Of course, one day people in this town will realize that the new owners never had any intention of keeping the factory here. They will move it somewhere where property prices are even cheaper and wages even lower, as soon as that becomes the more profitable option. It won’t make any difference to Richard Theo. Because before the next election, documents will be leaked to the local paper showing how senior councillors have been misusing taxpayers’ money for years; hidden subsidies and loans have found their way into the pockets of the “fat cats” on the boards of the hockey clubs and “illegal investments” made to support the construction of a conference hotel in conjunction with the council’s application to host the World Skiing Championships. Within no time at all a scandal will blow up, in which “influential local politicians” have been bribed by “wealthy businessmen.”
It doesn’t matter that the female politician who is the current leader of the largest party has never been involved in the misuse of funds, she’ll still end up having to spend the entire election campaign answering questions about corruption. Her husband and brother just happen to work for one of the companies implicated in the bribery scandal. They later turn out to be completely innocent, but it will be too late by then, because once the word “corruption” appears alongside the female politician’s name in newspaper headlines enough times, most people will conclude, “She’s bound to be corrupt, too. She’s just like all the others.”
On the other side stands Richard Theo, and he doesn’t even have to be perfect; all it takes is for him to be different. So he will end up winning the next election, because that’s what men like him do. But he won’t win the next time around, because men like him don’t do that either.
* * *
Today he leaves the council building earlier than usual. He has a long drive ahead of him this evening, all the way to his brother’s home down in the capital. Richard Theo’s nephew turns six tomorrow, and ever since the boy was little, Richard Theo has called him every night to read him a bedtime story over the phone. The stories are almost always about animals, because Richard Theo and the little boy both love animals.
* * *
Tomorrow, on the boy’s birthday, they’re going to go to the zoo. See the bears and bulls.
* * *
Kira Andersson and her colleague are in their new office. It’s cramped and full of boxes, and they’re stressed and exhausted. They’ve managed to take a few big clients with them, but they’re having far more trouble recruiting good staff. No one is willing to take a chance on working for a start-up, especially not in this part of the country.
There’s a knock on the door, and Kira’s colleague hopes it’s one of all the lawyers she’s interviewed coming back to say that he or she has had a change of heart. She cheerily throws the door open but finds herself looking at Kira’s husband.
“Peter? What are you doing here?” Kira blurts out farther inside the room.
Peter swallows and rubs his sweating hands on his jeans. He’s wearing a white shirt and a tie. “I . . . this will probably sound stupid, but I saw on the Internet . . . well . . . a lot of companies have an HR department these days, human resources. It’s . . . they deal with recruitment, training, staff welfare. I—”
His tongue sticks to his palate. Kira’s colleague is trying not to laugh, without much success, but she fetches him a glass of water. Kira asks, “What are you trying to say, darling?”
Peter steadies himself. “I think I could be good at that human resources thing. It’s like building a team. Holding a club together. I know I haven’t got the right experience for your company, but I’ve got . . . other experience.”
Kira’s colleague scratches her hair. “Sorry, but I don’t get it, Peter. What are you doing here? Isn’t Beartown playing a game right now?”
Peter rubs his hands on his jeans again. He looks Kira in the eye. “I’ve resigned from Beartown Ice Hockey. I’m here looking for a job.”
Kira looks at him for a long time, blinking hard. She wraps her arms tightly around herself. “Why do you want to work here, of all places?” she whispers.
He straightens up. “Because I want us to have more than a marriage. I want us to help each other to become better people.”
* * *
When two teams, one red, one green, finally skate out onto the ice to play their game that evening, there are people missing, both on the ice and in the stands—people everyone has always taken for granted. But everyone else is there, from two towns with a thousand different stories. Even so, the Beartown ice rink is completely silent. The seated area is sold out, but no one’s talking, no one’s clapping or chanting. In one of the standing areas is a crowd of green-clad figures, and in their midst stands a motionless group of men in black jackets. They’re not chanting. It’s as if they want to but can’t summon up the energy, their lungs are empty, their voices inadequate. Even so, a chant suddenly rises up toward the roof. Their chant.
* * *
“Wee aaare the beaaaars! We are the beaaaars! We are the beaaaaaaars . . .”
* * *
It’s coming from the other end of the rink, from the other standing area. The red-clad fans are chanting it. All of Hed’s fans have grown up hating Beartown Ice Hockey, and tomorrow they’ll do so again. They’re not going to stop fighting each other, the world isn’t going to change, everything is going to carry on as usual.
But today, one single time, their sad voices rise up to chant their opponents’ song as a mark of respect:
* * *
“THE BEARS FROM BEARTOWN!”
* * *
It’s a single, brief token of respect. Just words. The ice rink is quieter than ever afterward, and then it feels as though it never will be again. At first there’s no noise, and then it’s impossible to hear anything but an explosion of pride and love as an entire town tries to tell everyone that it’s still here, that it’s still standing tall, that it’s still Beartown against the rest. When the people in the green stands containing the black jackets start to sing, they sing loud enough for it to be heard all the way to Heaven. So that he knows how much they miss him.
* * *
And then we do what we always do around here. We play hockey.
* * *
Maya’s mom gives her a lift to the train station. She waits by the entrance as her daughter goes up the steps and looks along the platform until she sees what she’s looking for. He’s sitting on a bench.
“Benji . . . ,” she says quietly from a distance, as if calling an animal she doesn’t want to startle.
He looks up, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Maya says.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Your sisters told me.”
He smiles radiantly. “They’re very untrustworthy, my sisters.”
Maya laughs. “Untrustworthy as hell!”
The sleeves of her jacket are slightly too short; she’s gotten taller this year without her jacket realizing it. Two fresh tattoos are visible on her lower arms. One is of a guitar, the other a rifle.
Benji nods. “I like them.”
“Thanks. Where are you going?” she asks.
He considers his reply for a long time. “I don’t know. Just . . . somewhere else.”
She nods. Hands him a piece of paper containing a brief handwritten text. “I got into music school. I’ll be moving in January. I don’t know if you’ll be back here before then, so I . . . I just wanted to give you this.”
While he reads it, she starts to walk back toward her mom’s car. When he’s finished, he calls after her, “MAYA!”
“WHAT?” she shouts back.
“DON’T LET THE BASTARDS SEE YOU CRY!”
She laughs with tears in her eyes. “NEVER, BENJI! NEVER!”
* * *
Perhaps they will never meet again, but she wrote all the biggest things she feels for him on that scrap of paper:
I wish you courage
I wish you rushing blood
A heart that beats too hard
Feelings that make everything too hard
Love that gets out of control
The most intense adventures
I hope you find your way out
I hope you’re the kind of person
Who gets a happy ending
* * *
The sun will make its way up over our town again tomorrow. Incredibly.
* * *