Us Against You

  * * *

  Benji doesn’t play this game. He’s already far away when it starts.

  * * *

  The coach of Hed Hockey seeks out the coach of Beartown Hockey in a corridor. Elisabeth Zackell looks surprised, and David gestures toward a shy seventeen-year-old behind him who’s carrying his bag over his shoulder. David has an entire speech prepared in his head, one that’s supposed to sound grown-up and understanding and just right in light of all the terrible things that have happened. But his lips refuse to let it out. He wants to be sensitive, or at least to sound sensitive, but sometimes it’s easier to do things than to say them. So he nods toward the young man.

  “This is our backup goalie. I think he can become a damn fine player with the right coach, and . . . well . . . he doesn’t get much time on the ice with us. So if you . . .”

  “What?” Zackell wonders, not taking her eyes off the seventeen-year-old, who’s refusing to look up from the floor.

  David clears his throat. “I’ve called the association. Considering the circumstances, they’re prepared to allow a transfer.”

  Zackell raises her eyebrows. “You’re giving me a goalie?”

  David nods. “Everyone says you’re good with goalies. I think you can turn him into a fantastic player.”

  “What’s your name?” Zackell asks, but the goalie merely mutters something in the direction of the floor.

  David coughs awkwardly.

  “The guys in the team call him ‘Mumble,’ because that’s all he ever does.”

  * * *

  He’s right. The boy will become a damn fine goalie, and he’ll never utter an unnecessary word. Elisabeth Zackell takes an immediate liking to him. He comes from Hed, but he will play for Beartown for almost twenty years, never for any other club, and one day he will be more of a bear than anyone else in the eyes of the fans. But he will never wear number 1, because that’s Vidar’s number. He will write the number 1 on his helmet instead, and the black jackets will always cheer extra loud for him because of that.

  * * *

  David shakes his hand, and the seventeen-year-old goes into the locker room. David shuffles his feet awkwardly, then plucks up the courage to ask Zackell, “How’s Benji?”

  Zackell’s lower lip quivers almost imperceptibly. Her voice trembles ever so slightly. “Okay. I think he’s going to be . . . okay.”

  She too will save a jersey with the number 16 on it, on all her teams, for as long as she’s a coach. She and David look each other in the eye, and Zackell says, “Give us hell out there on the ice this evening.”

  David smiles. “You give us hell!”

  * * *

  It’s one hell of a game. People will talk about it for years.

  * * *

  Teemu comes to the kennels on his own. He’s carrying an envelope, and he climbs up to join Benji on the roof. Teemu hesitates, then sits down next to him.

  “Are you going to the game?” Teemu wonders.

  Benji’s reply isn’t contrary. It actually sounds almost happy. “No. Are you?”

  Teemu nods. He’ll never stop going to watch hockey. Some people might think the sport would remind him too much of his little brother now, but in actual fact, for long periods of Teemu’s life it will be one of the few places where he can bear to remember Vidar. Where it doesn’t hurt.

  “You’re going away, aren’t you?” he asks eventually.

  Benji looks surprised. “How do you know?”

  Teemu’s eyes flash for a moment. “You look the way I hoped Vidar would one day. Like you’re thinking of getting out.”

  Teemu looks as though the slightest puff of wind could blow him to pieces. Benji passes him a cigarette.

  “Where would you have liked Vidar to go?”

  Teemu blows smoke through his nose. “Anywhere he could have become something . . . more. What are you planning to do?”

  Benji takes a deep drag on the cigarette. “I don’t know. I just want to find out who I am if I’m not a hockey player. I don’t think I can do that if I stay here.”

  Teemu nods seriously. “You’re one hell of a hockey player.”

  “Thanks,” Benji says.

  Teemu gets up quickly, as if he’s worried the conversation might go in a direction he’s not ready for. He drops the envelope into Benji’s lap. “Spider and Woody read something online about there being a ‘Rainbow Fund’ that collects money for . . . you know . . . people who’ve been assaulted and imprisoned and shit in other countries because they’re—”

  He falls silent. Benji looks at the envelope and whispers, “Like me?”

  Teemu looks away. Stubs out the cigarette and coughs. “Well . . . the guys decided they wanted the money we had in the kitty at the Bearskin to go to . . . that. So they wanted to give it to you.”

  Benji swallows, feeling crushed. “So you want me to give the money to that Rainbow Fund because I’m one of them?”

  Teemu has already started to climb down the ladder, but he stops and looks Benji in the eye. “No. We want you to give them the money because you’re one of us.”

  * * *

  Ramona is stomping around inside the Bearskin, drinking her lunch and directing the workmen with plenty of ripe swearing. Peter Andersson walks in, looking just like the boy he once was whenever he came to collect his drunken dad.

  “How’s it going?” he asks, looking around at the renovations.

  Ramona shrugs. “It smells better after the fire than it did before.”

  Peter smiles weakly. So does she. They’re not ready to laugh yet, but at least they’ve started to move in the right direction. Peter takes such a deep breath that his pupils quiver before he says, “This is for you. In your capacity as a board member of Beartown Ice Hockey.”

  Ramona looks at the sheet of paper he puts down on the bar without saying anything. She has a pretty good idea what it is, so she refuses to touch it.

  “There’s a whole heap of dreary old men in smart jackets on that board, give it to one of them!”

  Peter shakes his head. “I’m giving it to you. Because you’re the only person on the board I trust.”

  She pats his cheek. The door to the Bearskin opens, Peter turns around and sees Teemu in the doorway. The two men instinctively raise their hands toward each other, as if to indicate that neither of them wants any trouble.

  “I can . . . come back later,” Teemu offers.

  “No, no, I was just leaving anyway!” Peter insists.

  Ramona snorts at the pair of them. “Shut up, both of you. Sit down and have a beer. On the house.”

  Peter clears his throat. “I’d take a coffee.”

  Teemu hangs his jacket up. “Me, too.”

  Peter raises his cup in a vain attempt at a toast. Teemu does the same.

  “Honestly! Men!” Ramona mutters irritably.

  Peter looks down at the bar when he says, “I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, but I think Vidar could have gone a long way as a hockey player. Maybe all the way. He was very good indeed.”

  “He was an even better brother,” Teemu says.

  Then he smiles. So does Ramona. Peter clears his throat.

  “It’s a terrible loss . . .”

  Teemu turns his coffee cup, watching the small ripples on the surface. “You and your wife lost your first child, didn’t you?”

  Peter takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Yes. Isak.”

  “Do you ever get over it?”

  “No.”

  Teemu turns his cup, around, around. “So how the hell do you go on living?” he asks.

  “You fight harder,” Peter whispers.

  Teemu raises his cup in another toast. Peter hesitates for a while before finally saying “I know you and your guys have always seen me as an enemy of the Pack. Maybe you were right to. I don’t believe violence has any place around sports. But I . . . well . . . I’d like you to know that I understand that not everything in life is uncomplicated. I know it’s your club too
. I’m sorry about the times when I . . . went too far.”

  Teemu’s fingernails click sadly against the porcelain cup. “Politics and hockey, Peter. They should never come anywhere near each other.”

  Peter takes a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t know if it’s any use to you, but . . . Richard Theo tricked me. He’s just playing people like you and me off against each other to get power. And people like him don’t just want control of the hockey club, they want control of the whole town.”

  Teemu scratches his stubble absentmindedly, a man with nothing left to lose. “If they want us, they’re going to have to come and get us.”

  Peter nods. He still doesn’t know who he’s most scared of: the hooligans with tattoos or the hooligans with ties and suits. He stands up and thanks Ramona for the coffee. She’s holding the sheet of paper but waits until he’s left before reading it.

  * * *

  It’s Peter’s resignation letter. He’s no longer general manager of Beartown Ice Hockey. He no longer works there at all.

  * * *

  Ramona pushes the letter across the bar. Teemu reads it. Drinks his coffee and says, “Peter’s an ass. But he kept the club alive. We won’t forget that.”

  “There isn’t an ass on the planet who doesn’t have someone who loves them,” Ramona replies.

  She raises her glass, Teemu raises his cup, and they drink a silent toast. Then he goes to the game. Later that evening he eats pasta salad and potato salad with his mom.

  * * *

  Richard Theo is working alone in his office in the council building. Outside the flags are flying at half-mast. Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he regrets some of the things he’s done, maybe he just tells himself that in the end he will have done more good than harm in the world. Because he is convinced that only someone with power can influence politics, so it isn’t enough to have good intentions, you have to win first.

  At the next council election, he will promise investment in better fire safety measures in the historic buildings in the heart of Beartown, in the vicinity of the Bearskin pub. He will also promise to lower the speed limit on the road between Beartown and Hed, so that the tragic road accident will never be repeated. He will canvass for law and order, more jobs, better health care. He will become known as the politician who built the preschool in the ice rink and the politician who saved both the financing of Beartown Ice Hockey and jobs in the factory. Perhaps he even saved the hospital in Hed.

  Of course, one day people in this town will realize that the new owners never had any intention of keeping the factory here. They will move it somewhere where property prices are even cheaper and wages even lower, as soon as that becomes the more profitable option. It won’t make any difference to Richard Theo. Because before the next election, documents will be leaked to the local paper showing how senior councillors have been misusing taxpayers’ money for years; hidden subsidies and loans have found their way into the pockets of the “fat cats” on the boards of the hockey clubs and “illegal investments” made to support the construction of a conference hotel in conjunction with the council’s application to host the World Skiing Championships. Within no time at all a scandal will blow up, in which “influential local politicians” have been bribed by “wealthy businessmen.”

  It doesn’t matter that the female politician who is the current leader of the largest party has never been involved in the misuse of funds, she’ll still end up having to spend the entire election campaign answering questions about corruption. Her husband and brother just happen to work for one of the companies implicated in the bribery scandal. They later turn out to be completely innocent, but it will be too late by then, because once the word “corruption” appears alongside the female politician’s name in newspaper headlines enough times, most people will conclude, “She’s bound to be corrupt, too. She’s just like all the others.”

  On the other side stands Richard Theo, and he doesn’t even have to be perfect; all it takes is for him to be different. So he will end up winning the next election, because that’s what men like him do. But he won’t win the next time around, because men like him don’t do that either.

  * * *

  Today he leaves the council building earlier than usual. He has a long drive ahead of him this evening, all the way to his brother’s home down in the capital. Richard Theo’s nephew turns six tomorrow, and ever since the boy was little, Richard Theo has called him every night to read him a bedtime story over the phone. The stories are almost always about animals, because Richard Theo and the little boy both love animals.

  * * *

  Tomorrow, on the boy’s birthday, they’re going to go to the zoo. See the bears and bulls.

  * * *

  Kira Andersson and her colleague are in their new office. It’s cramped and full of boxes, and they’re stressed and exhausted. They’ve managed to take a few big clients with them, but they’re having far more trouble recruiting good staff. No one is willing to take a chance on working for a start-up, especially not in this part of the country.

  There’s a knock on the door, and Kira’s colleague hopes it’s one of all the lawyers she’s interviewed coming back to say that he or she has had a change of heart. She cheerily throws the door open but finds herself looking at Kira’s husband.

  “Peter? What are you doing here?” Kira blurts out farther inside the room.

  Peter swallows and rubs his sweating hands on his jeans. He’s wearing a white shirt and a tie. “I . . . this will probably sound stupid, but I saw on the Internet . . . well . . . a lot of companies have an HR department these days, human resources. It’s . . . they deal with recruitment, training, staff welfare. I—”

  His tongue sticks to his palate. Kira’s colleague is trying not to laugh, without much success, but she fetches him a glass of water. Kira asks, “What are you trying to say, darling?”

  Peter steadies himself. “I think I could be good at that human resources thing. It’s like building a team. Holding a club together. I know I haven’t got the right experience for your company, but I’ve got . . . other experience.”

  Kira’s colleague scratches her hair. “Sorry, but I don’t get it, Peter. What are you doing here? Isn’t Beartown playing a game right now?”

  Peter rubs his hands on his jeans again. He looks Kira in the eye. “I’ve resigned from Beartown Ice Hockey. I’m here looking for a job.”

  Kira looks at him for a long time, blinking hard. She wraps her arms tightly around herself. “Why do you want to work here, of all places?” she whispers.

  He straightens up. “Because I want us to have more than a marriage. I want us to help each other to become better people.”

  * * *

  When two teams, one red, one green, finally skate out onto the ice to play their game that evening, there are people missing, both on the ice and in the stands—people everyone has always taken for granted. But everyone else is there, from two towns with a thousand different stories. Even so, the Beartown ice rink is completely silent. The seated area is sold out, but no one’s talking, no one’s clapping or chanting. In one of the standing areas is a crowd of green-clad figures, and in their midst stands a motionless group of men in black jackets. They’re not chanting. It’s as if they want to but can’t summon up the energy, their lungs are empty, their voices inadequate. Even so, a chant suddenly rises up toward the roof. Their chant.

  * * *

  “Wee aaare the beaaaars! We are the beaaaars! We are the beaaaaaaars . . .”

  * * *

  It’s coming from the other end of the rink, from the other standing area. The red-clad fans are chanting it. All of Hed’s fans have grown up hating Beartown Ice Hockey, and tomorrow they’ll do so again. They’re not going to stop fighting each other, the world isn’t going to change, everything is going to carry on as usual.

  But today, one single time, their sad voices rise up to chant their opponents’ song as a mark of respect:

  * * *


  “THE BEARS FROM BEARTOWN!”

  * * *

  It’s a single, brief token of respect. Just words. The ice rink is quieter than ever afterward, and then it feels as though it never will be again. At first there’s no noise, and then it’s impossible to hear anything but an explosion of pride and love as an entire town tries to tell everyone that it’s still here, that it’s still standing tall, that it’s still Beartown against the rest. When the people in the green stands containing the black jackets start to sing, they sing loud enough for it to be heard all the way to Heaven. So that he knows how much they miss him.

  * * *

  And then we do what we always do around here. We play hockey.

  * * *

  Maya’s mom gives her a lift to the train station. She waits by the entrance as her daughter goes up the steps and looks along the platform until she sees what she’s looking for. He’s sitting on a bench.

  “Benji . . . ,” she says quietly from a distance, as if calling an animal she doesn’t want to startle.

  He looks up, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” Maya says.