Petra Dautov

In 1988 Petra Stadler wrote a letter to Bobby Fischer - and something unbelievable happened: he contacted her right away, and a friendship developed during her visit in Los Angeles, which two years later even lead Fischer to Germany. He stayed several months at Seeheim a.d. Bergstraße, her hometown, near Darmstadt, until the press managed to spot him.

Petra married in 1992 the Russian grandmaster Rustem Dautov. In 1995 she published “Bobby Fischer – wie er wirklich ist – Ein Jaher mit dem Schachgenie. Here a fragment from her book:

“Hey Petra, did I wake you up?”
“Yes, of course. What in heavens name happened?”
He sounded excited.
“You must come here and pick me up immediately, right now! I did something stupid.”
Several horror visions run through my head. The thought that he was caught by the distribution of his books seemed most likely to me or that a difference of opinion relating to this had a wicked, say violent ending.
“Are you all right?” I asked worried.
“Yes, sure”, he answered. “But you have to get me away from here”.
“But why now?”
“You know there is here a Chinese chambermaid.” I remembered vaguely, that Bobby all but enthusiastic reported about an employee from “Red China”.  I only met her once.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Well yes, hm… She was shortly ago with me and, now, hm, and..,”
“I can already think, what you mean”, I interrupted him, to his relief. “Yes, and?” I did not understand completely, what the problem was, that forced him to such a sudden departure.
“You know, I told her, who I am. That wasn’t too smart. She wanted immediately, that I wrote something in the guest book, and now I fear, that she will betray me. It was really foolish from me.”

To get hold of her book is quite difficult. Somewhere hidden on the internet you can find Petra Dautov’s phonenumber and when you are lucky you get her on the phone to order the book. She then sends an email with the details of the bankaccount and other details:

“Please understand that because of very bad experiences we send books to other countries only by advanced payment. The price for the book is 13.50 Euro. Sending it to the Netherlands costs 2.50 E. Some people even have send the money cash because sometimes transferring from foreign countries costs more than the book.”

I did receive the book but why it took more then three weeks to arrive I don’t know, especially since Petra Dautov was so kind to send me the book before she received the money.

"Three weeks - what did they do with the book? Unbelievable. I'm sorry."

Within the brief email correspondence I had with Petra she made a very friendly impression on me. I asked her a few questions about Fischer, which she answered kindly. At a certain point I asked her permission to give a journalist her email address and she allowed that:

“thank you for asking. It's alright if you give my e-mail address to Mr. Chun. Many journalists have contacted me and sometimes I've refused to answer their questions. Believe me, some of them were really 'amazing' or in a way I didn't want to talk about Bobby.”

In her book Petra is very critical about people who talk to the press. That seems hypocritical since she gave much more personal details about Fischer then anybody ever before. It's difficult to rhyme such hypocracy with the nice and honest impression Petra Dautov made on me and the way I got hold of her book. Maybe Fischer allowed her to write the book? Did he ever read her book? 

Maybe Renee Chun or other journalists have bothered her too much? Recently she refuses to answer any question about Fischer.

She also did not answer my last email. Perhaps somebody else can answer my question?

Dear Mrs. Dautov,

I’ve re-read your book again with much pleasure and then stumbled on a rather odd inexactness. You can find the inexactness in the very amusing part where Fischer tries to drag you to the Queen Mary. According to Fischer a huge ship that carries airplanes. Fischer asks in the bus a black woman if the ship is indeed large and the woman confirms it’s huge because it’s an aircraft carrier. You manage to avoid the visit to the ship but later on the beach you see in the distance a ship with chimneys. A passer-bye tells you it’s the Queen Mary. The ship with chimneys you saw on Long Beach must have been indeed the Queen Mary. That’s for sure but that ship never carried an aircraft. Did Fischer pull your leg telling it was an aircraft carrier? Or maybe you reconstructed the conversation with the black woman and added the detail that she confirmed it was an aircraft carrier?

I do understand it’s impossible to remember a conversation word by word. So don't think I want to hold such an inaccuracy against you. I'm just curious and wonder if there is a rational explanation for it.  

With kind regards,

Peter van der Hoog