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Rating: Perhaps not everyone knows, but in those years there was a war.
And there was also a race, to find the weapons to fight it.
And, at a certain point, Fate decreed, chess became one of those weapons.
The unkempt beard, the one from the latest photos, almost looks like Saddam's. Only it's white. An icon aging. Like Che would have been if he hadn't died in Bolivia, or Marilyn, today. Him, like this. Who cares. As always.
Nobody taught him to play. He finds a chessboard in his hands. The Myth says it arrived by chance, almost fell from the sky. And he takes the instruction manual, as if it were a dishwasher, one of those in those years, those who had one were rich.
Today, to play chess, you're taught. There are books. The teachers, usually Russian, mad fragments of a world where a war has ended. And especially the computer. You sit there, they place you there, to work, forget the rest, friends, girls, I like toy soldiers, they're not even around anymore, in return for a video game that makes you feel like you’re Private Ryan. Forget it. You sit, you study, you have memory, good advice as well. You learn in no time. Not back in those years. You played chess if you had the gift. Or if you were Russian, of course. But if you weren't, you had to have the Gift. And you didn't even know what this gift was. Couldn’t even explain it.
La Gazzetta. Seen. Repubblica, the Corriere. Everyone asks you. An old story being told again. He doesn't even care. Forty-two years ago, you snapped your fingers and the world talked about it. The cameras too close, the hypnotists. Perhaps the first multimedia hero.
And then twenty years of mystery. That nobody knows where he was. Nor will they ever. Gone, chasing a variant. That nobody sees, that nobody understands. Whether it was the Axh2 from the first Match, or instead one of the thousand geniuses studied, seen, commented, savored by all, will never be known.
And the return. With some disappointment too. He was no longer – there’s no doubt about this – the strongest. And the thousand, hundred thousand idiocies with which he filled some more pages.
The thousand, hundred thousand antics of one who had the world at his feet. The World, no less. Everyone watching him. And he knew it. He pampered the world. He mistreated it, ruffled its hair. And then picked it back up, winked. Just kidding, don't worry, I got this.
The beard looks like Saddam’s, only whiter. The face is hard to remember as his. The crazy head, that one no doubt. And everyone waiting for a sign, a glimmer, a spark. Like in the old days, when everything was different. When you could stay balanced. Between madness and brilliance. Giving your all in each field. Without mediation. The height of madness, the height of brilliance. And never a gray day. Never anything mediocre. Never the everyday.
Seven years ago, on January 18, 2008, in Reykjavík, the most brilliant and the most foolish of chess players passed away. Of men, perhaps.
Perhaps.
Or maybe he just disappeared. Maybe, somewhere, that white beard is still around, and he's playing a game whose rules elude most. But not him. He’s got the instruction manual. He read it and memorized it. Maybe one day we will understand too.
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