Endgame

by Frank Brady

  A litany of attacks, suspicions, and far-fetched offenses began erupting in the RJFers’ direction after the Saemi incident, and few from the group escaped Bobby’s wrath. Even key stalwarts felt his sting: Helgi Olaffson for not tolerating Bobby’s anti-Semitic enmity, and for asking too many questions about the “old chess” (“He must be writing a book”); David Oddsson for reasons unknown, even to Oddsson himself; and, surprisingly, Gardar Sverrisson, his closest friend, spokesman, and neighbor, because Gardar didn’t inform him about a silly and harmless photograph of Bobby’s shoes that appeared in Morgunbladid. Gardar got off relatively unscathed—Bobby’s snit against him lasted only twenty-four hours. The rest of the group became persona non grata.

  By the fall of 2007, Bobby’s disillusionment with Iceland was fixed. He called it a “God-forsaken country” and referred to Icelanders as “special but only in the negative sense.” If his Icelandic benefactors knew of his expressions of ingratitude (“I don’t owe these [people] anything!” he spitefully proclaimed), they didn’t discuss them publicly, a characteristic of many Scandinavians. Those who directly experienced his thanklessness were saddened but stoic. “Well, that’s Bobby,” one Icelander observed. “We have to take him as he is.” It was as if he were a changeling, a troubled child not so secretly adopted by the Icelanders, but with love and without foreboding.

  “You are truth. You are love. You are bliss. You are freedom.”

  Bobby was reading The Rajneesh Bible, a work by the charismatic and controversial guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Like Bobby, Bhagwan had also had trouble with the United States Immigration Department, and was arrested and made to leave the country. Bobby identified with him in that respect and especially valued one of his dicta: “Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you.”

  Bhagwan’s philosophy had attracted Bobby ever since he began exploring it during his eight years in Hungary. Although Bobby never practiced meditation, an essential part of Bhagwan’s belief system, he became deeply interested in the qualities of the ideal—or “realized”—self being described by Bhagwan. Bobby didn’t appear to much consider Bhagwan’s endorsement of such qualities as love, celebration, and humor. Rather, what seemed to appeal was the idea of the individual rising to a higher plateau. Fischer thought of himself as a warrior in all things, not just chess—and living in Iceland, free of incarceration, he made no exceptions. “I am always on the attack,” he proudly divulged while he was there—and he wasn’t talking about a board game. There was little time for humor or celebration in a time of war. He was poised for battle against the chess establishment, the Union Bank of Switzerland, the Jews, the United States, Japan, Icelanders in general, the media, processed foods, Coca-Cola, noise, pollution, nuclear energy, and circumcision.

  Bobby thought of himself as being totally aware and equated himself with Bhagwan’s concept of the Nietzschean “Superman” who transcends the constraints of society. “I am a genius,” he said shortly after arriving back in Iceland, not pontifically but sincerely. “Not just a chess genius but a genius in other things as well.”

  Bobby’s attempt to find some deeper, perhaps religious meaning to his life took a wide and twisted path. At first, as a child, there was Judaism, of which he never really felt a part; then Fundamentalism, until he became disillusioned with the leaders of the Worldwide Church of God. Anti-Semitism also became a quasi religion—or certainly a profound belief—for him, and one that he never really abandoned. At one point of his life he embraced atheism, although not for long. He was intrigued with the cult of Rajneesh himself, rather than the guru’s practices. Finally, near the end of his life, he began to explore Catholicism.

  A contradiction in terms, an oxymoron? A Catholic Bobby Fischer?

  Something was missing in the life of Bobby Fischer, a chasm that needed to be filled. Delving through books, he discovered the writings of Catholic theologians, and he became intrigued with the religion. Gardar Sverrisson, his closest friend in Reykjavik, was Catholic (one of the few: 95 percent of Icelanders are Lutheran), and Bobby began to ask him questions about the liturgy, the adoration of saints, the theological mysteries, and other aspects of the religion. Gardar answered what he could, but he was no theologian. Eventually, Bobby brought him a copy of Basic Catechism: Creed, Sacraments, Morality, Prayer, so that Gardar could be more informed when they had discussions.

  It’s not certain whether Bobby was baptized in the Roman Catholic religion in the traditional manner, which entails the pouring of—or immersion in—water, the anointing of sacred chrism (special oil), and a solemn blessing by a priest performing the sacrament, but it’s unlikely. Einarsson and Skulasson both concluded that Bobby, despite his late-life deliberations on the topic, was not a strong believer in the Catholic Church and that he hadn’t converted to the faith. But there are three forms of baptism: by water (the usual way), by fire (as in martyrdom), and by spirit (in that the recipient desires to be baptized). If Bobby did wish to become Catholic, it’s possible that aspiration was sufficient for him to have been accepted into the Church, at least by less conservative clergy. According to Gardar Sverrisson, Bobby talked with him about the transformation of society by creating harmony with one another, and then professed that he thought “the only hope for the world is through Catholicism.”

  Bobby’s attraction to Catholicism, a religion that is defined by its emphasis on charity, humility, and repentance for sins, seems hard to reconcile with his writings such as: “Unfortunately we’re not strong enough just to wipe out all the Jews at this time. So what I believe we should do is engage in vigilante random killing of Jews. What I want to do is to arouse people against the Jews to the point of violence! Because the Jews are criminal people. They deserve to have their heads cracked open.”

  “I am not now that which I have been,” Byron wrote in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and that could have been Bobby’s answer to his spiritual change near the end of his life. Or, as cynical as it may sound, his possible acceptance of Catholicism may have been merely a theological chess game, a tactic and long-term strategy that he calculated might lead to eternal salvation. Men often believe that they’ve converted as soon as they decide to do so, although they haven’t yet achieved—and often aren’t even aware that they must enter—a state of inner worship. Only Bobby Fischer knew what was in his heart.

  A photograph of Bobby taken by Einar Einarsson in the summer of 2005, just a few months after he arrived in Iceland, clearly shows an encroaching illness. Fischer usually would never sit for a photograph, but when dining with Einarsson at 3 Frakkar (“Three Coats”), Bobby was greeted by an old chef whom he knew from 1972, who asked if he could pose with Bobby. Einarsson took a picture of the two men and then moved the camera slightly to the left and took a single shot of Bobby. The result was a revealing portrait of a man in pain: psychic and perhaps physical. David Surratt, a chess editor, observed: “The expressiveness of the eyes, my goodness, you can practically feel his sadness, and perhaps a sense of regret, too. Perhaps regret over what might have been, or what he lost over the latter half of his life.”

  Bobby started to have urinary problems and thought it might simply be caused by an enlarged prostate gland, at first denying that anything might be seriously wrong with him. His lungs were also bothering him and he was having difficulty breathing. Since he had a lifelong distrust of doctors, he tolerated the discomfort until October 2007, when his pain and inability to urinate became excruciating. He went to a doctor and requested a cursory, nonintrusive examination, but it was explained that only a blood test would enable the doctor to evaluate his kidney function. Reluctantly, he acquiesced; the test showed that he suffered from elevated levels of serum creatinine with a value way above 1.4, the highest parameter in the normal range. The finding indicated that he had a blocked urinary tract. This abnormality could be checked, although possibly not cured, by taking certain drugs. But there were also problems with his kidneys, which were not functioning properly. On princ
iple, harking back to his Worldwide Church of God teachings, Bobby refused to take any medicine, and the idea of being hooked up to a dialysis machine to cleanse his blood every few days for the rest of his life was out of the question. When the dialysis treatment was proposed he said it was absurd. He was warned that unless treated, he could experience total kidney failure, seizures, and even dementia. When he asked for more information about his prognosis, the doctor told him that unless dialysis treatment began immediately, he probably didn’t have more than three months to live. Despite these dire warnings, he still refused to be treated, and he even rejected taking pain medicine to ease his agony. It’s possible that Bobby was just giving up, letting go of his life, beginning a slow form of suicide. His friend Pal Benko believed that to be the case.

  Bobby allowed himself to be checked into Landspitali Hospital by Dr. Erikur Jónsson, who supervised the limited amount of treatment and nursing his patient would permit, for seven weeks. It was a difficult time not only for Bobby but for the nursing staff as well. He wouldn’t allow a fixed catheter and insisted that they help him urinate each and every time he had to go. He placed restrictions on what he would eat, created a list of potential visitors who’d be allowed to see him and another list of those who’d be summarily barred from entering his room.

  Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson visited him once a week. Bobby asked him to bring bottles of fresh-squeezed carrot juice from Yggdrasil; if the health food store didn’t have it available, Olafsson was to buy juice imported from Germany. Under no circumstances, Bobby instructed sternly, was Olafsson to buy anything from Israel. Not surprisingly, during some of their visits the two grandmasters discussed chess. Bobby wanted Fridrik to bring a copy of the Kasparov-Karpov game that he’d claimed for years was prearranged, so they could discuss it and play it over on Bobby’s pocket set. But instead of bringing the whole book in which the game was published, Fridrik simply brought a copy of the few relevant pages so that he’d have less to carry. Bobby was deeply disappointed. “Why didn’t you bring the whole book!?”

  Bobby asked if a photograph of his mother could be sent to him, and Russell Targ, his brother-in-law, complied. Bobby looked at it from time to time, but contrary to reports that he had it perched on his bedside table, he kept it in the drawer, knowing that it was there, symbolically protective.

  Of all of the people who visited him in the hospital, in many ways the man who was the most comforting to Bobby was Dr. Magnus Skulasson, a member of the RJF Committee who’d had a fairly low profile with the group and had hardly been in Bobby’s presence during the three years he’d lived in Iceland. Skulasson was a psychiatrist and the head doctor of Sogn Mental Asylum for the Criminally Insane. He was also a chess player who had a great reverence for the accomplishments of Bobby Fischer and an affection for him as a man.

  It should be stressed that Skulasson was not “Bobby’s psychiatrist,” as has been implied in the general press, nor did he offer Bobby any analysis or psychotherapy. He was at Bobby’s bedside as a friend, to try to do anything he could for him. Because of his training, however, he couldn’t fail to take note of Bobby’s mental condition. “He definitely was not schizophrenic,” Skulasson said. “He had problems, possibly certain childhood traumas that had affected him. He was misunderstood. Underneath I think he was a caring and sensitive person.”

  Skulasson is a gentle and intense man with a gravitas that is arresting. In his conversations, he appears to be more a philosopher than someone with a medical and psychological background, quoting Hegel as much as Freud, Plato as much as Jung. Bobby asked him to bring foods and juices to the hospital, which he did, and often Skulasson just sat at the bedside, both men not speaking. When Bobby was experiencing severe pain in his legs, Skulasson began to massage them, using the back of his hand. Bobby looked at him and said, “Nothing soothes as much as the human touch.” Once Bobby woke and said: “Why are you so kind to me?” Of course, Skulasson had no answer.

  Dr. Jónsson began to get pressure from the hospital to release Bobby because of his refusal of proper treatment. Jónsson realized that releasing him would be a death sentence, so he kept making excuses to keep Bobby in the hospital, trying to keep him comfortable as long as he could. Without Bobby’s knowledge, the nurses applied morphine patches to his body to ease his pain. Eventually, terminally ill, still stubborn about refusing proper treatment, he was discharged and returned to his apartment on Espergerdi in December 2007, where Sverrisson, his wife Kristin, and their two children, who lived two floors below Bobby, became his attendants and guardians. In particular, Kristin used her nursing skills to help care for him.

  Being out of the hospital perked up Bobby’s spirits for a while, and he began to feel better, even going to a movie with Sverrisson’s twenty-year-old son, a professional soccer player. At Christmastime, when all of Reykjavik is festooned with lights and takes on the ambience of a Currier and Ives painting and there are days and days of celebrations, Miyoko came and stayed with Bobby at the apartment for two weeks. On January 10, 2008, she flew back to Tokyo, losing a day with the time difference. Soon, she received a call from Sverrisson that Bobby had grown substantially more ill. By the time a new reservation could be arranged and she could make her way back to Iceland, Bobby had been taken to the hospital by Sverrisson in the car. He died there, peacefully, on January 17. Like the number of squares on a chessboard—an irony that nevertheless cannot be pressed too far—he was sixty-four.

  Epilogue

  BORIS SPASSKY WAS STUNNED. Long concerned about Bobby’s illness, he’d kept in close contact. Then, shockingly, he learned that Bobby had died. Momentarily unable to express his sense of loss, Spassky e-mailed Einar Einarsson: “My brother is dead.”

  In those four words he showed how deeply he felt about Bobby, although the world already knew. He’d told people that he “loved” Bobby Fischer … as a brother. At the 1992 match he publicly stated that he was ready to fight “and I want to fight, but on the other hand I would like Bobby to win because I believe that Bobby must come back to chess.” When Bobby was incarcerated in Japan, Spassky had been serious when he announced that he was willing to be imprisoned with him (and a chessboard). Spassky’s respect for his nemesis bordered on adulation and possibly even fear. He once said: “It’s not if you win or lose against Bobby Fischer; it’s if you survive.” But there was true camaraderie between them that went beyond just chess and that Spassky was always quick to express. He felt they sensed each other’s frayed loneliness as past champions, a nostalgia to which few could relate.

  Only three weeks before Bobby’s death Spassky had sent his old friend a lighthearted message, telling him to obey his doctors, and that when he “escaped” from the hospital, he should get in touch.

  Spassky had been informed that Bobby’s condition was serious, but he wasn’t aware that it was grave. Icelandic tradition discourages a person’s illness from being discussed outside of family or intimate friends, but because of Spassky’s solicitous comments about his longtime opponent, Einarsson considered him a part of Bobby’s “family” and had let him know his friend’s condition was worsening. Spassky wrote: “I have a brother’s feeling toward Bobby. He is a good friend.”

  In the last days of Bobby’s life he was becoming more frail and could hardly speak, nor could he keep down any food. His lips were always dry. Either the forty-eight-year-old Gardar Sverrisson—who wasn’t well himself—or his wife Kristin, a nurse, would stay with Bobby at his apartment all through the night, watching out for him when he slept and attending to his needs when he woke.

  Bobby had told Sverrisson that he would like to be buried in the small country graveyard close to the town of Selfoss, about an hour’s drive from Reykjavik, in a rural farmland community called Laugardaelir. The cemetery was reported to be at least a thousand years old, established about the time that Eric the Red left for Greenland and the Althingi—Iceland’s parliament (the first in Europe)—was formed; ironically this is the same governmental b
ody that gave Bobby his citizenship in 2005.

  An unpretentious Lutheran church—a chapel, really—that looks like a set for an Ingmar Bergman drama and can seat only about fifty parishioners, guards the site of the cemetery. Bobby had felt the peaceful atmosphere of the surroundings when he’d visited Sverrisson’s wife’s parents, who live in Selfoss, and Bobby and his friend Gardar took long walks among the ancient rocks and paths in the area. In a memorial article in the Iceland Review, writer Sara Blask summed up Bobby’s feelings about what he wanted after his death: “Fischer just wanted to be buried like a normal human being—not a chessplayer, just as a person.”

  It took a long time for Bobby to admit to himself that he was dying, but when he came to accept it, he made it clear to Sverrisson that he wanted no fanfare, no media circus, no lavish funeral, and he wanted it to be private. Desiring control until the end, he was particularly emphatic that none of his “enemies” attend his funeral: those who he felt exploited him or with whom he’d established feuds. Above all, he stressed that there were to be no reporters, television cameras, or gaping tourists.

  Sverrisson arranged the funeral and carried it out with strict observance of Bobby’s last directives. He knew that the other members of the RJF Committee, who’d worked so tirelessly for Bobby, would be deeply hurt if they couldn’t pay their last respects by attending a ceremonial funeral, but he was nothing if not a loyal friend to Bobby, and he’d spent years protecting him and carrying out his wishes. This last service performed for his friend would cause Sverrisson years of enmity from certain members of the RJF Committee and others who felt close to Bobby during his Icelandic years. Russell Targ, Bobby’s brother-in-law, was particularly irritated since he’d flown from California to attend the funeral, only to find that he’d missed it by hours. The U.S. Chess Federation sent a communiqué to the Icelandic Chess Federation asking about the disposition of Bobby’s body, presumably wanting to bring him back to the United States, a move that Bobby would have detested. Especially at his death, Sverrisson believed it was his duty to fully comply with Bobby’s requests. His friend would be buried where, when, and how he wanted.