Kira will figure it out soon enough, of course. She’s a smart woman, and she’s lived here long enough. Beartown is known for many things: dizzyingly beautiful forests, a last area of wilderness in a country where national politicians only want the big cities to grow. It has friendly, humble, hardworking people who love nature and sports, spectators who fill the stands no matter what league the team is playing in, pensioners who paint their faces green when they go to games. Responsible hunters, competent anglers, people as tough as the forest and as unyielding as the ice, neighbors who help anyone in need. Life can be hard, but they grin and say, “It’s supposed to be hard.” Beartown is known for that. But . . . well. The town is also known for other things.
A few years ago an old hockey referee talked to the media about his worst memories from his career. The second, third, and fourth places were occupied by games in the big cities where angry fans had thrown tubs of chewing tobacco, coins, and golf balls onto the ice when they didn’t like a decision. But in first place was a small rink way out in the forest, where the referee had once awarded a power play to the visiting team in the closing minute of a game. They had scored, Beartown had lost, and the referee had glanced up toward the infamous standing area in the arena reserved for “the Pack,” which was always full of men in black jackets singing at deafening volume or bellowing in a terrifying manner. But on that occasion they hadn’t raised their voices. The Pack had just stood there, completely silent.
Kira’s husband, Peter Andersson, general manager of Beartown Ice Hockey, was the first to realize the danger. He raced toward the scorekeeper’s box, and as the buzzer rang out to signal the end of the game, he managed to switch all the lights off. In the darkness the security guards led the referees out and drove them away. No one needed to explain what would have happened otherwise.
That’s why softly spoken threats work here. A call to a moving company is enough, and Kira will understand the reason soon.
* * *
The meeting in the regional council building isn’t yet finished, but a few people in Beartown already know the result.
* * *
There are always flags fluttering outside the council building: the national flag and one bearing the council’s coat of arms. The local politicians can see them from the conference room. It’s a few days before the Midsummer holiday, three weeks after Kevin and his family left town. They changed history when they did that: not the history that was yet to come, but the history that had already happened. But not everyone has realized that yet.
One of the councillors coughs nervously, makes a brave attempt to button his jacket, even though as a rough guess half a dozen Christmas buffets must have passed since that was even theoretically possible, and says, “I’m sorry, Peter, but we’ve decided that the region would be best served if we focus the council’s resources on one hockey team. Not two. We want to focus on . . . Hed Hockey. It would be in everyone’s best interests, yours included, if you could just accept that. Bearing in mind the . . . situation.”
Peter Andersson is sitting on the other side of the table. The realization of how he has been betrayed sends him tumbling into the darkness, and his voice is barely audible when he manages to say, “But we—we just need a bit of help for a few months, until we find more sponsors. The council just has to stand as guarantor for the loan from the bank.”
He falls silent, immediately embarrassed at his own stupidity. Obviously the councillors have already spoken to the bank managers—they’re neighbors, they play golf and hunt elk together. This decision was made long before Peter walked into the room. When the councillors asked him to come, they were careful to stress that this would be an “informal meeting.”
There won’t be any minutes. The chairs in the meeting room are extra narrow, enabling the men with all the power to sit on more than one chair at the same time.
Peter’s phone buzzes. When he opens it, he finds an email telling him that the director of Beartown Ice Hockey Club has resigned. He must have known what was going to happen here and has probably already been offered a job in Hed instead. Peter is going to be left to deal with the blow on his own.
The politicians on the other side of the table squirm uncomfortably. Peter can see what they’re thinking: “Don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t plead, don’t beg. Take it like a man.”
* * *
Beartown lies beside a large lake, with a narrow strip of beach along the whole of one side. At this time of year the beach belongs to the town’s teenagers, when it’s so warm that you almost manage to forget that winter in Beartown is nine months long. Among the profusion of beach balls and hormones sits a twelve-year-old boy in sunglasses. His name is Leo Andersson. Not many people on the beach knew that last year, but they all know it now and keep glancing at him as if he were primed to explode. A couple of months ago, Leo’s older sister, Maya, was raped by Kevin, but the police were unable to prove anything, so Kevin got off. The townspeople divided, most of them taking Kevin’s side, and the hate escalated until they tried to drive Leo’s family out of town. They threw stones with the word BITCH painted on them through his sister’s window, they bullied her at school, they called a meeting at the rink and tried to get her and Leo’s dad fired as general manager of Beartown Ice Hockey.
A witness came forward, a boy the same age as Maya who had been in the house when it had happened. But that didn’t make any difference. The police did nothing, the town kept quiet, the adults did nothing to help Maya. Then one night, not long after that, something else happened. No one knows exactly what. But all of a sudden Kevin stopped going out. Rumors that he was mentally ill started to circulate; then, one morning three weeks ago, he and his family just up and left town.
Leo had thought everything would get better then. But it got worse instead. He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.
When a vote of the club’s members had decided by the smallest possible margin to let Peter Andersson stay on as general manager back at that meeting in the spring, Kevin’s dad had immediately seen to it that Kevin changed clubs, from Beartown to Hed. He had persuaded the coach, almost all the sponsors, and almost all of the best players from the junior team to move with him. When Kevin’s family suddenly left town three weeks ago, everything was turned upside down again, but—weirdly enough—nothing changed.
And what had Leo expected? That everyone would suddenly realize that Kevin was guilty and apologize? That the sponsors and players would come back to Beartown with their heads bowed? Like hell they did. No one bows their heads around here, for the simple reason that many of our worst deeds are the result of our never wanting to admit that we’re wrong. The greater the mistake and the worse the consequences, the more pride we stand to lose if we back down. So no one does. Suddenly everyone with power and money in Beartown chose a different strategy: they stopped admitting that they had ever been friends of the Erdahl family. People started to mutter, very quietly at first, then with increasing assurance, that “that boy was always a bit odd,” and “his dad put way too much pressure on him, anyone could see that.” Then, weirdly, it slipped into comments like “that whole family, they were never . . . you know . . . like us. The father wasn’t from around here, not originally, he was a newcomer.”
The story when Kevin transferred to Hed Hockey Club was that he had been “the victim of a malicious accusation,” and “the subject of a witch hunt,” but now there’s a different version: that the sponsors and players didn’t move to Hed because they were following him but because they wanted to “distance themselves” from him. His name has been erased from Hed’s membership register, but it’s still on Beartown’s. That way everyone was able to move far enough away from both perpetrator and victim, so now all Kevin’s former friends can call him a “psychopath” while sti
ll calling Maya a “bitch.” Lies are simple; truth is difficult.
Beartown Ice Hockey started to be called “Kevin’s club” by so many people that Hed automatically began to feel like the opposite. Emails were sent from players’ parents to local councillors about “responsibility” and “insecurity,” and when people feel threatened a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, one tiny incident at a time: one night someone wrote “Rapists!!!” on one of the road signs on the outskirts of Beartown. A couple of days later a group of eight-year-olds from both Beartown and Hed were sent home from summer camp after a violent fight, caused by the kids from Hed chanting “Beartown Rapists!” at the kids from Beartown.
Leo is sitting on the beach today, and fifty feet away sit Kevin’s old friends, big, strong eighteen-year-olds. They’re wearing red Hed Hockey caps now. They’re the ones who wrote online that Maya had “deserved it” and that Kevin was obviously innocent because “who the hell would want to touch that slut even with a shitty stick?” As if Maya had ever asked any of them to touch her with anything at all. Now the same boys claim that Kevin was never one of them, and they’ll go on repeating the same lie until he’s associated only with Beartown, because however this story gets distorted these boys will make themselves the heroes. They always win.
Leo is six years younger than most of them; he’s an awful lot smaller and an awful lot weaker, but some of his friends have still started to tell him that he “ought to do something.” That one of those bastards “needs to be punished.” That he has to “be a man.” Masculinity is complicated when you’re twelve. And at every other age, too.
* * *
Then there’s a noise. Heads look down at towels. All over the beach cell phones start to vibrate. First one or two, then all at once, until the buzzing blurs together into a invisible orchestra where all the instruments are being tuned at the same time.
The news is arriving.
* * *
Beartown Ice Hockey no longer exists.
* * *
“It’s only a sports club, there are more important things.” It’s easy to say that sort of thing if you believe that sports is merely a matter of numbers. But it never is, and you can only understand that if you start with the simplest question: How does it feel for a child to play hockey? It’s not so hard to answer that. Have you ever been in love? That’s how it feels.
* * *
A sweaty sixteen-year-old is running along the road outside Beartown. His name is Amat. In a garage out in the woods, a dirty eighteen-year-old is helping his dad fetch tools and stack tires. His name is Bobo. In a garden a four-and-a-half-year-old girl is firing pucks from a patio into a brick wall. Her name is Alicia.
Amat hopes that one day he’s going to be good enough for hockey to take him and his mother away from here. For him sports are a future. Bobo just hopes he can have another season of laughter and no responsibilities, seeing as he knows that every day after that will be like all his dad’s days. For Bobo sports are a last chance for play.
For Alicia, the four-and-a-half-year-old girl firing pucks on a patio? Have you ever been in love? That’s what sports are for her.
* * *
Cell phones buzz. The town stops. Nothing travels faster than a good story.
* * *
Amat, sixteen years old, stops out on the road. Hands on knees, chest heavy around his heart: bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. Bobo, eighteen years old, rolls another car into the workshop and starts to beat out a dent in the plate: bang-bang-bang. Alicia, four and a half years old, stands on a patio in a garden. Her gloves are too big and the stick is too long, but she still fires a puck at the wall as hard as she can: bang!
They’ve grown up in a small town in a big forest. There are plenty of adults around here who say that work is getting harder to find and the winters are getting worse, that the trees are denser and the houses sparser, that all the natural resources may be out in the countryside but all the money still ends up in the big damn cities. “Because bears shit in the woods, and everyone else shits on Beartown.” It’s easy for children to love hockey, because you don’t have time to think when you’re playing it. Memory loss is one of the finest things sports can give us.
But now the text messages arrive. Amat stops, Bobo lets go of the hammer, and soon someone is going to have to try to explain to a four-and-a-half-year-old girl what it means when a hockey club “goes bankrupt.” Try to make it sound like it’s just a sports club collapsing, even though sports clubs never really do that. They just cease to exist. It’s the people who collapse.
* * *
In the Bearskin pub they usually say that the door should be kept closed “so the flies don’t get cold.” They usually say other things too: “You’ve got an opinion about hockey? You couldn’t even find your own arse with both hands in your back pockets!” “You want to talk tactics? You’re more confused than a cow on AstroTurf!” “You think our defense is going to be better next season? Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining!” But today no one is arguing; today everything is quiet. It’s unbearable. Ramona pours whisky into all the glasses, one last time. The five uncles, seventy years old, maybe more, raise their glasses in a perfunctory toast. Five empty glasses hit the bar. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. The uncles stand up and leave, go their separate ways. Will they call each other tomorrow? What for? What on earth are they going to argue about, if not a hockey team?
* * *
There’s a lot that isn’t talked about in a small town, but there are no secrets when you’re twelve years old, because at that age you know where on the Internet to look. Leo’s read everything. Now he’s wearing a long-sleeved top, in spite of the heat. He says it’s because he got sunburned, but he just doesn’t want anyone to see the scratch marks. He can’t stop scratching himself at night; the hate has crept under his skin. He’s never been in a fight, not even about hockey. He often wonders if he’s like his dad and just doesn’t have violence in him. But now he just wishes someone would pick a fight with him, bump into him accidentally, give him one single reason to pick up the nearest heavy object and smash his face in with it.
“Brothers and sisters should look out for each other,” that’s what everyone says when you’re growing up. “Don’t argue! Stop fighting! Brothers and sisters should look out for each other!” Leo and Maya were supposed to have a big brother; perhaps he would have been able to protect them. His name was Isak, and he died before they were born of the sort of illness that makes it impossible for Leo to believe that there’s a god. Leo barely understood that Isak had been a real person until he was seven years old and found a photograph album with pictures of him with their parents. They laughed so much in those pictures. Hugged each other so tightly, loved each other so infinitely. Isak taught Leo an unbearable number of things that day, without even existing. He taught him that love isn’t enough. That’s a terrible thing to learn when you’re seven years old. Or at any age.
He’s twelve now, and he’s trying to be a man. Whatever that means. He tries to stop scratching his skin raw at night, tries to sob silently, curled up tightly under the covers, tries to hate without anyone else seeing or realizing. Tries to kill the thought that won’t stop thudding at his temples. Brothers and sisters should look out for each other, and he wasn’t able to protect his sister.
* * *
He wasn’t able to protect his sister he wasn’t able to protect his sister he wasn’t able to protect his sister.
* * *
Last night he scratched his chest and stomach until a long wound opened up in his skin and blood started to seep out. This morning he looked at himself in the mirror and thought that the wound looked like a fuse leading to his heart. He wonders if it’s burning inside him. And how long it’s got left.
4
Women Are Always the Problem
The older generation used to call Beartown and Hed “the Bear and the Bull,” especially when the towns were due to play each other at hockey. That was many years ago now, and
no one really knows if Hed already had the bull as the emblem on their jerseys at the time, or if they put it there after being given the nickname. There was a lot of livestock around Hed in those days, more open countryside, so when industry arrived it was easier to build factories there. The people in Beartown were known to be hard workers, but the forest was denser there, so the money ended up in the neighboring town to the south. Older generations used to speak metaphorically about the struggle between the Bear and the Bull and how that kept things in balance, stopped one of them from having all the power. Perhaps it was different back then, when there were still enough jobs and resources for both towns. It’s harder now, because the idea that violence can ever be controlled is always an illusion.
* * *
Maya is over at Ana’s. These are the few minutes of peace and quiet before the text message arrives, the last moments between Kevin leaving town and all hell breaking loose again. They had three weeks when people almost seemed to forget that Maya existed. It was wonderful. And it will soon be over.
Ana checks that the gun cabinet is locked, then fetches the key and makes sure the weapons inside aren’t loaded. She lies to Maya and says she’s going to “clean them,” but Maya knows she does that only when her dad has started to drink again. The final sign that a hunter’s alcoholism has crossed the line is when he forgets to lock the cabinet or leaves a loaded weapon inside. That’s happened only once, when Ana was little and her mom had just moved out, but Ana has never quite stopped worrying.