Benji doesn’t answer. But he feels small.
* * *
Monday morning comes to Beartown without ever really granting them daylight, as if it were as reluctant to wake up as the inhabitants.
A mother is sitting in a Volvo, trying to convince her daughter that she doesn’t have to do this. She doesn’t have to go in. Not today.
“Yes, I do,” the daughter says, stroking her mother’s hair.
“You . . . You don’t know what they’ve been saying online,” Kira says quietly.
“I know exactly what they’ve been saying. That’s why I have to go in. If I wasn’t ready for this, I wouldn’t have reported him to the police, Mom. Now, I can’t . . .”
Her voice cracks. Kira’s nails dig tiny pieces of rubber from the steering wheel.
“You can’t let them win. Because you’re your father’s daughter.”
Maya reaches out her hand and brushes two stray strands of hair from Kira’s cheek and tucks them behind her ear.
“My mother’s. Always my mother’s.”
“I want to kill them, darling. I’d like to kill the whole lot of them. I’ve got the whole firm involved in this; there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to let them wi . . .”
“I’ve got to go, Mom. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. So I need to get going.”
Kira watches her daughter go. Then she drives as far out into the forest as possible with the stereo turned up as loud as possible. She gets out and screams until her voice gives out.
36
The simplest and truest thing David knows about hockey is that teams win games. It doesn’t matter how good a coach’s tactics are: if they’re to stand any chance of working, first the players need to believe in them. And each one of them needs to have the same words imprinted in his head a million times: Play your part. Focus on your task. Do your job.
David is lying in bed beside his girlfriend, his hand on her stomach.
“Do you think I’m going to be a good dad?” he asks.
“You’re going to be a really, really, really annoying dad,” she replies.
“That’s mean.”
She tweaks his earlobe between her thumb and forefinger. He looks so sad that she starts giggling.
“You’ll have a tactical plan for the birth, and you’ll try to set up a contraction strategy with the midwife because there’s bound to be some sort of record to try to beat. You’ll get it into your head that the length and weight percentiles are a competition. You’ll be the most annoying, argumentative, best dad in the world.”
His fingers trace the outline of her navel.
“Do you think he . . . or she . . . the child . . . do you think it will like hockey?”
She kisses him.
“It’s really hard to love you without loving hockey, Dave. And it’s really, really, really hard not to love you.”
He’s lying on his back with her legs gently twined around his.
“This business with Kevin. With . . . everything. I don’t know what to do.”
She whispers without hesitation:
“Your job, darling. You can’t get involved in that; you’re not a policeman and you’re not a lawyer. You’re a hockey coach. Do your job. Isn’t that what you always say to the guys?”
* * *
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” the headmaster says into the phone. He’s already lost track of how many similar calls he’s received this morning.
“I WANT YOU TO DO YOUR JOB!” Maggan Lyt shrieks at the other end.
“You have to try to understand that I can’t preempt a police inves . . .”
Saliva spatters the phone when Maggan replies:
“Do you know what this is? It’s a CONSPIRACY against the whole hockey team! This is all about JEALOUSY!”
“So . . . what do you want me to do?”
“Your job!!!”
* * *
Bobo is stacking car tires in the garage. He’s stressed and angry as he puts the tools back in their places on the wall and pulls off his dirty overalls.
“I have to go to school now, Dad.”
Hog scratches his beard, looks at his son, and perhaps he feels like saying something, without actually knowing what that thing might be.
“You’ll have to help me finish this later.”
“We’ve got practice this evening.”
“This evening? But the season’s over!”
“It’s not obligatory. But everyone will be there. For the team’s sake. Lyt says we have to stand united for Kevin.”
“Lyt says that? William Lyt?” Hog exclaims. He’s never heard anyone in that family talk about standing united on any subject, but he can see in his son’s eyes that there’s no point discussing this unless he wants an argument, so he merely grunts:
“Just don’t forget that you’ve got things to do here too.”
Once Bobo has showered he runs out to the road. Ann-Katrin and Hog watch him from the kitchen window. They can see Lyt and at least ten more juniors standing there waiting. They go everywhere together now.
“We’ve got to talk to him. I saw Maya at the hospital, I SAW her, and she didn’t look like a girl who was lying,” Ann-Katrin says, but her husband shakes his head.
“We can’t get involved in this, Anki. It’s none of our business.”
* * *
Jeanette is fighting against the black lump in her stomach, trying to suppress the heartburn and migraine she always gets when she’s not sleeping properly.
“I’m just saying, we ought to talk to the students about it. We can’t just pretend nothing’s happening.”
The headmaster sighs and waves his phone.
“Please, Jeanette, you’ve no idea of the pressure I’m under here. The phone’s been ringing all morning. The parents have gone mad. I’ve even had journalists calling! We’re simply not equipped to handle something like this!”
Jeanette cracks her knuckles; she does that when she’s nervous, an old habit from her hockey days.
“So we just stay quiet?”
“Yes . . . No . . . We . . . Christ, we can’t add to the rumors and speculation. What’s wrong with people? Why can’t we all just wait until the investigation is finished? That’s why we have courts, isn’t it? We can’t set ourselves above the law, Jeanette, that isn’t our responsibility. If it turns out . . . If what this student is saying about Kevin . . . if it’s true . . . then time will tell. And if it isn’t, then we need to be sure we haven’t done anything stupid.”
Jeanette wants to scream, but doesn’t.
“What about Maya? If she comes to school today?”
The headmaster’s facial expression goes from sure to unsure to panic-stricken in the space of just a few words.
“She won’t, obviously. She wouldn’t. Do you think she will?”
“I don’t know.”
“She won’t. Surely she won’t? You don’t have her in any of your classes, do you?”
“No, but I’ve got half the players on the team. So exactly what do you want me to do?”
The headmaster throws his hands up in resignation. “What do you think?”
* * *
They’re sitting in the cafeteria, chairs touching, heads together. There’s fire in William Lyt’s eyes.
“Where the fuck is Benji? Has anyone seen him?”
They shake their heads. Lyt jabs his index finger down hard on the table.
“My mom’s arranged for us all to get a lift to Hed today, okay? We’re leaving just before lunch. Don’t mention it to anyone not on the team. If the teachers make a fuss, they’ll just have to talk to our parents. Okay?”
They nod. Lyt bangs his fist on the table.
“We’re going to show the bastards doing this, all of them, that we stand together. Because you know what this is, don’t you? It’s a conspiracy against the whole team. It’s jealousy. A conspiracy, and fucking jealousy.”
The boys nod in agreement, det
ermined. They’ve all got dark circles under their eyes. Several of them have been crying. Lyt slaps them on the shoulder, one by one.
“We have to keep the team together now! The whole team!”
He looks directly at Bobo as he says this.
* * *
Amat is standing by his locker. It looks like he’s about to be sick inside it. Bobo heads toward him from the cafeteria and stops awkwardly behind him.
“We have to . . . keep the team together, Amat. Kevin is being released by the police today, so we’re going to our first classes, but then the whole team’s going to Hed together. It’s important that we all go as a group. To . . . show.”
* * *
They both avoid looking toward the row of lockers where Maya has hers. All the pupils going past stare at it without actually looking in that direction, a trick you soon pick up when you’re a teenager. The door of the locker is covered in black ink. Five letters. All she is to them now.
* * *
Kevin is led out through the door of the police station in Hed, hands holding onto him carefully as if he can’t walk on his own. On one side his dad, on the other his mom, and around them like a protective wall of flesh and blood is a group of middle-aged men in jeans and smart, tailored jackets, ties knotted as tightly as their fists are clenched. Most of them are sponsors of the club, two are board members, several are prominent businessmen and entrepreneurs in the region, one a local politician. But if anyone asks, they would never present themselves that way, just say: “Friends of the Erdahl family. Just friends of the family.” A few steps behind comes the junior team. One or two of them still look a bit boyish, but en masse they’re men. Silent and menacing. There to prove something, to someone.
Kevin’s mom tenderly wraps a blanket around his shoulders as they help him into the car. The men surrounding them don’t slap him on the back the way they usually do, they pat his cheek lovingly instead. Perhaps that makes it feel easier for them. As if it’s the boy who’s the victim.
* * *
Benji is sitting on a low wall twenty yards away. His cap is pulled down low over his forehead, his hood pulled up so that the shadows hide his face. None of the adults even notice him, but Kevin does. For a single second, just as his mother is wrapping the blanket around him and before the car door closes, his eyes meet those of his best friend. Until Kevin looks down.
* * *
By the time the cavalcade of cars following Kevin’s dad leaves Hed, Benji is already long gone. The only person left on the street outside the police station is Amat. He puts his headphones in, raises the volume, sticks his hands hard in his pockets, and sets off to walk all the way back to Beartown on his own.
* * *
Ana walks into the school dining room, the same storm of shrieks and clattering as usual. On a desert island in the corner sits Maya, alone, so isolated that no one has even sat down at the tables next to hers. Everyone is staring without looking. Ana walks toward her but Maya looks up, like a creature caught in a trap warning another not to get too close. Maya shakes her head softly. Ana’s footsteps shift the gravity of the whole planet with each step she takes, as she lowers her head and goes and sits down at another table, in a different corner. The shame of that moment will follow her until her dying day.
A group of older girls—Ana recognizes them from the kitchen at Kevin’s party—head toward Maya. First as if they’re pretending she doesn’t exist, then, in a flash, as if she’s the only thing that does. One of them steps forward with a glass in her hand. Maya sees the others position themselves as a barrier toward the rest of the room, so that even if everyone sees exactly what happens, everyone will be able to claim afterward, when the teachers ask, that their “view was obscured.” That they “didn’t see the incident.”
“As if anyone would want to rape YOU, you disgusting little bitch . . .”
Milk runs down Maya’s hair, drips down her face and down inside her top. The glass doesn’t break when the girl hits her across the brow with it, nor does her brow. For a fleeting moment Maya sees the fear in the girl’s eyes when she starts to worry she’s gone too far, that Maya might start bleeding and collapse on the floor. But Maya’s skin is thick. And her attacker’s eyes are soon filled with derision again. As if the person she attacked is no longer human.
* * *
Everyone sees it but no one sees it. The dining room is simultaneously filled with noise and utterly silent. Maya hears the giggling as a muffled roar in her ears. She sits there calmly with pain throbbing through her brow and forehead, and slowly wipes herself with the few small napkins on her tray. They quickly run out. She refuses to look around for more, but suddenly someone puts a thick pile down next to her. A different hand, almost as big as her own, starts wiping the table. She looks at him and then shakes her head, almost beseechingly.
“It’ll only get worse for you if you sit here,” she whispers.
“I know,” Leo says.
Her little brother sits down beside her and starts to eat. In a sea of stares, he seems unconcerned.
“So why do it, then?” his big sister asks.
Leo looks at her with their mother’s eyes.
“Because you and I aren’t like them. We aren’t the bears from Beartown.”
37
Sooner or later, almost every discussion about the way people behave toward one another ends up becoming an argument about “human nature.” That’s never been an easy thing for biology teachers to explain: on the one hand, our entire species survived because we stuck together and cooperated, but on the other hand we developed because the strongest individuals always thrived at the expense of the weak. So we always end up arguing about where the boundaries should be drawn. How selfish are we allowed to be? How much are we obliged to care about each other?
People say, “But what about a sinking ship? What about a burning house?” because those are dramatic scenarios to imagine. It’s hard to win a debate against that. Because if it were a life-and-death situation, who would you save if you could only choose one? Who would you pull out of the freezing water first if the lifeboat only had a limited number of places?
Your family. You always start with your family. That’s what she tells herself. She’s freezing; she turned up the heat and is wearing four layers, but she’s still shaking. She’s gone from room to room in the house. She’s cleaned Kevin’s room, has gotten rid of all the sheets and pillowcases, has dumped all the T-shirts and jeans from the washing basket into charity collection boxes many miles away from the house. She’s vacuumed up all potential blouse-buttons and flushed any traces of marijuana down the toilet.
* * *
Because she’s his mom. And that’s where you start.
* * *
When the police arrived she was standing tall in the doorway. Their lawyers had pointed out that they could object, delay, make things difficult, that the search of the house and any forensic evidence could be deemed inadmissible given that the police only showed up a whole week after the alleged offense. But his mom insisted on letting in the men in uniform. She repeated time and time again that her family had nothing to hide, although she was unable to stop wondering if she was trying to convince them or herself. She can’t stop shivering. But she’s his mom. So where do you start, if not there?
* * *
Kevin’s dad is sitting in the kitchen, now the command center, making call after call, as more and more men gather in the house. They’re all very understanding, sympathetic, angry. They are hurt. Aggressive. They’re ready for war, not because they’ve chosen it, but because they don’t believe they have a choice. Kevin’s dad’s childhood friend, Mario Lyt, is the loudest of them all:
“Do you know what? That girl’s family could have come and talked to us. They could have tried to resolve this privately. But instead they waited a whole week, until the moment when they knew it would do us the MOST harm, then went to the police with their lies IMMEDIATELY before the final! If it was actually true, why wasn?
??t it reported at once? Why wait a week? Eh? Should I tell you why? Because some people in this town can’t control their own jealousy!”
He could have called “that girl’s family” by their name. Andersson. But that would have been less effective. He needn’t have said anything more, because soon the theory is spreading on its own:
“This is what happens when you let a GM get too big for his boots, isn’t it? We’ve given him too much influence, he thinks he owns the club. So now he can’t handle the fact that he’s losing his own power, right? And the fact that Kevin is better that he ever was, and the board and the sponsors are going against his wishes and demanding that David take over from Sune as A-team coach. Right? So now the GM is trying to drag his family into it . . .”
* * *
When David arrives at the house there are three middle-aged men standing outside, as if on guard. Tonight there will be players from the junior team there instead, David already knows that. As if the house needed protecting.
“Looks like a scene from The Godfather,” David mutters.
Tails answers him. The big man looks embarrassed and therefore laughs a bit too loudly:
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Like Don Corleone needs our help. As if a bunch of fat sponsors could make any real difference.”
He chuckles and pats his own stomach, trying to appear nonchalant, but eventually gives up and puts a huge hand on David’s shoulder, saying:
“Oh, David, you know, we just want to support the family. You can understand that, can’t you? We just want to show that we . . . that we stand united. You can see that? I mean . . . no one knows Kevin better than you. Christ, you’ve practically raised the boy, and do you think one of the boys on your team could do what he’s been accused of? Eh? One of your own lads? You can understand why we’re here, can’t you?”
David doesn’t reply. That isn’t his job. Not his place. Because who do you start with? If you really had to choose, who do you save first? Whose word do you believe?
* * *
Kevin is sitting on his bed. He looks small beneath the posters on the wall—his hoodie looks too big for him. He’s spent two nights in the police station. It doesn’t matter how comfortable the bunk is or how friendly the staff is to you: when you hear the door lock from the outside before you go to bed, it does something to a person. That’s what he tells himself. That he has no choice, that it isn’t his fault, that this may not even have actually happened. His parents’ house is full of men who have known him since he was a child. They know him. All his life he has been special, chosen, has been expected to do something out of the ordinary. So they don’t believe this of him, how could they even entertain the possibility? They’re not going to let him down. And if enough people stand behind you, you can start to believe almost anything that comes out of your mouth.