to be a fairy godmother, ensuring that Amruddin was paid a salary each month with money smuggled into Kabul. So he stayed at the embassy, bringing his family of six into the compound.
Rockets were one of Amruddin's problems. The other was warlords. As Kabul disintegrated into civil war, the embassy cars became tempting targets. Amruddin's only protection was the figleaf of diplomatic immunity.
When the precursors to the present Northern Alliance established a semblance of government in Kabul in 1992, they offered him some guards. But the guards were soon making their own demands for the cars. One morning, a group of them shot at Amruddin in the front gatehouse. With foolhardy courage he stared them down. "I went over and told them, these are not my cars, these belong to Bulgaria. I am not free to give them to you." Oddly enough it seemed to do the trick-for a while.
A few months later, one of the guard commanders tried a more direct approach. He pulled Amruddin from the embassy's white Volga runabout and drove off in it. This time Amruddin used bluff. He phoned the presidential palace guard captain and pretended to be the foreign minister of Afghanistan. "I said, 'look, there's a problem. One of your men took the car of the Bulgarian embassy. Please put it back.' And two hours later it arrived outside the gate."
Each time an embassy elsewhere in the city was left empty, it was promptly plundered. Amruddin, meanwhile, was reshaping the Bulgarian embassy to his needs. Part of the waste ground inside the compound is a vegetable patch. There are now two black and white cows and a dozen chickens inside the grounds. Most of the embassy cars are now unusable. But the black Mercedes remains gleaming inside the garage, awaiting the ambassador's return.
Outside, the red, white and green Bulgarian tricolour flies from the mast. He asks me if the colour is still correct-he has heard of the upheavals these last years in the Balkans. I tell him it is and he smiles. Inside, the guard's room still has a 1992 calendar on the wall, showing Bulgarian cultural scenes.
When the guards weren't shooting at Amruddin, they were fighting with each other. Once one guard shot another dead in an argument, then put a gun to Amruddin's head to demand he turn on the embassy generator to pump the water needed to sluice away the blood. Then another, a fellow Tajik, tipped off Amruddin about a plot by the gardener to kill Amruddin and take the cars. As Amruddin fretted about what to do, the problem solved itself when the petty warlord behind the plot was shot dead.
Finally, inevitably, the guards made a move for the red sports car. They smashed off the lock and were trying to yank it out when Amruddin, for the umpteenth time, stalked across the compound to stare them down. This time, he welded shut the doors of the container to prevent it happening again.
In 1996, the Taleban marched into Kabul but the result for Amruddin was much the same. More guns, merely with different owners, were waved under Amruddin's nose. He decided to smash the contents of the wine cellar, fearing that if the Taleban raided the embassy, they would find it and he might face execution. But the Taleban wanted diplomatic recognition from Bulgaria and they never did carry out the raid.
Last year, Amruddin had decided to get out but before he could do so, the US Air Force arrived. Now he is removing the plywood boards that have hidden the still immaculate Mercedes, ready for the new diplomat expected any day now. But the night before the city fell, his house on the other side of town was bombed flat by the Americans. "Now I have no home, I hope the embassy let me stay here," he says. "I am an optimist. This is a good chance for Afghanistan."
Outside, he shows me the container that still holds the red sports car. The metal sides have been punctured by shell splinters, and I look through one at the car. It seems intact, though the windows have been broken. But its fate is unclear. Back in Sofia, its owner has died.
Finally, a bit of good news. Rummaging in the basement as he begins to clean the place up for the diplomats, he comes across a single bottle of wine, a 1986 Bulgarian Cabernet. He doesn't drink, so he gives it to me.
