Endgame

by Frank Brady

  He finally settled on an apartment in Gardar Sverrisson’s building on Espergerdi Street, in a residential section on the east side of Reykjavik, too far to walk downtown, but accessible by two buses. The apartment had two minuses: It was on the ninth floor (which Bobby had previously said was too high), and he’d already rejected this very building because of its “bad air.” Voilà! Magically, heights and air quality suddenly didn’t bother him anymore—for no explicable reason. He just changed his mind.

  Even though he was continents away from his wife, Bobby and Miyoko were in constant touch through e-mail and the telephone. She came to Reykjavik as much as her job in a pharmaceutical company—and her editorship of a chess journal in Tokyo—would allow. Most of her visits lasted two weeks and according to Gardar were idyllic for both Bobby and her. The Sverissons and the Fischers would go on weekend outings to the countryside, staying at friendly inns and basking in the majestic lunarlike countryside of Iceland. Family dinners were joyous occasions. “They were an affectionate couple, and acted as any husband and wife might: They were in love and showed it in many small ways,” said Gardar. Although one can’t know what exactly was in Bobby’s mind relative to his marriage, it is altogether possible that he hoped to somehow leave Iceland one day and convince Miyoko to live with him permanently in another country.

  His chosen apartment was decidedly not luxurious. Bobby could have afforded a place much larger, but this one was sufficient for his needs. It was a small one-bedroom, had an adequate-sized living room with an open kitchen, and a Juliet balcony that faced the sea. He furnished it comfortably but simply. Prints of Matisse graced the walls.

  Bobby’s purchasing the condominium at a price of 14 million kroner (about $200,000 at that time) may have been unconsciously motivated by the desire to be near a friend. According to Einarsson, Bobby had begun to feel ill, although he denied it not only to others but to himself. Having friends nearby would, as it developed, prove beneficial, especially since Gardar’s wife was a nurse.

  Once he’d moved into his new apartment, Bobby’s daily pattern changed. He still woke up between noon and two p.m., drank his carrot juice, and went out for his first meal of the day. While he was well, he often took a very long walk to Anestu Grösum, the vegetarian restaurant. Bobby didn’t drive, and if he had the need to go someplace beyond walking distance, he took a bus. A friend observed: “Despite the fact that he was a millionaire, he thought it idiotic to pay for taxis. He had no [misgivings about] standing and waiting for buses in all kinds of weather. Icelanders, for the most part, wouldn’t do it. But he also liked to study people while he was riding.” He was skittish about being driven, whether it was in a taxi—when he was forced to use one—or by a friend, and he’d insist that the driver keep both hands on the steering wheel at all times, never drive too fast, and obey every traffic law and signal. He always sat in the middle section of a bus, which he believed was much safer than the front or back.

  Bobby couldn’t escape chess, although he desperately wanted to. “I hate the old chess and the old chess scene,” he wrote to a friend, making reference to his invention of Fischer Random. Nevertheless, there were entrepreneurs flying to Iceland or contacting him from Russia, France, the United States, and elsewhere, who were trying to entice him to play—any kind of chess was acceptable, just to encourage and ease him back into the game. It had been more than thirteen years since the second Fischer-Spassky match, and people were saying, fearing, he might never play again. They didn’t want another twenty-year disappearance.

  Another match against Spassky was discussed (and Spassky was agreeable to playing Fischer Random), but these talks ended in a matter of days. The potential match organizer, Dr. Alex Titomirov, a Russian scientist who was an expert in DNA transfer technology and CEO of a company called ATEO Holdings Ltd., invited Spassky to meet him in Reykjavik to help with his negotiations with Bobby. Canadian-born Joel Lautier, the top player in France, was also a part of the group that met Bobby. It became clear, however, that Titomirov had no interest in yet another Fischer-Spassky contest, but wanted a Fischer-Kramnik match instead. Spassky was just being used to convince Fischer to “come back to chess.” Fischer was open to discussions, but nothing was signed or agreed upon. Spassky was angered when he learned that he was not being considered for the match with Fischer, and he used insulting language when referring to Titomirov. Bobby chimed in with an equally vicious slur, again using what had happened as typical of Russian machinations.

  Other offers proved to be too small or, in a few cases, even spurious. Some of Bobby’s Icelandic friends thought certain “match organizers” weren’t seriously negotiating, but rather just wanted to meet the mysterious Fischer, an event akin to meeting J. D. Salinger or Greta Garbo—something to boast about for the rest of their lives.

  One offer, to play a twelve-game match with Karpov in a variation called Gothic Chess (with an expanded board of eighty squares, three extra pawns, and two new pieces—one that would combine the moves of the rook and the knight, and another that would combine the moves of the bishop and the knight), seemed like it had a chance to result in a match of historic significance, especially since the announced prize fund was $14 million: $10 million for the winner and $4 million for the loser. Karpov signed the contract, but when the promoters showed up in Reykjavik, Bobby wanted to be paid in three installments, one per meeting—in amounts of $10,000, $50,000, and $100,000 respectively—just to discuss it. Bobby also wanted proof that the prize fund was actually in a bank, and when that information, or proof of equity, wasn’t forthcoming, the entire venture dribbled away.

  Next came a proposal for a $2 million “Bobby Fischer Museum,” to be housed in Iceland—or maybe it should be Brooklyn, the promoters mused. It appeared and dissolved like a dream almost before anyone had a chance to wake up.

  Bobby peered over the chessboard, scanning and evaluating—attempting not just to suggest a Russian conspiracy, but to prove it unequivocally. Despite his promotion of Fischer Random and his rejection of and scorn for the “old chess,” he still played over games, tempted by the action of contemporary tournaments and matches. A board and set, with pieces in their traditional positions, sat on the coffee table in his apartment, always ready for a session of analysis. On this particular day, Bobby was going over once again, perhaps for the hundredth time, the fourth game of the 1985 World Championship match between the two Russian grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. Bobby’s belief in a Russian cabal involving the two Ks had become his crusade, and he’d been airing his views all over the world for several years. He never wavered from claiming that all of the games in the 1985 match were fixed and prearranged move-by-move. “Even Polgar and Spassky, both World Champions, understand what I’m talking about,” he said to no one in particular, becoming more strident as he went on. “These games are fake! Kasparov should answer my charges! He should be put through a lie detector test, and then the whole world will see what a liar he is!”

  The cheating in that 1985 match was obvious, he insisted. In the fourth game Karpov moved his knight on his twenty-first move, which Bobby insisted was the “proof” of the beginning of the staged sequence. He pointed out to anyone who’d listen that Karpov “makes no less than eighteen consecutive moves on the light squares. Incredible!” This was statistically unusual, but not totally improbable, and was certainly not incontrovertible evidence of a plot.

  Despite that, no one could talk Bobby out of his belief that Kasparov and Karpov were “crooks.” Bobby remained resolute in his views, even though almost all grandmasters and many other members of the chess fraternity insisted that his accusations had no credible foundation. A scientist at the Center for Bioformatics and Molecular Biostatistics of the University of California, Mark Segal, proved mathematically that such a charge was specious and that the moves in the 1985 contest were more statistically likely to have occurred than Fischer’s own shutouts of Taimanov and Larsen, and his near total defeat of Petrosian. Segal co
ncluded his scholarly paper by facetiously musing, “Perhaps Fischer’s ascent to world champion was part of some conspiracy.”

  Some people believed that Bobby was still stewing over the fact that he’d refused to play Karpov in 1975, and therefore was trying to belittle Karpov’s resulting match with Kasparov. Others held that his accusations were a ploy to promote his new Fischer Random chess. Still others chalked them up to simple paranoia. For his part, Bobby never explained what either Karpov or Kasparov had to gain from prearranging match results, except to keep the title in the Russian family. But since both men were Russian that made no sense.

  If gratitude is the heart’s memory, Bobby’s call to remembrance was weak or sometimes nonexistent. Not only did the stouthearted Icelanders on the RJF Committee manage to extricate him from a Japanese jail and a looming ten-year prison term, they did everything they could for him once he arrived in their country: finding him a place to live, protecting him from exploiters and prying journalists, advising him on his finances, driving him to the thermal baths, inviting him to dinners and holiday celebrations, taking him fishing and on tours throughout the country, trying to make him feel at home.

  Indeed, they created a cultlike following around Bobby, treating him almost as seventeenth-century royalty. Each functionary had his own role to play in granting whatever wishes the king requested. What they didn’t expect was that the king would respond to even the smallest failure with an “off with his head!” attitude. Bobby had behaved this way in his teen years, displaying unforgiving impatience toward any of his young followers who chanced, inadvertently, to displease him. Now, in Reykjavik, despite being the recipient of numerous acts of kindness and generosity, Bobby began finding fault, negatively overgeneralizing, and snapping at those who’d shown him the most loyalty.

  His first break was with his obsequious bodyguard Saemi Palsson. Palsson had never been paid anything (“not a cent,” he complained, although there was a report that Bobby gave him a check for $300 before he went back to Iceland) for the months of bodyguard work he’d provided for Bobby in Reykjavik in 1972 and in the United States after the match. And Palsson had been the initial Icelander to join forces with Bobby in his attempt to get out of jail. Palsson had traveled to Japan at his own expense, and he continued to help when Bobby became an Icelandic citizen. Palsson had ample reason to expect goodwill from Bobby. The seeds of their ultimate break were sown, though, when, even prior to Bobby’s departure from Japan, Palsson was approached by an Icelandic filmmaker, Fridrik Gudmundsson, to do a documentary for Icelandic television about Bobby’s incarceration, the fight to release him, and his escape to freedom. Palsson and Bobby might see some money, it was suggested, if the film made a profit, although it was highly unlikely for a documentary to realize even a slight windfall.

  Bobby initially agreed to cooperate, but with the explicit caveat that the film was to be a dissertation on the evils of the United States, not about his personal life or about chess. As Bobby envisioned it, it would be mainly about his “kidnapping” (as he referred to his arrest and detention) and escape.

  Filming began the moment Bobby touched down in Copenhagen, with a camera in the sports vehicle that drove him, Miyoko, and Saemi to Sweden, en route to Iceland. Shot using various cinema verité techniques, with low production values, the film was poorly edited and thematically scattered. It was produced for 30 million kronur (about $500,000 dollars). The initial footage was intriguing, however, since it provided the first real glimpse of Bobby since his match with Spassky in 1992. Bobby was clear-eyed and focused as he forcefully held forth: “I hate America: it’s an illegitimate state. It was robbed from the Native Americans and built by black African slaves. It has no right to exist.” As he delivered his poison against the Jews, the Japanese government, and the United States, he was oddly frisky, as if he’d just become aware that he was free. He and Saemi began to sing “That’s Amore” and other familiar old songs, almost as if they were long-lost friends—as they were at that time—taking a ride in the country and singing to pass the time. There was even laughter on occasion. Miyoko sat quietly, her Mona Lisa smile emerging as she looked with reverence at Bobby.

  Continuing to shoot the film in Reykjavik over the next months, Gudmundsson kept trying to pin down Bobby for further interviews and increase his involvement in the project. “What’s the title of the film going to be?” Bobby asked. When he was told it was My Friend Bobby (it was eventually changed to Me and Bobby Fischer), he immediately began to question the whole endeavor. “This is a film that is supposed to be about my kidnapping, not about Saemi,” he complained. Then money became an obstacle. Bobby was angry that he was not being given any “up front” money. Gudmundsson offered Bobby 15 percent of the profits, with Saemi, the producer Steinthor Birgisson, and Gudmundsson also getting 15 percent each, the remaining 40 percent to be paid to the coproduction partners. Fischer was furious. Why was Saemi being paid anything? And since the film was about Bobby, why shouldn’t he receive more money than the others? “I should be paid at least 30 percent,” he argued vehemently, “more than anyone else because I am Bobby Fischer.” He repeated this refrain over and over again: “I am Bobby Fischer! I am Bobby Fischer! I am Bobby Fischer!”

  Gudmundsson tried to explain what he was doing. He told Bobby that the film had the potential to become a masterpiece: “This will be a postmodernist documentary with feature elements.”

  “Never mind about that,” Bobby shouted. “Tell me what the film is going to be about.”

  Gudmundsson mapped it out in writing in an all-inclusive public relations proposal:

  This film is about the atom bomb.

  This film is about a retired policeman.

  This film is about unconditional love.

  This film is about a world champion of chess.

  This film is about unconditional hate.

  This film is about an icon.

  This film is about victory.

  This film is about the war on terror.

  This film is about an international fugitive.

  This film is about insanity.

  This film is about rockdancing.

  The more of the description Bobby read, the more disgusted he became with the film, with Gudmundsson, and with Saemi. Bobby appealed to the members of the RJF Committee to see if they could help stop the film or get an injunction issued before it was completed. Sympathetic to Bobby’s plight, the committee circulated to its members a letter of protest that was ultimately sent to Icelandic Television, other media, and to the financial backers and distributors of the film. Bobby changed some of the wording of the protest before it was mailed, making it much stronger and less diplomatic. It read, in part:

  Mr. Fischer wishes the group to draw attention to the fact the manuscript and structure of the aforementioned “documentary,” of which he is the main subject, are grossly inconsistent with further discussions and that the material was obtained by fraud.

  The primary theme of the film now, which working title is “My Friend Bobby,” is in his opinion, quite contrary to the ideas that were proposed in the year 2005 concerning a possible news program for Icelandic television of the U.S. organized kidnapping and imprisonment of Mr. Fischer in Japan, his being granted Icelandic citizenship and release from prison.

  For this reason, it is absolutely against his wishes that parties in Iceland and elsewhere should provide financial subsidy for the production of this film or should show it once completed.

  Bobby had already stopped talking to Saemi and taking calls from Gudmundsson, and he began referring to his ex-bodyguard as a “Judas” for trying to make a film that was more about Saemi than about Bobby’s travails. Bobby wanted the film to be a polemic, not a biography—and he certainly didn’t want it to be about his bodyguard. Almost to a man, members of the RJF Committee broke off any further contact with Saemi Palsson. As it turned out, the film was a box office dud, bringing in only $40,000; it did make additional revenue from DVD sales and televi
sion licensing.

  Then Bobby’s royal displeasure was directed at another Icelander, Gudmundur Thorarinsson. “I never received the full amount from the gate receipts from 1972,” Bobby suddenly accused Thorarinsson at a party at his house. “I want to see the books. Where are the books?” Bobby demanded. Thorarinsson gasped quietly and explained that Bobby had received his full share of the gate receipts in 1972, that he didn’t have the account books at home, but that he’d look for them at the offices of the Icelandic Chess Federation, where he’d been president in 1972 and had been instrumental in initiating the World Championship match. After more than thirty years there was little hope that the records still existed. Bobby was unsatisfied with the answer. The books were never found and Bobby never talked to Thorarinsson again.

  Bobby had been using different forms of fallacious logic to accuse and attack whole classes of people, such as the Jews. Now he used his spurious logic against benevolent Icelanders. His illogical syllogism went something like this:

  Saemi cheated and betrayed me.

  Saemi is an Icelander.

  Therefore all Icelanders are cheaters and betrayers.