On the building’s fifth floor, within a few feet of the tall cases of books on history and politics, he’d tuck himself away for hours at a table beside a window. In contrast to the unattractive side street outside the window of Bókin, the library’s window provided a view of the fishing trawlers docked in the bay, and the mountains just beyond the water. For all of the days and months that Bobby went to the library, his new routine never leaked to the press. All of the librarians knew who Bobby was, but they never revealed his presence.
Right down the block from the library was an inexpensive Thai restaurant, Krua Thai, where Bobby began dining at least two or three times a week. Not on the normal tourist route, it was clean and cozy, with dark-painted walls, a giant silver-sequined elephant and other decorations from Thailand, and dim lighting, which his eyes preferred. Bobby liked the fish dishes with vegetables and rice. He also liked the owner, an intelligent, vivacious Thai woman named Sonja, and insisted that only she wait on him. “Where’s the lady?” he’d demand as soon as he entered, knowing that she’d bring his favorite food and drink without his needing to order. There was only one item he absolutely refused to partake of: Icelandic bottled water. He said it made him sick. He drank only beer or tea. After he’d been going to Krua Thai for about a year, Sonja gently asked if he’d pose for a photo with her. He refused.
Bobby told no one, not even his closest friends, about Krua Thai, since, although he was lonely, he often preferred to dine alone; like Thomas Jefferson in the White House, he enjoyed his own company, the opportunity to read or to contemplate books, ideas, and memories. Paradoxically, it was when he was with others that he felt an uncomfortable solitude.
Bobby was conflicted about his intense desire for privacy, and his need—from his earliest days of childhood—for attention. He demanded constant reassurances of adoration, or at least notice. One day in downtown Reykjavik, he was asked for directions by some American tourists. “Gee, they didn’t know who I was,” he said disappointedly to Einarsson. “And they were Americans!” Another time, just to give himself a change from the city, he took a bus alone to a small fishing village named Grindavík near the famous Blue Lagoon, an outdoor thermal pool that he liked to bathe in. He stayed at an inn there for a few days. The waitress in the restaurant was friendly, especially since he was one of the only customers. “Are you famous?” she asked, possibly sensing Bobby’s fame, or maybe because she’d seen his photo in Morgunbladid or some other periodical. “Perhaps,” Bobby answered coyly. “What are you famous for?” she asked. More coyness: “A board game.” The girl thought for a moment and then it came to her: “You’re Mr. Bingo!” Bobby was mortified that she couldn’t identify him.
Bobby still ate at Anestu Grösum, but he established a new regimen of taking a long walk around the City Pond, watching children feed ducks, geese, and the lovely whooping swans entwining their necks, and finally working his way to the library. Typically, his walks had no destination: To him they were akin to meditation—a chance to think without thinking—and he rambled about even during the bitterly cold winters. Most of the parks had benches, and if the weather was pleasant, he’d sit, read, think, and just be, an activity not atypical of many men entering late life.
Some Icelanders said that they spotted Bobby late at night, walking ghostlike down the deserted and windswept streets near the Old Harbor—like Charles Dickens prowling the docks of London—lost in thought, slightly limping but walking rapidly, as alone as if he’d been roaming the desolate, lava-strewn fields of Iceland’s interior. Bobby’s nocturnal perambulations were an echo of the late night walks he used to take when he lived in New York or Pasadena, and a continuation of the pattern he’d begun in childhood, staying up until the early morning studying chess, and then sleeping until noon or later.
It’s possible that, at this point in his life, a year and a half after landing at Keflavik as a freed man, Bobby began feeling that Iceland was his personal Devil’s Island: once there, never to leave. David Oddsson believed that Fischer felt “trapped” in Iceland in general, and Reykjavik in particular. “I’m a city person,” Oddsson said of himself. “I spend most of my time in Reykjavik. But if I could never go out to the country, that’s precisely where I’d want to go. I would feel trapped in Reykjavik, as Fischer probably feels trapped in Iceland.” Gardar Sverrisson said that, to Bobby, Iceland was a “prison.”
By the time Fischer was completing his second year as an Icelandic citizen, he’d begun to grumble about the country and its people. He missed Europe and friends there, but he didn’t dare leave his ocean-bound haven for fear that he might be captured and extradited. Interpol, the international police organization, had him flagged to be arrested at any one of 368 airports throughout the world.
Finding a permanent place to live in Reykjavik was difficult. Bobby’s first apartment, a furnished sublet he rented for six months, had been ideaclass="underline" It was downtown, had a bit of a view and a terrace, and he could walk quickly to stores and restaurants. Since Bobby ate every meal out—he never cooked—it was important that he live within minutes of a variety of dining establishments. “Eating was very important to him,” Zsuzsa Polgar said in describing his life in Hungary. It always was, wherever he lived, and quiet meals with foods he enjoyed seemed to be even more important in Iceland.
When the owner of Bobby’s apartment returned from her work abroad, as planned, she notified Bobby that he needed to vacate. Although he realized that he had to move, he didn’t want to give up his comfortable residence. Einarsson managed to convince the owner to let Bobby stay an additional six months, but it was obvious that he’d need to arrange a permanent home after that. Einarsson and Sverrisson began escorting Bobby to various condominium apartments, looking for a place for him to buy. As was typical of him, he approached the purchase of his first apartment as he would a chess game: Before he made a move, everything had to be perfect. It was no surprise then that, initially, there was something wrong with every place he saw: One apartment was too close to the church and he was afraid that the morning bells would wake him; another had too many windows facing the street and he feared for his privacy; a third was too “high”—it was on the ninth floor—and he didn’t want to rely on an elevator. A fourth apartment at first looked ideal, but Bobby detected something “wrong with the air.” He claimed that it hurt his lungs to breathe there. While inspecting a fifth apartment, a plane flew overhead, and he immediately vetoed it as being “too noisy.” Finally, he thought that one apartment had “possibilities,” but his two friends quickly tried to talk him out of buying it because it was right below a tawdry sex shop. That didn’t seem to bother Bobby, since the shop opened late in the afternoon, and therefore it would be quiet in the mornings. Einarsson and Sverrisson pointed out, though, that the apartment was in extremely poor condition and would need repairs amounting to tens of thousands of dollars. Bobby grimaced and agreed not to buy it.