Benji stands outside the ice rink for a long time. He’s smoking in the shade of some trees, his feet deep in the snow. He’s played ice hockey his whole life, for so many different reasons, for so many different people’s sake. Some things demand our all, and choosing this sport is like choosing a classical instrument, it’s too difficult just to be a hobby. No one wakes up one morning and just happens to be a world-class violinist or pianist, and the same applies to hockey players: it takes a lifetime of obsession. It’s the sort of thing that can absorb your entire identity. In the end an eighteen-year-old man is left standing outside an ice rink thinking “Who can I be, if I’m not this?”

* * *

Benji doesn’t play this game. He’s already far away when it starts.

* * *

The coach of Hed Hockey seeks out the coach of Beartown Hockey in a corridor. Elisabeth Zackell looks surprised, and David gestures toward a shy seventeen-year-old behind him who’s carrying his bag over his shoulder. David has an entire speech prepared in his head, one that’s supposed to sound grown-up and understanding and just right in light of all the terrible things that have happened. But his lips refuse to let it out. He wants to be sensitive, or at least to sound sensitive, but sometimes it’s easier to do things than to say them. So he nods toward the young man.

“This is our backup goalie. I think he can become a damn fine player with the right coach, and . . . well . . . he doesn’t get much time on the ice with us. So if you . . .”

“What?” Zackell wonders, not taking her eyes off the seventeen-year-old, who’s refusing to look up from the floor.

David clears his throat. “I’ve called the association. Considering the circumstances, they’re prepared to allow a transfer.”

Zackell raises her eyebrows. “You’re giving me a goalie?”

David nods. “Everyone says you’re good with goalies. I think you can turn him into a fantastic player.”

“What’s your name?” Zackell asks, but the goalie merely mutters something in the direction of the floor.

David coughs awkwardly.

“The guys in the team call him ‘Mumble,’ because that’s all he ever does.”

* * *

He’s right. The boy will become a damn fine goalie, and he’ll never utter an unnecessary word. Elisabeth Zackell takes an immediate liking to him. He comes from Hed, but he will play for Beartown for almost twenty years, never for any other club, and one day he will be more of a bear than anyone else in the eyes of the fans. But he will never wear number 1, because that’s Vidar’s number. He will write the number 1 on his helmet instead, and the black jackets will always cheer extra loud for him because of that.

* * *

David shakes his hand, and the seventeen-year-old goes into the locker room. David shuffles his feet awkwardly, then plucks up the courage to ask Zackell, “How’s Benji?”

Zackell’s lower lip quivers almost imperceptibly. Her voice trembles ever so slightly. “Okay. I think he’s going to be . . . okay.”

She too will save a jersey with the number 16 on it, on all her teams, for as long as she’s a coach. She and David look each other in the eye, and Zackell says, “Give us hell out there on the ice this evening.”

David smiles. “You give us hell!”

* * *

It’s one hell of a game. People will talk about it for years.

* * *

Teemu comes to the kennels on his own. He’s carrying an envelope, and he climbs up to join Benji on the roof. Teemu hesitates, then sits down next to him.

“Are you going to the game?” Teemu wonders.

Benji’s reply isn’t contrary. It actually sounds almost happy. “No. Are you?”

Teemu nods. He’ll never stop going to watch hockey. Some people might think the sport would remind him too much of his little brother now, but in actual fact, for long periods of Teemu’s life it will be one of the few places where he can bear to remember Vidar. Where it doesn’t hurt.

“You’re going away, aren’t you?” he asks eventually.

Benji looks surprised. “How do you know?”

Teemu’s eyes flash for a moment. “You look the way I hoped Vidar would one day. Like you’re thinking of getting out.”

Teemu looks as though the slightest puff of wind could blow him to pieces. Benji passes him a cigarette.

“Where would you have liked Vidar to go?”

Teemu blows smoke through his nose. “Anywhere he could have become something . . . more. What are you planning to do?”

Benji takes a deep drag on the cigarette. “I don’t know. I just want to find out who I am if I’m not a hockey player. I don’t think I can do that if I stay here.”

Teemu nods seriously. “You’re one hell of a hockey player.”

“Thanks,” Benji says.

Teemu gets up quickly, as if he’s worried the conversation might go in a direction he’s not ready for. He drops the envelope into Benji’s lap. “Spider and Woody read something online about there being a ‘Rainbow Fund’ that collects money for . . . you know . . . people who’ve been assaulted and imprisoned and shit in other countries because they’re—”

He falls silent. Benji looks at the envelope and whispers, “Like me?”

Teemu looks away. Stubs out the cigarette and coughs. “Well . . . the guys decided they wanted the money we had in the kitty at the Bearskin to go to . . . that. So they wanted to give it to you.”

Benji swallows, feeling crushed. “So you want me to give the money to that Rainbow Fund because I’m one of them?”

Teemu has already started to climb down the ladder, but he stops and looks Benji in the eye. “No. We want you to give them the money because you’re one of us.”

* * *

Ramona is stomping around inside the Bearskin, drinking her lunch and directing the workmen with plenty of ripe swearing. Peter Andersson walks in, looking just like the boy he once was whenever he came to collect his drunken dad.

“How’s it going?” he asks, looking around at the renovations.

Ramona shrugs. “It smells better after the fire than it did before.”

Peter smiles weakly. So does she. They’re not ready to laugh yet, but at least they’ve started to move in the right direction. Peter takes such a deep breath that his pupils quiver before he says, “This is for you. In your capacity as a board member of Beartown Ice Hockey.”

Ramona looks at the sheet of paper he puts down on the bar without saying anything. She has a pretty good idea what it is, so she refuses to touch it.

“There’s a whole heap of dreary old men in smart jackets on that board, give it to one of them!”

Peter shakes his head. “I’m giving it to you. Because you’re the only person on the board I trust.”

She pats his cheek. The door to the Bearskin opens, Peter turns around and sees Teemu in the doorway. The two men instinctively raise their hands toward each other, as if to indicate that neither of them wants any trouble.

“I can . . . come back later,” Teemu offers.

“No, no, I was just leaving anyway!” Peter insists.

Ramona snorts at the pair of them. “Shut up, both of you. Sit down and have a beer. On the house.”

Peter clears his throat. “I’d take a coffee.”

Teemu hangs his jacket up. “Me, too.”

Peter raises his cup in a vain attempt at a toast. Teemu does the same.

“Honestly! Men!” Ramona mutters irritably.

Peter looks down at the bar when he says, “I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, but I think Vidar could have gone a long way as a hockey player. Maybe all the way. He was very good indeed.”

“He was an even better brother,” Teemu says.

Then he smiles. So does Ramona. Peter clears his throat.

“It’s a terrible loss . . .”

Teemu turns his coffee cup, watching the small ripples on the surface. “You and your wife lost your first child, didn’t you?”

Peter takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Yes. Isak.”

“Do you ever get over it?”

“No.”

Teemu turns his cup, around, around. “So how the hell do you go on living?” he asks.

“You fight harder,” Peter whispers.

Teemu raises his cup in another toast. Peter hesitates for a while before finally saying “I know you and your guys have always seen me as an enemy of the Pack. Maybe you were right to. I don’t believe violence has any place around sports. But I . . . well . . . I’d like you to know that I understand that not everything in life is uncomplicated. I know it’s your club too. I’m sorry about the times when I . . . went too far.”

Teemu’s fingernails click sadly against the porcelain cup. “Politics and hockey, Peter. They should never come anywhere near each other.”

Peter takes a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t know if it’s any use to you, but . . . Richard Theo tricked me. He’s just playing people like you and me off against each other to get power. And people like him don’t just want control of the hockey club, they want control of the whole town.”