Ana runs to catch up with her. They wrestle and hug each other. Watch the sun go up. Maya whispers: “Can I sleep at your place one night?”
Ana doesn’t know what to say. Maya has never slept at her place, not once; it’s always been the other way around. But she’s a true friend, so of course she answers: “You don’t have to ask.”
*
Ramona empties her glass. Tails empties his. Erdahl’s eyes narrow.
“Well, then. Let’s skip the pleasantries. You know why I’m here?”
Ramona looks curious.
“No, but I bet you’ve brought some gold with you. Tails has brought frankincense. And there’s a third wise man standing outside the door with his pants stuffed full of myrrh. Is that more or less right?”
Erdahl breathes hard through his nose and makes a short, disgusted gesture toward the room.
“This . . . pub . . . is one of Beartown Ice Hockey’s oldest sponsors. Obviously it doesn’t contribute a significant amount, but we all respect tradition. And I presume you’ve been informed that there’s to be an extraordinary meeting of members . . . in light of what has happened.”
Tails coughs distractedly and adds:
“We just want to talk, Ramona. The sponsors, all of us, feel that it’s important that we stand united at the meeting. For the sake of the club.”
“And what does that mean?” Ramona wonders out loud with feigned docility.
Erdahl is already fed up. He gets to his feet and informs her: “Some of the management needs to be changed. Peter Andersson is going to be voted out as GM and will be replaced by a more suitable person. Both the board and all the sponsors agree on that, but we respect the members and want the proposal to come directly from them. We’re here as a gesture of goodwill.”
Ramona smiles sarcastically.
“Yes, you strike me as the sort of person who’s always doing things as a gesture of goodwill. What’s Peter done that’s so unsuitable, if I might ask?”
Erdahl growls through his teeth.
“You know perfectly well what’s happened.”
“No I don’t. And I don’t think that you do either. That’s why there’s a police investigation.”
“You know what my son has been accused of,” Erdahl says.
“You make it sound like he’s the victim,” Ramona points out.
Erdahl finally loses his composure. Tails has never seen it happen, and he gets so scared that he knocks over his own and Ramona’s glasses. Erdahl screams: “My son IS the victim! Have you got any fucking idea at ALL what it’s like to be accused of this? HAVE YOU?”
Ramona doesn’t move a muscle when she replies:
“No. But, off the top of my head, it strikes me that the only thing that might be worse than being accused of rape is being raped.”
“So you’re going to stand here and assume that that damn girl is telling the truth?” Erdahl snarls.
“I’m thinking of standing here and allowing myself the liberty of not assuming that the girl is for some reason lying just because your son happens to play hockey. And she has a name. Her name is Maya,” Ramona replies.
Erdahl laughs condescendingly.
“So you’re one of the people who are going to try to blame this on hockey?”
Ramona nods seriously and asks:
“Have you ever played hockey?”
“I stopped when I was twelve,” Erdahl admits.
“In that case, you’re right. In that case, I do blame hockey. Because if it had kept hold of you for another couple of years, you might have learned to lose like a man. You might have learned that your son can make mistakes, and when he does you ought to stand up like a man and take responsibility for that. Not come here and dump all the blame on a fifteen-year-old girl and her father.”
Erdahl knocks his chair flying when he throws his arms out in exasperation. It might not have been intentional, but he makes no move to pick it up. He’s breathing hard through his nose, his eyes are hunting hers, he tosses a thousand-kronor note on the bar, and concludes, with equal measures of scorn and threat: “You might own this bar. But you don’t own the building. I’d think about that, if I were you.”
He slams the door hard, making the windows rattle.
*
Ana and Maya go into the house, Ana gets the key to her dad’s gun cabinet and puts back the rifles they’ve been shooting with. Maya notes every detail, how they’re arranged, where the key is.
“What’s that?” she asks innocently, pointing to a double-barreled shotgun.
“A shotgun,” Ana replies.
“Is it hard to load?” Maya wonders.
At first Ana laughs, then she gets suspicious:
“Why do you ask?”
Maya shrugs.
“What are you, the cops? I’m just wondering. It looks cool; can’t we try shooting with that one sometime?”
Ana grins and nudges her shoulder.
“You can be the cop, you lunatic!”
Then she fetches cartridges and shows Maya how to break open, load, and release the safety-catch of the shotgun, because she loves the rare occasions when she’s better at something than her friend. She adds, patronizingly, that, “It’s so easy that even you could do it.” Maya laughs.
“How many cartridges does it hold?” she asks.
“Two,” Ana replies.
She breaks the gun open again and unloads it, puts the cartridges back, and locks the gun cabinet. The girls leave the cellar. Maya says nothing. But all she is thinking is: “I only need one.”
*
Tails is still standing in the Bearskin, and carefully picks up the glasses, one after the other.
“It’s just a . . . discussion, Ramona,” he whispers.
“Your father would have been ashamed,” she snaps.
“I’m just trying . . . not to pick a side.”
Ramona snorts.
“You’re doing it very badly.”
Tails turns, wraps his coat unhappily around himself, and walks out. A couple of minutes later he comes back. Stands on the floor in front of the bar like the unhappy little boy he once was, when he used to come in with Peter before they were even teenagers to fetch their drunk fathers.
“Does Robbie Holts still come in here?” he mutters.
“Almost every day since he lost his job,” Ramona nods.
Tails nods.
“Tell him to call in to the store and talk to my warehouse manager. I’ll see to it that he gets an interview.”
Ramona nods. They could have said more to each other. But they’re from Beartown.
*
Late in the afternoon Kevin is running along the jogging track around the Heights. Faster and faster, with his cap pulled down deep across his forehead and his hood pulled up. He’s even wearing bulky clothing with no bear logos, so that no one will recognize him. There’s no need, of course; everyone from the Heights has gone to the meeting at the rink to vote. But Kevin still feels like he’s being watched from inside the forest. Imagination, of course. He’s just being paranoid. That’s what he tells himself.