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.