Searching for Bobby Fischer

by Fred Waitzkin

  Josh waited behind a heavyset, bald-headed man. When his opponent lost, Josh took his seat. The bald-headed man looked irritated but motioned for him to begin. At first Josh moved the pieces quickly, and Bruce worried that he would blunder. As Volodja scrutinized my son’s moves, I wondered whether he was thinking of his own early days at the game, when he had been considered one of the most promising schoolboy players in Moscow. The heavy-set man played slowly, with a disapproving expression; this was not a place where children came to play. But many other players were curious, and as the game went on perhaps a dozen men gathered to watch. Josh began badly against an opening he had never seen before, but once down a pawn he began to play thoughtfully and managed to win it back in the middle game. He concentrated like an adult; on one critical move he thought for twenty minutes, his hands cupping his ears. Sometimes Josh falls deeply into a chess position. Time passes and he doesn’t notice. His face becomes serene and he doesn’t look like a seven-year-old. His mother says that at such times he plays as if there were an old chess player inside him who wakes up for his games.

  After an hour and a half the Russian offered a draw. When Josh agreed, the man’s face spread into an enormous toothless grin, and he got up from his seat and enveloped Josh in a bear hug. “New Fischer,” he said in English to his friends, who were surprised and delighted that a little boy could play so well. They all patted Josh on the shoulder and slapped me on the back for being his father. The love of chess hung in the air like the smell of good food.

  One of the men who had watched Joshua’s game was Valentin Arbakov, who, like Vinnie in Washington Square, managed to eke out an existence giving laborers time odds for kopecks. Volodja said that as a speed player Arbakov was roughly equivalent to Tal, among the best in the world, but that he lacked the discipline for the slower game. Many grandmasters came to Sokolniki Park to test themselves against Arbakov, and though he was rarely sober, he almost never lost. Yet there is no career for a speed player in Russia or anyplace else.

  Volodja, who had never really focused on Joshua’s play before, was excited and announced with urgency that his talent would come to nothing if he didn’t develop quickly. He spoke half in Russian, half in English as the men stood around listening. “Josh must develop a willingness to work at the game. He must trust Bruce completely. But speed chess isn’t good for him. It ruined me. I never became a grandmaster,” he said plaintively. It was a great sadness in his life. Arbakov shuffled his feet on the muddy floor and agreed; yes, Josh must study very hard and avoid speed games. His breath reeked of vodka.

  THE COSMOS HOTEL was strictly off-limits for most Russians, perhaps because of its grandeur or the likelihood of meeting wealthy Westerners there. Before our visit, Volodja had never been inside. All guests at Intourist hotels are given identification cards that they must show to a guard at the door. When a writer I knew was leaving Moscow he gave his card to Volodja, who clutched it as if it were a ticket to paradise. Now he would be able to get into the Beryozka shop in the lobby to buy Western tobacco and scores of other commodities not available to Russians. If he could manage to borrow several hundred rubles he could buy a Western camera or stereo, sell it in a secondhand shop for five times what he’d paid for it and be able to send some money to his wife in Denmark.

  Volodja and other Russian intellectuals we met chafed at the frivolous curbs imposed on their personal freedom—sanctions against driving in a car with foreigners, traveling out of the country or entering certain stores. Despite the risk, they seemed almost eager to break the rules, explaining that they could not bear to live stunted lives.

  Walking through the front door of the Cosmos with Volodja was a nervous moment. I clutched my room key, also an acceptable form of identification to show at the door, and found myself leaning away from him; if he was stopped by the police, maybe my complicity would go unnoticed. It was disgraceful, but each time we walked into the hotel, I felt the impulse to distance myself from him.

  The Cosmos is a grand illusion, a rendition of Russia artfully crafted to appeal to the Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Club Med vacation set. It is a glitzy, baldly decadent palace of materialistic and corporal pleasures. The hotel’s brown, curving façade seems to have been patterned after the Fontainbleau Hotel on Miami Beach, but the Cosmos is bigger and better. Its creators selected a futuristic theme; scores of bars, discos and restaurants have a zippy Star Trek atmosphere, new-wave music and intergalactic names. Looking out the window of our room, cut from the same mold used by Holiday Inn and Hilton for their antiseptic look-alike rooms, the eye travels to a sleek rocket ship on top of the AeroSpace Museum, poised to lift off from the gloomy Moscow morning.

  The hotel is located on the outskirts of the city, miles from most things a tourist would want to see, but it provides the tourist—particularly a Westerner—with everything imaginable to entice him to stay inside. There are AMF bowling alleys to keep tourists in shape for Sunday league games, masseurs standing by to knead away tensions and a heated Olympic-sized swimming pool. If you want Russian atmosphere, the hotel provides plenty. The acres of lobbies are sprinkled with big-screen television monitors showing nature documentaries about Siberia, adventure movies with beautiful Russian landscapes and quaint Russian cartoons to entertain restless kids. If you are feeling tired or lazy, you simply throw your feet up on a luxurious Finnish leather sofa, sip a Beck beer and watch Russia on the tube. There are endless books and postcards to take home, demonstrating that you have ventured behind the Iron Curtain, and legions of helpful Intourist guides happy to describe Russian culture and history by the hour. A weary American could not feel more pampered or more at home.

  Lengthy menus in Cosmos restaurants feature such old-time Russian favorites as hot borscht and chicken Kiev, but the waiters invariably guide diners to beefsteak and French fries. Night after night they explain that it’s a shame, but akroshka or pyelmeni is not available this evening. The dining halls are like giant spaceships and serve food of the quality you would expect at a Ramada Inn.

  For the traveling businessman there are luxury shops filled with glistening furs for the wife and a large selection of gorgeous English-speaking prostitutes lounging around the lobby. If you are needy but shy, such meetings are discreetly arranged by a dour lady stationed on each floor. It is common knowledge that the girls of the Cosmos have an ongoing association with the KGB.

  Leaving the Cosmos may seem unnecessary, but if you do decide to venture out, you are encouraged to make arrangements through your guide. In this way the hotel is your host wherever you travel in Moscow. If you want a tour of Russian war monuments or would like to attend the puppet theater, the circus or the Bolshoi, just pick up the phone. A limousine is standing by to take you and to hurry you back the moment the curtain falls, in time for caviar, champagne and late-night disco at the hotel. If you decide to stay downtown later than expected, the driver waits (at least our driver did) until you are ready to return. It is hard not to wonder if his motivation goes beyond courtesy.

  For late-night dining and dancing there is a little Bohemian disco in the basement of the Cosmos, trendy enough to attract crowds of yuppies if it were in New York, with little snacks expensive even by Upper East Side standards. The all-night bars at the Cosmos are captained by heavy-lidded men who speak liquor and money in a dozen languages. Like bartenders around the world, they exchange smiles and tired sympathy for tips. At six in the morning they straggle downstairs to the garage where they park their shiny Mercedes. Word has it that bartenders in the Cosmos are among the wealthiest of Russians, and that the payoffs to get these jobs are tremendous.

  From the militarylike security at the front door, one assumes that the authorities have as much invested in keeping Russians out as in seducing Americans to stay inside. It is a stretch for a Marxist idealist to reconcile the reality of daily food lines and scratching out an existence on a hundred and fifty rubles a month with Americans enjoying the jet-set life at the Cosmos for a hundred and fifty
rubles a day. How can a Russian like Volodja not be dumbfounded by this epic billion-ruble concoction, Moscow’s homage to capitalism?

  ONE EVENING VOLODJA ate dinner with us in a glittery restaurant on the first floor. His wife-had called him from Denmark two days before to say that during her last visit to Russia she had become pregnant. She was feeling too sick to work and had no money, and he didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to join him in the Soviet Union for fear the baby wouldn’t be permitted to leave. “Do you realize,” he said, “I may never see my child?” Back in New York, Bonnie was also pregnant, and I wanted to talk with my new friend about fatherhood, but it wasn’t appropriate; my own happiness seemed unfair.

  During other nights out, Volodja had ordered for us, but in the Cosmos he whispered that the waiters must not hear him speak Russian; it could be dangerous. We ordered beefsteak and French fries. Soon a West German band started playing the latest European hits. We were sitting beside the dance floor, which was crowded with men in business suits dancing stiffly with busty women in tight skirts alongside a few gorgeously dressed Russian couples—the children of politicians, we were told—stylishly executing the newest Western dance steps. The darkened room seemed to move with slinky electronic rhythms and blinking lights.

  Later, upstairs in our room, Volodja said wearily, “Several years ago I was shipped off to a collective farm. It is not unusual if the workers in the district cannot harvest the crops in time. But it was very strange—doctors and university professors living in a cramped and freezing hut. Our lives and careers were completely disrupted because the people in the village wouldn’t work.”

  I was nervous when Volodja talked about his life in our hotel room. What if the room was bugged? It would take an army to listen to all the conversations in all the rooms of the Cosmos; still, during our stay we kept making resolutions to be discreet. Bruce and I continually cautioned Josh not to mention Volodja by name or to ask questions about the problems of Jewish chess players. He was confused about the need for secrecy and would say, “Who’s listening? The KGB? But who are the KGB? Why are they listening?” In any case we would eventually forget discretion and talk about everything.

  At 10:30 P.M. we watched a television special about the chess match, which was followed by the news. It was the week of President Reagan’s long-awaited meeting with Prime Minister Gromyko, and Moscow television was filled with images of chess and war. Newscasts began with stories about Karpov and Kasparov, followed by clips of Reagan pounding his fist like Mussolini or of U.S. Marines training with bazookas. One didn’t have to be a grandmaster to conclude that while Russians engaged in their symphony of sport, Americans practiced war.

  “What about that Korean spy plane?” Volodja asked.

  “Terrible,” I answered sharply. I felt self-righteous about the Korean plane.

  “You know,” Volodja said, “most of the European journalists here felt that the Korean plane was part of a spy mission. At the very least it was doing something provocative to see how we would respond.”

  “Even if that’s so, what’s the justification for shooting it down? Why not force it to land?”

  He nodded. “I think it was the second plane which caused the alarm here.”

  “What second plane?” I hadn’t read about any second plane.

  “Our radar showed one plane; then the blip broke into two. At first the two planes were flying close together; then the second plane, apparently smaller, flew off.”

  “The story here is very different from the one in the States. We heard nothing about a second plane,” I said. Political conversations between us often ran up against such walls, for we made our judgments on the basis of different “facts.” Often we felt bewildered; who was right? “What do you think happened?” I asked. “Why was the plane shot down?”

  “I think the generals were drunk that night.”

  It seemed like a reasonable theory: generals in some backwater area, drunk on vodka. “Something like that will be the end of us all,” I said.

  For the last several days, Josh had been coaxing Bruce and Volodja to play chess. Bruce searched for excuses, but this evening Josh insisted and had his way. In their first games, Bruce was deferential, attempting to lure Volodja into a kind of pas de deux. If he won a pawn, he acted as if it were an accident, or even offered a little apology. Volodja was oblivious and played for every advantage. While Pandolfini used timid, drawish openings, Volodja chose dynamic attacking lines from the latest issues of Shakhmatnyi byulleten and 64. Again and again he wedged apart Pandolfini’s pawns with state-of-the-art opening traps. Bruce struggled and lost the first six games, four of them on time. It seemed as if he wouldn’t be able to win a game. Volodja was a tiger, pouncing on each move. The instant the flag on Bruce’s clock fell Volodja immediately set up the pieces for the next game. For him these wins were like accumulating wealth. He was insatiable; perhaps winning helped him forget. Bruce hung on in weak positions, trying not to lose.

  Josh was beside himself and couldn’t bear to look at the games. He believed his teacher’s playing strength was at least equal to Bobby Fischer’s and couldn’t imagine Bruce taking a beating. As the games continued, he became crazy with tension and bounced like a beach ball from sofa to bed to bathroom. When he knocked over a lamp, no one noticed.

  After an hour or so, Bruce managed to draw a few games. This was the happiest part of the night for him. They were intricate positional games, well played, with a handshake at the end and no loser. But the competition turned sharply on one game. It was a rook-pawn ending in which Pandolfini’s passed pawn had advanced to the seventh rank, with his rook blocking the pawn’s advance. As Volodja pressed the clock he commented that Bruce was playing the ending incorrectly. “Otherwise you would have a won game,” he said confidently. But he was wrong; his opponent’s win was clear after three more moves.

  Now Volodja started losing. Pandolfini played with a melancholic expression and, regardless of the time on the clock, moved his pieces in a calm, unhurried way. But he had become more familiar with his opponent’s style and choice of openings, and despite his demeanor his game had become more aggressive. Volodja played in a fury. He seemed to move faster and faster, banging the clock for emphasis but making mistakes. He had wanted to be invincible, and falling short of this, his game began to collapse. In his rush to win he knocked pieces from the board. In one game he hung his queen and barked at Josh to be quiet. Bruce kept trying to guide the marathon to a conclusion, but Volodja wouldn’t allow him to stop.

  Josh fell asleep at two in the morning beneath a pile of bolster pillows. Each night in the hotel he carefully constructed a fort on top of his sheets, his protection from “the baddies who are listening.”

  At three I walked downstairs with Volodja. The lobby was empty except for a dozen whores who chatted with the policemen near the front door. Emerging from the excesses of the past hours, Volodja’s face was timid and a little embarrassed. “Bruce’s knowledge of the endgame is sophisticated,” he said thoughtfully.

  As he walked to the front door, I wondered what the guards would think: Who is this man leaving the hotel at this hour? Is he Russian? What would happen if they stopped Volodja and asked for his papers? But they didn’t.

  Back in the room, Bruce was lying in bed looking as if he were about to burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You couldn’t have played better.”

  “And I hated every minute of it. Did you see how upset he became?”

  It was a strange moment; we had traveled all the way to Moscow to see the world championship and to observe Russian chess life, and my son’s teacher was confessing that he couldn’t bear to play the game. He might lose, he might win; either way it was a crisis. “I like to draw,” Bruce said unhappily, “but that’s hard to do unless you play like Petrosian.”

  DURING OUR SECOND week in Moscow, Volodja became increasingly afraid. He had been observed spending afternoons with us at the match and driving us around
Moscow. His boss, Aleksandr Roshal, accused him of subversive activity and threatened to fire him immediately if he continued to see us. Pandolfini and I felt terrible about having added to his difficulties, and we urged him to keep his distance, but Volodja wouldn’t hear of it and clung to us as to a lifeline. He asked dozens of questions about the professional opportunities that might be open to him in Europe or the United States, as if the answers would get him a visa. He was speaking to all of his friends, trying to track down Boris Gulko for us, and hoped that if I wrote about the dissident in Western magazines, I could also discuss his own situation in order to pressure the authorities to allow him to visit his wife.

  One morning when he picked us up Volodja told us with great agitation that he had been fired. “To take away a man’s work, that’s fascism,” he said. “But if I call a press conference, I will be called a political enemy and sent to prison. It’s ironical about Roshal,” he went on, talking about his boss, who was Karpov’s close friend. “For his whole life he has wanted to defect to the West. He has openly discussed it with his friends. Now he exercises tyranny against Jews and anyone else who wants to leave. Kasparov’s mother despises Roshal for his attitudes about Jews and is afraid that he will try dirty tricks during the match. I must call my friends this afternoon, the people I know who have applied for emigration and been turned down.”

  “Why?”

  “In circumstances such as mine, people have disappeared. I live by myself. Telling people about my situation is my only safeguard.”