Within hours the slogan “Beartown jobs for Beartown workers!” is being repeated not only online but in bars and around dinner tables. The next morning there is a note on the hood of the Spanish-home-owning politician’s car.
To stop the note blowing away, the person delivering it has pinned it down with an ax. Notes can blow away so easily otherwise, when the wind changes direction.
* * *
Immediately after the press conference, Peter starts calling builders. They all answer, they are all available for work, until he tells them what the job is: demolishing the standing area in the arena. Suddenly some of them have no time after all, while others say they’re “not qualified to do that.” Some just hang up. Some spell it out in plain language: “We’ve got families, for God’s sake, Peter!” At one of the firms Peter calls, the phone is answered by a voice identifying itself as Woody. When Peter explains why he’s calling, Woody laughs loudly. And derisively.
Later that day Kira finds a cardboard moving box outside the Andersson family home. Most people who opened it would have thought it was empty, but she knows better. She tips it slowly onto its side and hears the little metal cylinder roll across the bottom. She sees it glint in the light reflected from her children’s bedroom windows.
* * *
A rifle cartridge.
37
What We’re Capable Of
Most of us don’t know what terrible things we’re capable of. How can we, until someone pushes us far enough? Who has any idea how dangerous we can be until someone threatens our family?
Kira is standing hidden in the shadows. She’s followed Teemu from the supermarket; he’s carrying a bag of groceries in each hand, one mostly full of cigarettes. He goes into the Bearskin. When he comes out again, he’s alone and the street is empty. Kira doesn’t know what sort of demons take possession of her, but she suddenly finds the nerve to march forward.
“Teemu Rinnius!” she snarls, sounding more threatening than she feels.
He turns around. “Yes?”
Kira walks up to him so close that she can feel his breath. She’s holding a folded moving box. A window opens above the Bearskin, and an old woman peers out, but Kira is too agitated to notice.
“Do you know who I am?” Kira asks.
Teemu nods, his face five inches from hers. “You’re Peter Andersson’s wife.”
Her head moves back, just a fraction, but her voice grows louder. “I’m Leo Andersson and Maya Andersson’s mother! And I’m a lawyer! So maybe I am afraid of you, just like everyone else, but you need to get one thing very clear. If you come after my family again, I’ll come after your family!”
She throws the box on the ground between them. Teemu raises an eyebrow. “Are you threatening me?”
Kira nods. “You can be damn sure I am, Teemu Rinnius! And you can tell all the cowardly little lowlifes in your little ‘pack’ that next time they leave a rifle cartridge on my drive, I’ll put it in your head!”
Teemu doesn’t answer, and his eyes aren’t giving a thing away. Perhaps Kira should have been satisfied with that, but she’s past the point where that’s even possible. So she takes something out of her bag. Empty pill bottles. She holds them up mockingly in front of him.
“You lot came to my family’s home, so I went over to yours, Teemu. This was in your mom’s garbage bin. Classified medication. Does your mom have a prescription for drugs like this? Because if not, she’s breaking the law. And above all, her supplier is breaking the law. And that’s you, isn’t it, Teemu? What do you think will happen when I come after you?”
Teemu blinks slowly, evidently fascinated. But when he takes a step toward Kira, she backs away. Because everyone does. His words are an order: “Go away. Now.”
* * *
Kira lowers her head involuntarily. She’ll end up cursing herself many times for doing this, but we don’t know what we’re capable of until someone pushes us far enough. She leaves the street, trying not to break into a run as she heads back to her car, and almost succeeds.
* * *
Up at the kennels Adri is feeding her dogs. There are no cars with their trunks full of drink coming today. There won’t be any hunters calling in for coffee, either. She doesn’t know if it’s because they don’t want to or because they don’t dare. It’s never easy around here to know if people want to say something and are just not saying it or if they’re not saying anything because they don’t know what to say.
So Adri calls her friend Jeanette, who’s still at school catching up on her grading. Throughout their childhood it was always Jeanette who called Adri and asked if she wanted to play, never the other way around. But now Adri asks, “Do you want to come over and train?”
Jeanette goes at once. They lift weights and beat the punching bag until they can no longer lift their arms. Jeanette doesn’t tell Adri that everything is going to be all right, because she doesn’t have a little brother and doesn’t know if it ever will be all right. But she trains and trains for as long as Adri wants to continue, and when the road remains empty, with no sign of cars or hunters, Jeanette can’t help thinking that may be just as well—she can see in Adri’s eyes that if anyone shows up here and says the wrong thing about her brother, that person will have to be carried out.
* * *
Teemu is still standing outside the Bearskin, and the window on the first floor is still open. Ramona’s voice carries down to him. “Rumor has it that you left a black jacket for Leo Andersson in school, Teemu. But you gave Leo’s dad a rifle cartridge. Where’s the logic in that?”
Teemu sounds sure of himself, because he has a little brother he shares only the same mother with. “Maybe we recognize that men don’t have to become the bastards their fathers were.”
It’s an excuse, Ramona is well aware of that as she stubs her cigarette out on the window ledge. “If it was you who left that cartridge, then I don’t actually know what to think about you.”
Teemu interrupts her in a tone that he never uses with anyone else, apologetic and shamefaced: “It wasn’t me. But I can’t control every—”
Ramona interrupts him in turn, and her voice is anything but affectionate. “Don’t try that on me! You may not control everything your boys do, but you know damn well that none of them would do anything if you’d expressly forbidden it!”
“I—” Teemu begins, but Ramona cuts him off. “You and I don’t judge each other, Teemu. We never have. But children are the only people who don’t have to take responsibility for anyone but themselves. The rest of us have to take responsibility for the things we cause to happen. You’re a leader. People follow you. So frankly, if you can’t take responsibility for the actions of your followers, that makes you nothing but a monster.”
* * *
Kira never mentions the rifle cartridge to Peter or the children, or anyone else for that matter. But when she gets back to the house two of the neighbors, an old woman and an even older man, are sitting on tatty folding chairs in their driveway, wearing green T-shirts. Their front door is open, the light is on in the hall, Kira can see the old man’s hunting rifle leaning against the wall inside. He’s old and slow, and perhaps the rifle isn’t even loaded, but it doesn’t matter. The old woman nods to Kira and says, “Go in and get some sleep, Kira. We thought we’d just sit here and watch the cars go by for a bit.”
The old man opens a thermos flask and mutters, “There are rumors that a few moving companies have been given the wrong information and have been going to wrong addresses recently. That’s not going to happen around here again.”
Small words. A small gesture. But that’s all it takes to say that we live here, too. And nobody messes with us.
* * *