Us Against You Page 8

  * * *

  How wonderful to have a friend like that.

  * * *

  “Never love a hockey club. It can never love you back.” Peter’s mother told him that. She was softer than his dad, although sometimes Peter thinks his dad might have been softer, too, before she got sick. “Never believe you’re anything special,” his dad said. Peter evidently didn’t listen to either of them.

  He’s called everyone he knows. Everyone he’s played with. Asked for advice, asked for money, asked for players to save the club. Everyone understands, everyone sympathizes, but hockey is built on statistics and figures. No one gives you anything for nothing.

  His phone rings: it’s his childhood friend Tails, the supermarket owner and Beartown Ice Hockey’s last real sponsor. Tails’s voice is trembling when he says, “This is so fucked, Peter. It’s so fucking fucked . . . it . . . they’ve posted something . . .”

  “What?” Peter asks.

  “I wanted to call so you can stop the kids seeing it. They’ve . . . the bastards, there’s a death notice in the local paper today. Your name.”

  Peter says nothing. He understands the message. You can tell yourself as much as you like that “the criticism belongs to the job” and that you “shouldn’t let it bother you.” But we’re all only human. If your name appears in a death notice, it bothers you.

  “Ignore them,” Tails advises, even though he knows it’s impossible.

  It might be possible to save a hockey club in Beartown even if you don’t have everyone on your side. But not if everyone’s against you.

  Peter hangs up. He ought to go home, but Maya’s camping with Ana and Leo is sleeping over at a friend’s. Peter and Kira will be alone in the house, and he knows what she’s going to say. She’s going to try to persuade him to give up.

  * * *

  So Peter turns the Volvo around and drives. Out of Beartown, off along the road, faster and faster.

  * * *

  On the wall of Richard Theo’s office hangs a picture of a stork. Theo has studied statistics and knows that the simplest way to influence people’s opinions is to demonstrate a connection: bad diet leads to illness, alcohol causes road accidents, poverty generates crime. He also knows that numbers can be massaged to suit a politician’s needs.

  In a book by a British statistician, Theo learned, for instance, that there are statistics showing that the number of children born each year is much greater in towns where there are storks than in towns where there aren’t many storks. “What does this prove? That storks deliver babies!” the statistician wrote sarcastically. Of course that isn’t the case; there are more storks in towns with a lot of chimneys, because that’s where they build their nests. A lot of chimneys means a lot of houses, which means more people, which means more babies.

  So Richard Theo has a picture of a stork on the wall of his office to provide him with a daily reminder that whatever is happening isn’t important. The important thing is how you explain it to people.

  * * *

  He’s interested in other animals, too, such as bears and bulls. Like all the other children around here, he grew up knowing that those were the names of the hockey clubs, but when he started to study economics abroad, he learned a different story. On Wall Street brokers call an optimistic market with rising share prices a “bull” market, and the slow, remorseless downward movement of the market in a recession is a “bear” market. The idea is that both are necessary, that the conflict between the two keeps the economy in balance.

  Richard Theo has the same idea about the hockey clubs, but his goal is to alter the balance. Because political elections are simple: When everything is going well, when people are happy, the establishment wins. But when people are angry and arguing, people like Richard Theo win. Because for an outsider to win power requires a conflict. But if there’s no conflict? You have to create one. He dials the number of an old friend in London. “Is everyone agreed?” he asks.

  “Yes, everyone’s on board. But you appreciate that the new owners require certain . . . political guarantees?” his London friend says.

  “They’ll get what they want. Just make sure they show up here and look happy in the pictures for the local paper,” Theo says.

  “And what do you want?”

  “I just want to be their friend,” Theo insists.

  His London friend laughs. “Yeah, right, as usual.”

  “It’s a good deal for the new owners,” Richard promises.

  His London friend agrees. “A very good deal, no doubt about it, and it couldn’t have happened without your specialist knowledge and political contacts. The new owners appreciate your help. But seriously: Why are you so interested in the factory?”

  Theo’s voice is gentle. “Because the factory’s in Beartown. I need it because it’s going to give me a hockey club.”

  His London friend laughs again. When he and Theo met at university in England, Theo had only a small academic grant and empty pockets. His mother was a teacher and his father a factory worker, but his dad was active in the union and had gained a reputation as such a tough negotiator that legend has it that the factory managers gave him a job in middle management simply so they wouldn’t have to negotiate with him. His dad grew fat and comfortable, and soon he wasn’t at all dangerous. That taught Richard Theo what it was possible to do with power. So when he got to university, he consciously sought out a particular type of man: those from wealthy families who were also weak and bullied and had low self-confidence. Theo was quick-witted and funny, a good friend and excellent company at parties, as well as being pretty good at talking to girls. Those are valuable qualities anywhere. In return he acquired loyal friends who soon inherited money and power from their parents. That taught Theo the value of contacts.

  When he got home to Beartown, he could have joined any political party, but he chose the smallest, for the same reason he had chosen to start his political career in Beartown instead of a larger city: sometimes it’s more effective to be a big fish in a small pond than a small one in a big pond. Political affiliations and colors were unimportant to him; he would have been just as happy on the extreme right or extreme left. Some people are driven by ideals, but Richard Theo was driven by results. Other politicians say he’s an “opportunist” with “simple answers to difficult questions,” the sort who one moment is standing with unemployed men in the Bearskin pub promising council investment, the next is hobnobbing with the bosses on the Heights promising lower taxes. He seeks out simple scapegoats every time a crime is committed in the Hollow so that he can call in the local paper for “more police” while simultaneously criticizing the establishment for “not sticking to the council budget.” He sits with environmentalists and promises to stop the hunting lobby’s influence on local politics, but when it suits his agenda he sits in other rooms and fans the hunters’ frustration with the wolf huggers in the big cities and the gun haters in government agencies.

  Theo is, of course, supremely ambivalent about the criticism, because it’s just another way of saying that he doesn’t need flags. Politics is about strategy, not dreams. So what situations can he exploit this summer?

  There have long been rumors that the hospital in Hed is going to be shut down. The factory in Beartown has been cutting its staff for years. And now Beartown Ice Hockey is threatened with bankruptcy. You need to know a good deal about wind to understand how to win something from all three of those.

  “A hockey club? I didn’t think you liked sports,” his London friend says in surprise.

  “I like things that are useful to me,” Richard Theo says.

  * * *

  Two women, Fatima and Ann-Katrin, are sitting in a small car on their way through the forest. Their sons, Amat and Bobo, became teammates in the spring, and the bear on their sons’ jerseys brought the mothers together as well. Ann-Katrin works as a nurse in the hospital that Fatima cleans in the summers, so they started having coffee together, and realized that although the places of b
irth in their passports may have been a very great distance apart, they share the same mentality: work hard, laugh loud, and love your children with everything you’ve got.

  To start with, of course, much of their conversation revolved around the rumors that the hospital was going to be closed. Fatima told Ann-Katrin that one of the first things she learned to say in the Beartown dialect, where she had just arrived with a little boy in her arms, was “That’s going to be difficult.” Fatima loved the people here because they didn’t try to pretend that the world was uncomplicated. Life is tough, it hurts, and people admitted that. But then they grinned and said, “What the hell? It’s supposed to be hard. Otherwise every bugger in the big cities would be able to do it!”

  Ann-Katrin related stories of her own. About her parents, who died young, and about growing up in the forest as the economy was getting worse, and about falling in love with a big, clumsy man called “Hog” because he played hockey like a wounded wild boar and could skate only in a straight line at full speed. Ann-Katrin had never traveled, had never seen the world, had never felt the need. “The most beautiful trees are here,” she promised Fatima, adding “And the men aren’t too bad either, if you’re patient.”

  Hog and their three children—Bobo is the eldest—have kept Ann-Katrin busy. She gets up early, feeds and clothes them, helps Hog with the paperwork in the workshop, then goes to the hospital and works long shifts full of the worst days in other people’s lives. Then home again, “homework to be done and the house to sort out and tears to be wiped from cheeks from time to time.”

  But in the evenings, she told Fatima, Hog creeps through the kitchen more softly than a man of his bulk ought to be able to. And when he holds her, when she turns around close to him and they dance, with her toes on his feet so that he’s carrying her whole weight with every little step, it’s all worth it. It becomes the whole world. “Do you remember when the children were really small, Fatima? When you’d get to preschool and they’d run toward you and literally jump up into your arms? Jump with complete abandon because they trusted us to catch them, that’s my favorite moment in the whole world.” Fatima smiles and says, “Do you know what? When Amat plays hockey, when he’s happy, I still feel like that. Do you know what I mean?” Ann-Katrin knows exactly. That was how they became friends.

  When Ann-Katrin collapsed in the cafeteria of the hospital one afternoon a few weeks ago, it was Fatima who caught her. She was one of the first people Ann-Katrin told about her illness. Fatima went with her to doctor’s appointments, drove her to see specialists at another hospital so that Hog could stay at home and run the garage. They’re sitting in the car now, almost home, and Ann-Katrin smiles tiredly. “You do too much for me.”

  Fatima replies firmly, “Do you know what I learned when I came to Beartown? That if we don’t look after each other, no one else will.”

  “Bears shit in the forest, and everyone else shits on Beartown!” Ann-Katrin says in the voice of the drunk old uncles in the Bearskin, and the two women laugh out loud.

  As they pull up on the grass in front of the workshop, Fatima whispers, “You have to tell Bobo that you’re ill.”

  “I know,” Ann-Katrin sniffs with her face in her hands.

  She wanted to wait until the hockey season had started so Bobo would have somewhere to take his feelings. But there isn’t time. So how do you do it? How do you tell your children that you’re going to die?

  * * *

  The Barn is a bar on the outskirts of Hed; it has live music and cheap beer and, like all similar places, it’s become a natural meeting place for people who are trying to forget their problems, as well as for the people who are looking for them. Katia Ovich is sitting in the office huddled over the accounts when one of the bouncers knocks on the door frame.

  “I know you didn’t want to be disturbed, but your little brother’s sitting in the bar. In his T-shirt.”

  Katia’s lowers her head and lets out a deep sigh. Then she gets up, pats the bouncer on the shoulder, and promises to take care of it.

  Sure enough, Benji is sitting in the bar, which in itself isn’t a problem. He’s pretty much grown up in the Barn, and when it’s been short of staff he’s stood behind the bar serving beer long before he was old enough to buy it for himself. But things are different now. The regulars in the Barn support Hed Hockey, but they’ve let Benji come for three reasons: (1) The regulars like Katia. (2) Benji has been only a junior player in Beartown. (3) He’s had the sense to wear long sleeves.

  But he’s eighteen now, and if he plays hockey this autumn he’ll be on the A-team, and he’s sitting at the bar wearing a T-shirt so that everyone can see the tattoo of the bear on his arm. The same week someone has posted a clip online of red Hed Hockey flags burning and a politician in Hed who spoke in public about the possible bankruptcy of Beartown Ice Hockey ended up with an ax in the hood of her car.

  “Are you going to put a top on?” Katia asks when she arrives behind the bar.

  Benji smiles. “Hello, favorite sister.”

  That was always his trick when he was little, and her weakness was that she could never get angry, because she wanted him to love her most. She sighs sadly. “Please, Benji, can’t you just do this somewhere else?”

  She gestures toward his beer glass. Katia knows she can’t stop anyone in her family from doing anything; she learned that early in life. Tomorrow would have been their dad’s birthday.

  “Don’t worry, favorite sister,” Benji says.

  As though she has a choice. She looks beseechingly at him. “Finish your beer and then go home, okay? I just need to finish the accounts, I’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”

  Benji leans over the bar and kisses her cheek. She feels like both hugging him and hitting him, the same as usual. She looks around the bar; it isn’t even a quarter full, and most of the people here are either too old or too drunk to worry about Benji’s tattoo. Katia hopes she can get him out of here before that changes.

  * * *

  When Amat’s legs have no strength left, he turns and runs back along the road more slowly. Halfway home he encounters a Volvo. It’s Peter Andersson’s. Maybe Amat should stop himself, maybe he should have more dignity, but he starts jumping up and down and waving frantically. The car slows down, almost unwillingly. Amat leans in through the wound-down window, and the words bubble out of him breathlessly: “Hi, P—Peter, I just wanted to ask . . . all the talk about the club, is there going . . . I mean, is there going to be a junior team in the autumn? I want to play, I have . . .”

  Peter shouldn’t have stopped the car, should have known himself better than to take out his feelings on a sixteen-year-old boy. For a moment he forgets what Amat did back in the spring, that the reason why the junior player can’t go to Hed now is that he testified on behalf of Maya. Saved Peter’s job. But sometimes grief and rage can consume a grown man so completely that he can’t actually consider the fact that other people have feelings too.

  “Amat, I’ve got a lot on my mind, we’ll have to talk about another time.”

  “When? I’ve got nowhere to play!” Amat blurts out breathlessly.

  He may not have meant to sound angry, but he’s frightened. Peter’s guilty conscience threatens to suffocate him, and at times like that sometimes the right places in our hearts don’t get enough oxygen, so he snaps back, “Are you having trouble hearing me, Amat? I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE JUNIOR TEAM! I don’t even know if I’ve got a CLUB!!!”

  * * *

  Only then does Amat see that Peter’s been crying. The boy backs away slowly from the car. Peter drives away, utterly crushed. In the rain he didn’t see the tears running down the boy’s cheeks as well.

  * * *

  A man is sitting in the bar of the Barn, twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven. Blue jeans, polo shirt. He’s drinking beer and has a book open in front of him. When Katia goes back to the office, he raises an eyebrow in Benji’s direction and asks, “Should I move?”

  Benji tur
ns toward him with the sort of carefree little quiver of the corners of his lips that people find very hard not to find infectious. “What for?”

  The man in the polo shirt smiles. “Your sister seems to think you’re going to get in trouble. So I’m wondering if I should move.”

  “That depends how much you like trouble,” Benji replies and drinks some of his beer.

  The man in the polo shirt nods. He glances at Benji’s hand and sees the blood on his knuckles. “I’ve lived here for four hours. How quickly is it reasonable to get into trouble?”

  “Kind of depends how long you’re thinking of staying. What’s the book?”

  The question comes so out of the blue that the man momentarily doesn’t know what to say; then he realizes that perhaps that was the point. Benji has many ways of making other people feel uncertain.

  “It was . . . I mean, it is a . . . it’s a biography of Friedrich Nietzsche,” the man in the polo shirt says and clears his throat.

  “The guy with the abyss?” Benji asks.

  The man in the polo shirt looks surprised. “ ‘If you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’ Yes, that’s Nietzsche.”

  “You look surprised,” Benji observes.

  “No . . . ,” the man lies.

  Benji drinks his beer. For many years his mother had a way of punishing him for fighting in school by forcing him to read the newspaper. He wasn’t allowed to go to hockey practice until she’d tested him on everything: the editorial, the foreign news, culture, politics. After a few years that got too easy for him, so his mother started to use literary classics instead. She could hardly read them herself, but she knew her son was smarter than he let anyone believe. So his punishment for misbehavior was also a reminder: you’re better than this.