Us Against You

  David still loves Benji, more than any other player he’s coached, and he’s ashamed that the boy didn’t dare confide in him. One day David may be able to make up for that, as a human being. But those feelings belong to life outside the rink, and this is life inside. Here Benji is an opponent. If William crosses the line in the game, then so be it. If Benji gets injured, then Benji gets injured. David’s a hockey coach; he’s doing his job. He’s doing all it takes for the only thing that matters.

  * * *

  Winning.

  * * *

  Benji is lifting weights on his own in the outhouse at the kennels when darkness falls. Before he raises the bar he takes off his wristwatch. It’s old and worn, heavy and clunky, and doesn’t really suit him. But it was given to him by David. They haven’t spoken a word to each other since the coach switched clubs, but Benji still doesn’t go anywhere without it.

  * * *

  William Lyt is doing push-ups until his arms hurt as much as everything else. He falls asleep holding the cigarette lighter that was left in his locker. He knows who put it there. William might not be thinking of hurting Benji, not yet, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hurt someone else.

  24

  But the Bear Inside Her Has Just Woken Up

  Ramona stomps down the stairs from her apartment in a cloud of invective to see who’s banging on the door of the Bearskin after closing time. She’s expecting to see a drunk but finds something else.

  “What are you doing here, you silly old fool? It must be at least forty years since you last showed up at my door trying to get a drink in the middle of the night! It didn’t work then, and it’s not going to work now!” she snaps at Sune as she buttons her dressing gown.

  Sune laughs so loudly that he frightens the puppy beside him. “I need a piece of advice, Ramona. Two, maybe.”

  Ramona lets him in and gives the dog a bowl of water. The dog empties it and starts to chew the furnishings.

  “Well?” she grunts.

  “I want you to talk to Teemu Rinnius for me,” Sune says.

  If anyone else had asked, Ramona would have said “Teemu who?” But not Sune. The old man has spent all his life dealing with difficult boys with a talent for hockey, while Ramona has spent hers dealing with the ones without any talent.

  “About what?”

  “The club.”

  “I thought you’d stopped being coach. What have you got to do with the club?”

  “They’re keeping me for the women. Eye candy.”

  Ramona laughs up a whole decade of cigarette smoke. Then she gets serious. “There are rumors, Sune. The paper’s talking about a ‘new sponsor’ and the GM taking part in ‘secret meetings.’ That sort of thing makes Teemu and his boys nervous. It’s their club.”

  “It’s not only their club,” Sune corrects her.

  He can’t help thinking what a colossal nightmare of a town this is in which to try to make anyone happy. If the club had gone bankrupt, Peter would have gotten the blame, and now that he’s managed to save it financially, he’s still getting shit. Ramona puts three whisky glasses on the counter. One for Sune, two for her.

  “So what do you think about the new coach? She comes here and eats potatoes from time to time,” she says.

  “Zackell? I don’t know. She’s mad. She doesn’t seem to give a damn about what Peter Andersson thinks—”

  Ramona grins. “Good start.”

  “—but I have a suspicion Teemu and his guys aren’t quite so enthusiastic about having a female coach.”

  Ramona snorts. “They love their club. You know that. They’re worried she’s been appointed as some sort of PR stunt. They don’t want to be made fools of, and they don’t want to see a load of political agendas dragged into hockey.”

  Sune rolls his eyes. “ ‘Agendas.’ Is that what we’re calling it now? Can’t women be allowed to sleep with whoever they like?”

  “Ha! There’s no one who has more sympathy for lesbians than me, because as far as I can see they’ve drawn the winning ticket! There’s no reasoning with men, so you might as well get rid of them!”

  “So what’s the problem with Zackell, then?”

  “The problem is that the boys think she’s steered by Peter Andersson and the sponsors and the politicians, and they don’t want another coach who’s—”

  She stops herself. Sune takes over. “Who’s like me? Weak?”

  He knows what people say about him. That he let the sponsors and politicians take over the club in recent years and let them run the club into the ground without a fight. People are right. Sune got older, too tired to argue. He always hoped that the hockey would be good enough to keep the club on an even keel, both financially and morally, but he was proven wrong on both counts.

  “I didn’t mean any criticism,” Ramona mutters.

  “Oh, they’re right. I wish I’d given this town more to be happy about. But Zackell isn’t me.”

  “In what way?”

  “She’s the sort who wins.”

  “You’re here for my advice? The boys need proof.”

  Sune sighs. “Then tell Teemu that as soon his little brother gets let out of custody, he should go straight to the rink.”

  * * *

  Ramona is left speechless. That takes a lot of doing.

  * * *

  Peter gets home late again. Kira is sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop; she came home from work early today to cook for the children and do the washing and cleaning. Now she’s working again, but without her bosses seeing: she puts in more hours than any of her colleagues but will soon be known in the office as the woman who always goes home early. Being a mother can be like drying out the foundations of a house or mending a roof: it takes time, sweat, and money, and once it’s done everything looks exactly the same as it did before. It’s not the sort of thing anyone gives you praise for. But spending an extra hour in the office is like hanging up a beautiful painting or a new lamp: everyone notices.

  Peter talks to her, she talks to him, but without making eye contact. How was your day? Fine, how was yours? Fine. Have the kids eaten? Yes, there’s leftovers in the fridge. Can you drive them to school tomorrow? I need to get to the rink early. She says “Of course” even though she feels like yelling “And what about my job?” He says “Thanks” even though he feels like whispering “I feel like I’m drowning.” She says “No problem” when she feels like shouting “Help!” Neither of them says anything else, even though they’re both thinking “I miss us.” Peter leaves the kitchen without running his fingertips through her hair. She sits there without breathing against the back of his neck.

  * * *

  Ramona is staring at Sune. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No. Elisabeth Zackell has no sense of humor.”

  “Is she going to let Vidar play hockey again? What does Peter say about that?”

  “She doesn’t care what Peter thinks.”

  Ramona chuckles. She’s always been a bit fonder of the Rinnius brothers than all of the Bearskin’s other boys. Teemu gets her groceries for her every week; Vidar used to do his homework here. Many years ago, just after Holger died, the boys heard someone say that Ramona had “started to forget things, could be Alzheimer’s.” It wasn’t, it was just a perfectly ordinary broken heart, but the boys read online that you can delay the aging process in the brain, so they started forcing her to do crosswords. Every morning they would bring her a new one. She swore loudly and loved them unconditionally for that. So now she says, “So Vidar shits on a desk and Zackell doesn’t give a shit about Peter? That’s not going to end well.”

  “No,” Sune agrees.

  Ramona scratches under her chin with one of the whisky glasses. “It’s not like you to go against Peter.”

  “No,” Sune concedes.

  “Why? Is she that special, this coach?”

  Sune sighs deeply, making the hairs in his nostrils sway wildly. “Either we win or we go under, Ramona. Vidar used to be on
e hell of a goalie, and if he still is, then I’m prepared to take a chance on his . . . personality.”

  Ramona smiles. “When the Devil gets old, he gets religious.”

  “Can you see to it that Teemu takes Vidar to practice?” Sune wonders.

  Ramona raises an eyebrow. “Listen, you old fool, do you remember how Vidar used to play hockey? You had to drag him off the ice when practice was over! And now he’s been locked up for . . . hell, you won’t be able to keep him away from that rink, no matter how well armed you are!”

  Ramona doesn’t say what she’s thinking: that she’ll drag Vidar to the rink herself if need be. She was never quite able to save Teemu; he was too angry to change. But perhaps Vidar can still have a different life, and Ramona isn’t about to let that opportunity go, even if it’s the death of her.

  Sune nods and sips his whisky. It makes his eyes water. “Well, then.”

  He falls silent. Ramona snorts. “Anything else?”

  Sune is embarrassed at being so transparent. “I want to ask for something else. Not for the club, just for me. There’s a little girl named Alicia. She’s four and a half, lives over in—”

  “I know who the little lass is,” Ramona says gloomily, not because she knows the girl but because all the local bar owners know the adults who live in the same house.

  “Can you help me keep an eye on her?”

  Ramona pours more whisky. “Are you sure you’re not here to charm me into bed? You’re doing better now than you ever used to.”

  Sune smiles. “I’d have a heart attack before you had time to undo your bra, but thanks for the offer.”

  Ramona drinks. Then she says unhappily, “I don’t speak for anyone in this town, Sune. But Peter’s my boy, too. So tell him to remember who stood up for Beartown, for his own sake. No matter what this new sponsor demands.”

  Sune nods. He knows she means the Pack’s standing area in the rink. This is a hard town to keep secrets in.

  “I’ll do my best,” he says.

  It won’t be enough.

  * * *

  Peter stops outside Leo’s room. The boy is twelve years old, almost a teenager. Peter thinks back to when he was born, that shattering moment when he heard his son cry for the first time. When he was allowed to pick up that fragile naked body, support the little head, with its scrunched-up eyes and plaintive cries . . . and when the wailing stopped. The first time Peter realized that the tiny person was sleeping soundly in his arms. What are we prepared to do for our children at that moment? What aren’t we prepared to do?

  But the years whistle past. Fathers need to live in the moment; general managers are never allowed to. Fathers need to seize the day, because childhoods are like soap bubbles; you get only a few seconds to enjoy them. But general managers need to think about the next game, the next season, onward, forward, upward.

  Peter is standing with two sticks in one hand and a tennis ball in the other. Leo used to drive him crazy asking him to go and play in the driveway. “Dad, can you move the car? Dad, can we play? Dad? Just a little while! First to five goals!” Peter would be sitting with the remote in his hand, watching a recording of a game or struggling with a stack of files and a pocket calculator, working on the budget, and would reply, “You need to do your homework first.” After his homework was done, it was too late. “Tomorrow,” the father would promise. “Okay,” the son would reply. Men are busy, but boys don’t stop growing. Sons want their fathers’ attention until the precise moment when fathers want their sons’. From then on we’re all doomed to wish that we’d fallen asleep beside them more often, while their head could still fit on our chest. That we’d spent more time sitting on the floor while they were playing. Hugged them while they still let us.

  Peter knocks on Leo’s door now, and the twelve-year-old replies without opening it. “Mmm?”

  “I’ve . . . moved the car out of the driveway,” the father says hopefully.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes . . . I thought maybe you might like . . . might like a game?”

  He’s clutching the tennis ball so hard that the sweat from his hand is leaving marks in the green fabric covering. Leo’s reply is merciless: “I have to do my homework, Dad. Tomorrow, maybe!”

  Peter almost opens the door and asks him again. But instead he puts the sticks back into the cupboard. Then he sits down on the sofa on his own with the ball in his hand and falls asleep there.

  * * *

  Kira closes the lid of her laptop. Looks into Leo’s room. He pretends to be asleep; she pretends to believe him. She walks past the living room, puts a blanket over Peter, then stops as if to brush some hair from his forehead. But doesn’t.

  She sits on her own on the steps in front of the house, looking at the same stars she could have looked at from anywhere in the world. At work today her colleague gave her an envelope, sent by an older woman whom both Kira and her colleague had idolized for several years, a director and investment genius who had changed direction and set up a big charitable foundation fronted by artists and actors and backed by multiple millions. Kira and her colleague met the woman at a conference last year, they managed to attract her attention, and when they parted the woman gave Kira her business card and said, “I’m always looking for smart people with a bit of fire inside them. Get in touch if you ever need a job.” Kira didn’t really take the offer seriously, perhaps didn’t dare to, and let it remain a vague little dream. But the envelope today contained an invitation to a large conference that the woman’s foundation is organizing in a couple weeks’ time, in Canada.

  “Why is she inviting us to go? Does she want to use the firm?” Kira asked breathlessly.

  Only then did she see the jealousy in her colleague’s eyes. Kira looked at the invitation again and realized that it mentioned only her name. Her colleague did her best to be proud but still sounded like a little girl who was about to lose her more talented friend to the big wide world: “She’s only asked you, Kira. She doesn’t want to use the firm. She wants to give you a job.”

  * * *

  Kira sits on the steps outside the house with the envelope in her hand, looking at the stars. They’re the same stars you can see from Canada. She moved there once so that Peter could play in the NHL, with the best in the world. She knows what he’d say if she says she wants to go to the conference. “Do you really have to go right now? There’s so much going on with the club, darling. Maybe next year?”

  * * *

  Kira will never be able to explain. Peter will never understand that she has her own NHL.

  * * *

  Ramona phones Teemu. They have a brief conversation because neither of them wants the other to hear their weakness. Ramona doesn’t say she wants Vidar to have a better life than Teemu’s, and Teemu doesn’t say he wants the same thing. Then Ramona asks Teemu for a favor, and she waits up until he phones her back to say that it’s done.

  Teemu stands outside a small house in a different part of town until the lights go off in the children’s room. When he knows that only the adults are awake, he doesn’t ring the doorbell, he doesn’t knock on the door; they’ll never know how he got in. He just stands there in the kitchen while they reach for the kitchen counters to cling on to and try to catch the glasses their shaking hands have just knocked over. He sees that they know who he is, so all he has to do is pick up a hockey bag, drop it onto the table, then ask, “Does Alicia live here?”

  The adults nod, terrified.

  “From now on the kitty at the Bearskin pub will pay for all her hockey equipment each year for as long as she wants to play. I don’t know if she has any siblings in the house, but she’s got brothers now. And the next adult who hurts her will have to explain why to each and every one of us.”

  He doesn’t need to wait for an answer. When he leaves the house, none of the people left behind dares to move for several minutes, but eventually the bag is carried up to Alicia’s room. The four-and-a-half-year-old is dreaming deeply about the sound of puck
s hitting a wall, and for a long time she won’t have any bruises she doesn’t get on the ice. She will play hockey every day, and one day she will be the best.

  * * *

  The girl may be fast asleep tonight. But the bear inside her has just woken up.

  25

  “Mother’s Song”

  William Lyt is like all other teenagers: permanently on the boundary between hubris and the abyss. There’s a girl he likes, she’s in the same class, back in the spring they were at a party and she kissed him on the cheek when she was drunk and he’s still dreaming about it. So when he’s standing by her locker today his facade crumbles and he asks, “Hi . . . look . . . would you . . . I mean . . . would you like to do something sometime? After school? You and . . . me?”

  She looks at him with distaste. “Do something? With you?”

  He clears his throat. “Yes?”

  She snorts. “Ha! I’m from Beartown, and that means something to some of us! I hope Benji crushes you in the game!”

  It isn’t until she’s walking off that Lyt sees she’s wearing a green T-shirt bearing the text BEARTOWN AGAINST THE REST. Her friends are wearing similar shirts. When they pass Lyt, one of them snarls, “Kevin Erdahl’s a rapist, and you’re no better!”

  Lyt stands there, comprehensively flamed. All his life he’s tried to do the right thing. He’s attended every practice, loved his captain, obeyed his coach. He’s followed all the rules, done as he’s been told, swallowed his pride. Benji has done the exact opposite, always. And who’s the one everyone loves, in spite of all that?