It takes Peter a long time to notice the black jackets; they’re sitting spread out around the hall, in different parts of the seated area. Obviously he had been expecting that, but there are considerably more of them than ever before. Several hundred. Only when Peter looks at them carefully does he realize why: it isn’t just the Pack. There are pensioners, factory workers, cashiers from the supermarket, employees of the housing association. It’s not a march, it’s not a noisy demonstration, and if Peter had asked, they would have pretended not to understand. “What do you mean? No, no, it’s just a coincidence!” Peter doesn’t have any proof, of course, because the jackets are different makes, different fabrics. But they’re all the same color. And there are very few coincidences in Beartown.

* * *

No one was surprised when he cordoned off the stand today, because someone saw to it that the news reached the right people in advance. He knows who. The only people Peter was obliged to tell in advance were the club’s board members. He needed their approval to bring in extra security. Peter made his choice, and Ramona responded. He gave her a place on the board so she would make decisions she believes to be in the best interests of the club. Now he has to take the consequences.

* * *

In the intermission between the first and second periods, a young man stands up among the seats on the far side. He’s well dressed, neatly turned out, doesn’t look like a violent person. If anyone nearby had been asked, naturally they would have replied, “Him? No, I don’t know him. What did you say his name was? Teemu Rinnius? Never heard of him!”

He walks calmly and collectedly down to the front of the stand, walks along behind the boards, then turns up toward the cordoned-off standing area. There are two security guards there, but they make no attempt to stop him. Teemu climbs through the cordon and walks casually across the stand, even stopping in the middle of it to tie his shoelace. He glances across the ice, seeking out Peter Andersson in the sea of people. Then he crosses the standing area, walks down the other side, and goes off to buy coffee, as if nothing has happened, even though everyone knows: Teemu has just told Peter that this is his stand and he can reclaim it whenever he likes.

A few minutes later the chanting begins, at first only in the seated area on the far side of the rink; then, as if on command, some men a few rows below Peter start to shout as well. Then it comes from the right and left of him, too. No one looks Peter in the eye, but the men in black jackets are chanting just for him: “We’re everywhere! We’re everywhere! We’re everywhere! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough! Because we’re everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, we’re everywhere!”

They chant it ten times. Then they stand up and switch to, “We’ll stand tall if you stand tall!” Then they stand completely silent, disciplined, and focused to show how quiet the rink is then. And how much everyone would miss the Pack’s support if it disappeared.

Then, as if at an inaudible signal, they start to chant again, and this time the whole rink joins in. Old and young, black jackets, white shirts, green T-shirts: “We are the bears, we are the bears, we are the bears, THE BEARS FROM BEARTOWN!”

Beartown Ice Hockey win the game 7–1. The chanting from the stands is deafening, the crowd forms a green wall on both sides of the ice. There’s a roaring sense of unity in the hall at that moment. Us against everyone. Beartown against the rest.

* * *

Peter has never felt more lonely.

* * *

The following morning, there’s an interview in the newspaper with the local politician Richard Theo. The reporter asks him what he thinks about Beartown Ice Hockey’s decision to get rid of the standing area, and Theo replies, “Beartown Ice Hockey is the people’s club. It doesn’t belong to an elite, to the establishment, it belongs to the ordinary, decent, hardworking people of this town. I’m going to do all I can to persuade the general manager that the standing area ought to be kept. Our supporters make a huge contribution to the atmosphere at games. It’s the people’s club!”

A couple of hours later, Peter receives another email from the factory’s owners. They’ve changed their minds. Suddenly they have “been persuaded of the great value of the standing area to the local community.” That’s how Peter finds out that he was being deceived all along, the whole time.

* * *

That evening he sits alone in his kitchen at home, waiting for the sound of a key in the lock. It never comes. Kira stays at work late into the night. By the time she gets home, he’s fallen asleep on the sofa. She covers him with a blanket. On the table stand a bottle of wine and two glasses.

44

Storm and Longing

It’s far too late in the evening for there to be any lights on in the rink, but Elisabeth Zackell is still firing pucks when Bobo arrives. He didn’t know she’d be there when he set off from home, but he was hoping. He read Harry Potter and got his brother and sister off to sleep, he did the washing and cleaning. Then he packed his things and came down here. It was instinctive. He can’t sleep, his brain won’t stop thinking, and he knows only one place where everything falls silent.

“Can you teach me to skate?” he calls to Zackell.

She turns toward him. She’s never seen a young man in greater need of an escape from reality.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“The first time we met, you asked why no one had ever taught me to skate!”

It’s more of a plea than a statement. Zackell leans thoughtfully on her stick. “Why do you like hockey?”

Bobo chews his bottom lip. “Because it’s . . . fun?”

“That’s not a good enough answer,” she says.

He breathes heavily. Tries again. “I . . . I know who I am when I’m playing hockey. I know what’s expected of me. Everything else is just . . . so hard. But hockey is . . . it’s just . . . I know who I am here . . .”

Zackell taps her stick on the ice, evidently not entirely dissatisfied. “Okay. I suppose I’d better teach you to skate, then.”

Bobo steps onto the ice and skates toward her, then stops and asks, “Why do you like hockey?”

She shrugs. “My dad liked hockey. I liked my dad.”

Bobo frowns. “So why did he like hockey?”

“He used to say hockey is a symphony orchestra. He liked classical music. Sturm und Drang.”

“Is that a band?” Bobo asks, and Zackell laughs out loud for once.

“It means ‘storm and longing.’ My dad used to play me the same pieces of music, over and over again, and he would say, ‘It’s every emotion, all at the same time, Elisabeth, can you hear? Sturm und Drang!’ He felt the same about hockey. Sturm und Drang. The whole time.”

Bobo considers this for a while. Then he asks, “So why do you stand here at night firing pucks?”

She smiles. “Because it’s fun.”

* * *

Then she teaches him how to skate. After a few hours Bobo asks if she thinks he could be a properly good hockey player one day. She shakes her head and replies, “No. But you could be a decent coach, if you can figure out how to be useful to the team.”

* * *

Bobo lies awake for the rest of the night thinking about this. At practice the next day he walks straight out of the locker room, skates across the ice as fast as he can, and bodychecks Benjamin Ovich as hard as he can. Confused, Benji gets up and stares at him. “What the . . . ?”

Bobo doesn’t answer, he just hits Benji’s legs with his stick. The rest of the team just look on in amazement, unable to figure out how to react. Bobo’s lost his mom, that might make anyone a bit crazy, but they all know Benji won’t tolerate being hit again.

“Bobo, stop it,” Amat says gently, but Bobo hits Benji again.

No one has time to stop Benji. Bobo is one of the heaviest players in the team, but Benji sends him flying into the boards, throws his gloves down, and flies at him with his fists clenched.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK EVERYONE ELSE IS GOING TO DO?” Bobo yells.

Benji stops in surprise. “What?”

“What do you think everyone else is going to do? Every team we meet is going to try to provoke you, they want you to fight! They want you to take a penalty!”

Benji stares at Bobo, along with the rest of the team. Amat mumbles, “He’s got a point, Benji. People are going to shout worse and worse things until they find something that works. You mustn’t react. Not you and not Vidar. You’re both too important to the team.”

Benji is breathing furiously through his nose. But in the end he calms down and helps Bobo up. “Okay. Keep trying, then.”

* * *

At every practice from then on, Bobo tries to find more and more creative ways to provoke both Benji and Vidar. Sometimes he succeeds and comes home with black eyes even though they both know that’s precisely what he’s trying to make them do. It turns out that this is Bobo’s unique talent in life: teasing people beyond their endurance.