He kept trudging back from the rink to the preschool with her each day, and she kept running away again to go and watch the practices. Any practice. The A-team, little league, figure skating, it didn’t matter. As soon as the ice was empty for as much as a minute, she pulled her skates on and started to play. How do you stop that?
On one of the days when Sune dragged her back to preschool, the staff took pity on him and invited him in for coffee. In the end everyone accepted that it was easier if Sune just picked Alicia up from preschool in the morning, took her to the rink, and brought her back to preschool in the afternoon in time to have coffee there.
One day in early winter, the staff mentioned that the preschool was riddled with mold, that they’d complained repeatedly to the council but had been told there were no suitable alternative premises. Sune looked at Alicia. Thought the matter through carefully. Then he walked back to the rink, went up to Peter Andersson’s office and asked him, “Do you really need this office?”
“Sorry?” Peter said.
Sune gestured toward the rest of the upper floor of the rink. “Almost all these offices are empty! There’s only you, me, and Zackell here! Who else? A couple of office temps? The janitor?”
“There isn’t anyone else. We . . . we’re the club . . .” Peter said.
Sune grabbed pen and paper and started to draw. “We knock out these walls. Put in proper ventilation. It’s perfectly feasible!”
“Sorry, but what are you talking about?” Peter asked.
“More than a club! We can build more than a club!” Sune thundered.
* * *
The next day he went to the politicians with his plan to build a preschool inside the ice rink. Most of them are dubious, some are openly scornful, but one of them sees the potential at once. When the other councillors say no, this one politician goes to a parents’ meeting at the preschool and mobilizes an email campaign. Eventually that convinces the other politicians to restructure the budget. Sune is given money to build the first “ice rink preschool” in the country. The children spend as much time playing on skates as they do in shoes that winter. A few years from now Alicia will say it was those extra hours of practice that made her so fast and technically proficient.
* * *
She will have forgotten that the politician who attended the parents’ meeting was named Richard Theo. But at the next election there will be plenty of parents with young children who remember him.
* * *
“It’s only sports.” That’s what we try to tell ourselves.
* * *
Amat calls Zacharias late one evening.
“What are you doing?” Amat asks.
“Gaming,” Zacharias replies.
Amat used to make fun of him for using that word. “Gaming” instead of “playing games,” as if Zacharias were trying to make it sound like . . . a sport.
“Do you feel like coming out for a while?” he asks.
“Out? Now? It’s as cold as a polar bear’s asshole!”
Amat laughs. “I bet polar bears’ assholes aren’t cold at all! Just come out!”
“What for?”
Amat swallows. “Because I’m so nervous about the game against Hed that I can’t sleep. Just come out.”
So Zacharias goes out. Of course he does. They walk around the Hollow, freezing and talking, the way they used to when they were younger and had nowhere else to go.
“How’s the gaming going?” Amat asks.
“Just don’t, okay?” Zacharias says, hurt.
“No, seriously! Tell me . . . I . . . look, I just need to talk about something apart from hockey.”
Zacharias sulks for a while. But eventually he says, “It’s going well. Really well, actually. I’ve been invited to take part in a competition.”
“Can I come and watch?” Amat asks immediately.
Zacharias can’t possibly describe how proud he is to be asked. So he just grunts, “Sure.” Then he adds crossly, “But not if you’re going to say the same shit as my parents! That it’s not a real sport simply because it isn’t hockey!”
Amat mutters guiltily, “Is that what your parents say?”
Zacharias kicks at the snow. “They dream of having a son like you, Amat. Hockey’s the only thing that counts in this town.”
* * *
Amat doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he can say.
* * *
Maya arrives at the barn up at the kennels. Jeanette is already training inside with the sandbag, but Ana stops warily in the doorway.
“Is it okay if she joins in?” Maya asks.
Jeanette lets out a breathless, surprised laugh. “Of course! If there are three of us, we’ll soon be a real club!”
She isn’t prepared for what happens next, none of them is, not even Ana herself. But when Jeanette shows her a hold that she and Maya have been practicing and Maya tries to remember exactly how to contort her limbs in order to get out of the hold but fails, Ana asks, “Can I try?”
Jeanette hesitates. “This is—well—pretty advanced. Maybe we should start with something lighter?”
“Can’t I just try?” Ana asks.
So Jeanette lets her try, because sometimes you have to let some people fail in order for them to learn. The only problem with that theory is that Ana doesn’t fail. Jeanette shows her the movement, and Ana duplicates it on her first attempt. Jeanette shows her a more difficult move, then another, even harder, and Ana manages them all by her second or third attempt.
Jeanette is panting with her hands on her knees after twenty minutes, but Ana doesn’t seem out of breath at all. Jeanette’s old coach used to talk about “physical intelligence” and how some martial arts practitioners seem to have an equivalent of a musician’s perfect pitch: when they see something, their body knows instinctively how to do the same thing. Ana played hockey for a few years when she was younger, but she’s never done any martial arts. Even so, her physique seems perfectly suited to it. She’s grown up in the forest, running on uneven ground, jumping and climbing. Her dad’s a hunter and fisherman, she’s tracked and shot and dragged heavy animals with him since she was a child, she’s shoveled snow and dug ditches and drilled holes in the ice on the lake. She’s strong, supple, resilient, and tougher than one of the Bearskin’s pork chops.
Jeanette holds her hands up and says, “Hit me as hard as you can.”
“Seriously?” Ana asks.
Jeanette nods. “As hard as you can!”
Maya is sitting on the floor, and she’ll never forget seeing this happen. Ana hits so quickly and so hard that Jeanette staggers backward. Ana just explodes. Jeanette and Maya start laughing. Ana doesn’t even realize what’s so special about what she’s just done, but Jeanette is already planning her career.
The three women inside the barn are wet with sweat; the landscape outside is deep-frozen, covered in snow, sunk in darkness.
* * *
But the whole town smells of cherry blossom.
* * *
Early one morning Zacharias’s parents’ doorbell rings. Amat is standing outside. Zacharias’s mother looks both happy and frustrated. First the happiness: “Amat, how lovely to see you! Congratulations on getting onto the A-team, we’re so proud of you. Just think, we’ve had you running about here for so many years, you can’t imagine how much we boast about you to the neighbors! Your mom must be so proud of you!”
Before Amat has time to reply, she moves straight on to the frustration: “I’m afraid Zacharias isn’t home. He’s gone to play computer games with some friends. Several hours away! Can you imagine? What on earth’s the point of that?”
Amat takes a deep breath, because he’s very fond of Zacharias’s parents, but he says firmly, “Zach isn’t playing games with ‘some friends.’ It’s a huge competition. He qualified ahead of thousands of other players. You should come and watch him with me.”
Zacharias’s dad is standing further back in the hall. He doesn’t want to insult Amat but can’t help snorting, “It’s good of you to stand up for him, Amat, but playing computer games isn’t a real spo—”
Amat fixes his eyes on him. “All through our childhoods Zach and I have competed to see who could turn professional first. He’s going to win. If you aren’t there to see it happen, you’ll regret it for the rest of your lives.”
* * *
He turns and walks down the stairs before they have time to answer.
* * *