In Search of Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer in his prime was probably the best chess player of all time.
He was born in Chicago in 1943 and raised fatherless in Brooklyn, where his
mother relocated after her divorce in 1945. Bobby learned to play chess when
he was six and knew immediately he´d found his calling, declaring, "All I want
to do, ever, is play chess." When he was 13 he became the youngest-ever national
junior chess champion in the USA and at 14 became the youngest senior champion.
In 1958, at the age of 15, he became the youngest Grandmaster in the long history
of chess. Fischer ended the Soviet domination of the World Championship when
he became the first American to win the title, defeating Boris Spassky of the USSR
in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972.

I was 20 years old when the 29 year old Fischer took the crown
from Spassky in a controversial showdown in Reykjavik. In one
of the first games of th 24-game marathon championship, Bobby
refused to even show up. Before another, he had the site of the
matches searched high and low for secret devices he said had
been planted by the Soviets to deplete his nervous system. In
the end, Fischer came from behind to dominate Spassky and win.
I celebrated this brilliant outcast´s triumph by playing through
all the games again, one per day. Never more than a mediocre
player myself, I could at least grasp bits of the genius in Fischer´s
best games of the uneven championship.

It seemed to me, reading of the games one day and the atmosphere
in Reykjavik on the days off between games, that I was actually
in Iceland. That´s how intensely I followed the match, replaying
each grandmaster´s moves on my chessboard in Victoria, Canada.
Who would guess that, 33 years later, both Fischer and I would be
in Reykjavik at the same time? We are. I´ve asked about him. A few
friends of my host, Disa, have given me clues, advanced rumours.
"He likes to visit this bar in 101," one says, and "I took bridge lessons
from his old friend, the man who brought him back here recently,"
says another. So, you see, I have begun a sleuthing search. My first
goal is to find him. My second? Haha, an enormous longshot: I would
like to write an extended-length feature about him, with quotes, for
a suitable magazine. The title would be In Search Of Bobby Fischer. In
search of the man behind the brash comments, reclusive life, exile.

If you´ve been reading the international news at all, you may have
caught wind of Fischer´s recent dramas of becoming a man without a
country, a man who´d said some wild things on a Manila radio station
about the attacks of September 11th, 2001, about the President of the
U.S.A., about Ed Koch, and about Jewish people in positions of great
power. Fischer was already wanted for breaking U.S. sanctions against
Serbia by playing a 20th anniversary friendly rematch there with Boris
Spassky in 1992. Fischer had been detained in Japan without a valid
passport and, when it looked like he´d be deported "home" to the U.S.A.,
old friends with long memories in Iceland came through, campaigning
for and winning him a kind of hero´s mercy - an Icelandic passport and
citizenship. They were supported by a majority of Icelanders. In this
country, Fischer remains a figure of lasting affection.

Fischer had lived in Japan for eight years incognito. On his release
from Japan, he again lambasted George W. Bush and said that his
arrest and imprisonment had been a "kidnapping cooked up by Bush
and Koizumi," the Japanese PM. The United States still consider him
a fugitive from justice, and even though he´s been granted citizenship
in Iceland the American authorities could still call upon the island´s
extradition treaty with the U.S. in order to try to have Fischer shipped
stateside. Will they? Perhaps the recent experience with U.K. politician,
George Galloway, who opened fire at a hearing in Washington, will
dissuade them. Some mouths are better kept far from the microphones.

Just two weeks before I arrived here in Iceland, a citizen of the former
USSR visited. Boris Spassky, now an old friend of Fischer´s, came to
renew communications and have a meeting. They met to discuss
getting Fischer back to the chessboard, where he best belongs. The
two men plan to meet again during my stay here, though it´s all secret,
naturally. It´s a good sign, though.

Without a doubt, Fischer is untamed, controversial, difficult to defend,
and yet - in spite of it all - likeable. I am not sure that I can explain it,
other than to say he captured hearts and minds at the peak of his powers
and has always been just crazy enough to make us all feel a tad more
certain we´re not, completely. One is more forgiving of a genius than a
betrayer, more forgiving of a child chess prodigy, say, than an elected
official who misleads his own people in order to invade, occupy and ruin
an oil-rich Middle Eastern sovereign nation which once was the cradle
of civilization. Let´s keep things in their proper perspective.

For now, Fischer is in Iceland, probably living in 101 Reykjavik.
An odd vagabond in his sixties, part lunatic, but brilliantly so. There
is a bar I´m looking for. There is a man named Sæmundur, who´s
known him since the championship days of 1972, who taught the
wiles of bridge to a few friends, some of whom claim to have seen
Fischer out and about with his Japanese wife. I will be keeping my
eyes open. I know he rarely gives interviews. I know that when he
does he often blows the roof right off, whether it´s with anti-semitic
remarks or his rash America-had-it-coming comments after 9/11. I may
be going out for a beer a little more often during my stay in Reykjavik,
home of the 1972 World Chess Championship and now refugee shelter
to a Chicago-born chess genius gypsy named Robert James Fischer.

DL