But Kira replied the way she always does: “I can’t right now, not with Peter’s job and the children, I need to be there for Maya.” Her colleague leaned over her desk. “You know our clients would come with us. I’ve got enough money saved up. If not now, when?” Kira tried to make excuses, but the only one she could find was time. Starting a new business would demand sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, and how could that work with picking up and dropping off at hockey practice and guitar lessons and lottery ticket sales and the volunteer parents’ rotation in the coffee stand at the ice rink?
Her colleague looked her sternly in the eye. “You’re four different women, Kira. You’re trying to be everything to everyone, the whole time. A good wife, a good mother, a good employee. How long are you going to carry on like that?”
Kira pretended to stare at an important document on her computer screen, but eventually gave up and muttered, “You said four. Wife, mother, employee . . . who’s the fourth woman?” Her colleague leaned over the desk and switched off the screen, tapped the glass sadly, and said, “Her, Kira. When is it going to be that woman’s turn?” Kira sat and stared into the eyes of her own reflection in the dark monitor.
* * *
Now she’s sitting on the steps outside the house. Drinking wine. Waiting for a man who never comes.
* * *
Peter holds out his hand, and Elisabeth Zackell shakes it as if she doesn’t really want to. Her body language is odd, as if there’s a much smaller Elisabeth Zackell sitting inside her, trying to steer this one with a joystick.
“I saw you play in the Olympic Games . . . ,” Peter admits.
Zackell doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information, so Sune jumps in. “For God’s sake, Peter, you’ve got two hundred and forty international appearances standing in front of you! Olympic and World Championship medals! And she’s got her coaching license! If she’d been a man, you’d be on your knees begging her to take my job!”
Peter takes the cup of coffee, sinks down at the kitchen table, and looks apologetically at Elisabeth Zackell.
“But if you were a man, you’d already have a job at one of the top clubs, wouldn’t you?”
Zackell agrees with a curt nod. “I’ve never been given a chance to coach a good team, so I’ve decided to take a useless team and make it good instead.”
Peter’s eyebrows twitch in indignation, Sune bursts out laughing, and Zackell doesn’t appear to know what she’s said to warrant either response.
“You are useless, aren’t you?”
Peter smiles reluctantly. “How did you know we needed a new coach? Sune’s kept very quiet about his illness . . .”
He breaks off when he realizes the answer. Zackell doesn’t have to say “Richard Theo.” Peter drinks some coffee, then exclaims, half to himself, “He’s smart, Theo. A female coach . . .”
“Was it your daughter who was raped?” Zackell interrupts.
Peter and Sune clear their throats uncomfortably. Zackell looks confused. “Wasn’t she? Raped, I mean. By a player the two of you had nurtured?”
Peter replies in a quiet voice, “Is that why you’re here? As Richard Theo’s PR coup? A female hockey coach in what used to be a violent men’s club? The media will love it.”
Zackell stands up impatiently. “I’m not going to talk to the media. You can do that. And I don’t give a shit about Richard Theo’s PR coup. I’m not here to be a female hockey coach.”
Peter and Sune glance at each other.
“What do you want to be, then?” Sune asks.
“A hockey coach,” Zackell replies.
* * *
Sune scratches his stomach. As he always says, we only pretend hockey is complicated, because it isn’t really. When you strip away all the nonsense surrounding it, the game is simple: everyone gets a stick; there are two nets, two teams. Us against you.
* * *
There’s a sound from the garden, and Sune looks up and grins, but Peter is too distracted by his own thoughts to recognize the noise at first.
“I—” he begins, trying to sound like a grown man, a general manager, a leader.
But the sound interrupts him again. Bang! The boy Peter used to be, the dreamer, would have recognized the sound at once. He looks quizzically at Sune. Bangbang-bang! comes from the garden.
“What’s that?” Peter asks.
“Oh, yes! Did I forgot to say?” Sune grins, the way you do when you haven’t forgotten a damn thing.
Peter gets up and follows the noise, out through the terrace door. At the back of Sune’s house stands a four-and-a-half-year-old girl, firing pucks against the wall as hard as she can.
“Do you remember when you used to come here and do the same thing, Peter? She’s better than you were. She could already tell time when she got here!” Sune informs him happily.
Peter follows the pucks’ movement toward the wall, and is thrown back in time, a whole lifetime. It’s a simple game, really. The girl misses one of her shots and gets so angry that she hits her stick against the wall as hard as she can. It snaps, and only then does she spin around and catch sight of Peter. He sees the child shrink instinctively. All of Peter’s childhood shatters inside his chest.
“What’s your name?” he whispers.
“Alicia,” she replies.
Peter sees her bruises. He used to have similar ones. He knows she’ll lie if he asks how she got them; children are so incredibly loyal to their parents. So Peter crouches down and promises her with all the despair of his childhood shaking in his voice, “I can see that you’re used to getting hurt if you make a mistake. But hockey will never treat you like that. Do you understand what I’m saying? Hockey will never hurt you.”
The girl nods. Peter fetches another stick. Alicia carries on firing pucks. Behind them Sune says, “I know you’ve already decided to save the club, Peter. But it can be useful to be reminded of who you’re saving it for.”
Peter blinks up at the old man, more than he needs to. “You’ve coached the Beartown A-team all my life. Are you suddenly prepared to surrender the job to a . . . stranger?”
He does his best to hide the fact that “stranger” wasn’t his first choice of word. Sune’s breathing sounds labored as he replies, “I’ve always known that Beartown Ice Hockey is more than a club. I don’t believe in targets and tables, I believe in signs and symbols. I think it’s more important to nurture human beings than to foster stars. And so do you.”
“And you think that this Elisabeth Zackell in your kitchen thinks the same?”
Sune smiles, but his chin moves slowly sideways. “No, Elisabeth Zackell isn’t like us. But right now that might be what the club needs.”
“Are you sure about that?” Peter wonders.
Sune pulls at his belt; his failing heart has made his trousers too big. Of course he doesn’t want to give up his job; no one wants to do that. But he has given his life to the club, so what sort of leader would he be if he wasn’t prepared to swallow his pride when the club’s at risk of dying?
“When the hell can you be sure of anything, Peter? All I know is that the bear is supposed to symbolize the best of this town, but there are people around who want to bury it as a symbol of our worst qualities. And if we let those bastards get away with it, if we let them transfer all the money to Hed as soon as it suits their purposes, what signal are we giving the kids in this town then? That we were only a club? That this is what happens if you dare to stand up and tell the truth?”
“In what way is Zackell different from you?” Peter asks.
“She’s a winner,” Sune says.
The men can’t find any more words. They just stand there watching as Alicia fires pucks against the wall. Bangbangbangbangbang. Peter goes into the bathroom, turns the tap on, and stands in front of the mirror without looking at it. When he comes out, Zackell has already put her boots on.
“Where are you going?” Peter wonders.
“We’re done, aren’t we?” Zackell says, as if she has just employed herself.
“Surely we need to talk about the team?” Peter points out.
“I’ll put more coffee on,” Sune says, pushing past them into the kitchen.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Zackell says.
“You don’t drink coffee?” Sune hisses.
“I told you that when I got here.”
“I assumed you were joking!”
Peter stands between them, rubbing his eyelids with his palms. “Hello? The team! When are we going to talk about the team?”
Elisabeth Zackell looks as though a very small Elisabeth Zackell is running around inside the big Elisabeth Zackell’s head, trying to find the correct switch. “What team?” she asks.
* * *