Adri looks up in surprise. “The kitty” is a small box of cash Ramona keeps at the Bearskin for the regulars who lose their jobs and can’t pay their bills. All the tips end up there, and people leave more tips at the Bearskin than you might think. Teemu always pays double for his beer, because once when he was younger and had thrown out another of his mother’s more unpleasant boyfriends, someone came around and gave the family an envelope like this one. Teemu never let anyone hit his mother again, and when he got old enough to build up the Pack, he never forgot the generosity of the Bearskin’s regulars. So now he says, “For sticks and skates. Or whatever the girls need.”
Adri nods gratefully. When Teemu turns to walk back to the car, she calls after him, “Hey! Give Peter Andersson a chance! He might yet find a way to save the club!”
Teemu closes the trunk of the car with the ax still inside. “I am giving Peter a chance. If I wasn’t, he wouldn’t still be in town.”
* * *
Peter stands outside his house but lets go of the door handle, takes the key out of the lock, and turns anxiously toward the street. Richard Theo is walking toward him, dressed in a black suit even though it’s the middle of the summer. They’ve never spoken to each other as far as Peter can remember, but obviously he’s well aware of who Richard Theo is. He knows what sort of politics Theo represents, and he doesn’t like it. It’s aggressive, it sets people against each other, and—above all—Richard Theo has given Peter the impression several times that he really hates hockey.
“Good evening, Peter, I hope I’m not intruding,” Theo says.
There’s something ominous in his friendly manner.
“Can I help you?” Peter asks, rather confused.
“No, but I can help you,” Theo replies.
“With what?”
The politician’s mouth cracks into a smile. “I can save your hockey club, Peter. I can give you one last chance to be a winner.”
12
I Am Prepared to Burn in Here
Anyone who devotes his life to being the best at one single thing will be asked, sooner or later, the same question: “Why?” Because if you want to become the best at something, you have to sacrifice everything else. So the very first time Kira met Peter, that evening in the capital when Peter had just lost the biggest hockey game of his life and stumbled dejectedly into Kira’s parents’ restaurant, that was what she asked him: Why?
He could never answer it properly, and that drove her mad, but many years later, when they were married and had kids and a whole life together, she read a hundred-year-old quote from a mountaineer. He was asked, “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” The mountaineer replied in bemusement, as if the question was ridiculous and the answer obvious, “Because it’s there.”
Kira understood then, because why had she wanted to go to university when no one else in her family had been? Why had she chosen law when everyone had told her it would be too hard? Why? To find out if she could do it. Because she wanted to climb that damn mountain. Because it was there.
So she knows what’s happening now, possibly before Peter understands it himself. She stands behind the front door and hears enough of his conversation with Richard Theo. Her husband is going to find a way to save his club and make himself indispensible again. The way he always does. Kira sits in the hallway until she hears the Volvo start up and watches through the window as Peter drives off. The bottle of wine remains unopened. She puts the glasses back into the cupboard, and the skin beneath her wedding ring is cold when she goes to bed. A night will pass, and tomorrow she will wake up and try to pretend that everything is fine, even though she knows that each day that passes now means it will be even longer to next year.
* * *
Peter drives aimlessly for hours, alone. Constantly asking himself the same questions: “How much is a hockey club worth? Who is it for? How much is it allowed to cost?” And somewhere beneath those are other questions: “What can I do apart from hockey? What sort of man would I be without it?”
He’s never loved anyone but Kira, and he knows she’d be delighted if he gave up ice hockey, but deep down: Would she really? She fell in love with a man with dreams and ambitions, so how will she look at him if the years just keep passing and he never amounts to anything?
When dawn breaks, the light pours over Beartown in the way Peter’s mother always said about summer: “As if the Lord God Himself were pouring orange juice over the treetops.” Peter is sitting outside the supermarket with his eyes closed, asking himself the same questions, over and over and over again.
The first thing Richard Theo said to him last night was “You don’t like my politics, do you?” Peter replied thoughtfully, “With all due respect, I don’t agree with what you stand for. You’re an opportunist.” Theo nodded and seemed not to take offense: “You’re only an opportunist until you win, then you’re the establishment.” When he saw Peter’s look of distaste, he added, “With all due respect, Peter, politics is about realizing that the world is complicated even though people like you would prefer it to be simple.”
Peter shook his head. “You thrive on discord. Your type of politics creates conflict. Exclusion.” The politician smiled understandingly. “And hockey? What do you think that does to everyone who isn’t on the inside? Do you even remember me from school?” Peter cleared his throat awkwardly and muttered, “You were a few years below me, weren’t you?” Theo shook his head, not angrily, not accusingly, but almost sadly. “We were in the same class, Peter.”
Peter doesn’t know if Theo planned that, to get him off balance, but it worked. When Peter looked down at the ground, shamefaced, the councillor smiled happily and then explained very plainly why he had come to see Peter: “I have certain contacts in London. I know which company is going to buy the factory in Beartown.”
“I didn’t even know it was being sold!” Peter exclaimed, but the politician merely shrugged his shoulders modestly. “It’s my job to know things that no one else knows, Peter. I know a lot of things about you, too. That’s why I’m here.”
* * *
Leo wakes up in an empty house the next morning. His mom has left a note on the kitchen table: “I’m at work, your dad’s at the rink, call if you need to. There’s some extra money on the counter. We love you! Mom x.” Leo isn’t a child anymore. He notices the word “your” as well. Your dad. Not Mom’s other half.
The boy goes into his big sister’s room, closes the door, and curls up on the floor. Maya’s notebooks are under the bed, full of poems and song lyrics, and he reads them through different types of tears. Sometimes hers, sometimes his own. Maya was never like other big sisters who yelled and threw their younger siblings out of their rooms. When Leo was younger, he was allowed to come in here. Maya let him sleep in her bed when he was frightened, when they eavesdropped on their parents in the kitchen and heard them fall apart when they talked about Isak. The floor next to Maya’s bed was always Leo’s safest place. But he’s older now, and Maya is spending the whole summer out in the forest with Ana. Leo used to ask Maya’s advice about everything, so he doesn’t know who to ask now, about what a little brother is supposed to do for his big sister when she gets raped. Or what he can do for his parents when they let go of each other. Or what to do with all the hatred.
At the back of a notepad under Maya’s bed he finds a page entitled “The Matchstick.” He very carefully tears it out and puts it into his pocket. Then he goes down to the beach.
* * *
He keeps scratching himself the whole time, hard and deep. He tugs his sleeves farther down over his hands.
* * *