Chapter 46
46
A nother morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with.
***
Hog is standing in his garage, wiping oil from his hands on a cloth, scratching his beard. Bobo is sitting on a chair with a wrench in his hand, staring out into space with his face covered in scabs and bruises. They’re taking him to the dentist tomorrow; hockey has caused gaps before, but this is different. His dad’s breathing sounds strained as he pulls up a stool.
“Talking about feelings doesn’t come naturally to me,” he says, addressing the floor.
“Don’t worry,” his son murmurs.
“I try to show in other ways that I... I love you, and your brother and sister.”
“We know, Dad.”
Hog clears his throat, his lips barely moving beneath his beard.
“We need to talk more, you and me. After this business with Kevin... I should have talked to you. About... girls. You’re seventeen, practically a grown man, and you’re incredibly strong. That brings with it a certain responsibility. You need to... behave.”
Bobo nods.
“I’d never, Dad... to a girl... I’d never...”
Hog stops him.
“It’s not just about not hurting anyone. It’s about not keeping your mouth shut too. I’ve been cowardly. I should have stood tall. And you... Christ, boy...”
He pats his son gently on his bruises. Doesn’t want to say that he’s proud, because Ann-Katrin has forbidden him to be proud of the boy for fighting. As if you could forbid pride.
“What Kevin did, Dad, I’d never...,” Bobo whispers.
“I believe you.”
His son’s voice cracks with embarrassment.
“But you don’t get it... With a girl, I mean, I’ve never, you know...”
His dad rubs his temples awkwardly.
“I’m not good at this, Bobo. But... you mean...”
“I’m a virgin.”
His dad massages his beard and tries to look like he wouldn’t rather be hit in the head with a chisel than have this conversation.
“Okay, but you know about, well... the birds and the bees and all that crap... you know how it all happens?”
“I’ve seen porn, if that’s what you’re asking,” Bobo says, with big, uncomprehending eyes.
His dad makes a restrained cough.
“I need... Okay, I don’t even know where to start. It was easier telling you how an engine works.”
Bobo clasps the wrench in his lap in his big hands. His shoulders will soon be as broad as his dad’s, but his voice still sounds young when he asks:
“Okay, I... Does it make you an idiot if you... if you want to get married first? I mean, I’m thinking I want it to be special, the first time... I want to be in love with someone, I don’t want to just... fuck. Does that make me an idiot?”
His dad’s laughter echoes around the garage so suddenly that Bobo drops the wrench. Laughter isn’t a sound this garage is used to.
“No, boy, no, no, no. Christ. Pull yourself together. Is that what you wanted to know? That doesn’t make you anything. That’s your private life, and it’s no one else’s damn business.”
Bobo nods.
“Can I ask something else, then?”
“Okay.”
“How do you know if you’ve got a nice-looking cock?”
His dad shuts his eyes and rubs his temples.
“I need whisky if I’m going to talk about this.”
***
Ann-Katrin is standing hidden behind one of the doors outside the garage. Hears everything. She’s never been more proud, of either of them. The idiots.
***
Fatima takes the bus through the forest with her son; they are going to Hed. She sits in the next room while he makes his witness statement. She’s never been more scared, for both herself and him. The police ask if he was drunk, if it was dark in the room, if it smelled of marijuana, if he has any particular feelings for the young woman in question. He doesn’t hesitate on a single detail, doesn’t stammer over his answers, his eyes don’t flit about.
***
Kevin is sitting in the same room a couple of hours later. They ask him if he’s sticking to his version of the story, if he still claims that the young woman had sexual intercourse with him entirely voluntarily. Kevin looks at his lawyer. Then he glances at his dad. And then he looks the police officer right in the eye and nods. Promises. Swears. Sticks to his story.
***
All their lives, girls are told that the only thing they need to do is their best. That that will be enough, as long as they give everything they’ve got. When they themselves become mothers, they promise their daughters that it’s true, that if we just do as well as we can, if we’re honest and work hard, look after our family and love each other, then everything will be all right. Everything will be fine, there’s nothing to be frightened of. Children need the lie to be brave enough to sleep in their beds; parents need it to be able to get up the next morning.
Kira is sitting in her office, and stares at her colleague when she comes in. Her colleague is holding her phone in her hand; she’s got a friend in the police station in Hed, and her face is red with sorrow and rage. She can’t bring herself to say the words to Kira. She writes them down on a piece of paper, when Kira takes it her colleague is still holding onto it, and when Kira’s body hits the floor her colleague is there to catch her. Screams with her. There are two sentences on the piece of paper. Six words. Preliminary investigation closed. Lack of evidence .
All our lives we try to protect those we love. It’s not enough. We can’t. Kira stumbles out to the car. Drives straight out into the forest, as far as she can. The snow muffles the sound between the trees as she slams the door so hard that the metal buckles.
***
Then she stands there and howls, with an echo that will never fall silent in her heart.
***
At lunchtime Kevin’s mom takes the garbage out. All the houses are silent, all the doors closed. No one invites her in for coffee. The lawyer has sent her an email today, two sentences and six words that say her boy is innocent.
But the street is silent. Because it knows the truth. Just like she does. And she has never felt more alone.
***
The voice comes gently, the hand is placed on her shoulder with emphatic empathy.
“Come and have some coffee,” Maggan Lyt says.
When Kevin’s mom is sitting in the kitchen of her neighbor’s house, cozy and homey with family photographs hanging slightly askew on the walls without anyone seeming to care, Maggan says to her:
“Kevin’s innocent. This sanctimonious town may think it can pass its own laws and mete out its own justice, but Kevin is innocent. The police have said so now, haven’t they? You and I know he’d never do what they accused him of. Never! Not our Kevin! This damn town... hypocrites and morality police. We’re going to take over the club in Hed, your husband and my husband and the other sponsors, the boys on the team, and we’ll crush Beartown Ice Hockey. Because when this town tries to oppress us, we stick together. Don’t we?”
Kevin’s mom nods in agreement. Drinks coffee. Thinks the same thought over and over again: “You’re nothing in this world if you’re alone.”
***
That afternoon, Benji is on his way to Hed again. He’s almost reached the bass player’s rehearsal room in Hed when he receives a text. He holds his phone in his hand until the screen is damp with sweat. He asks Katia to turn the car around. She wants to ask why but can see from the way he looks that there’s no point. He gets out in the middle of the forest, takes his crutches, and walks straight into it. No one ever sees the text; no one would have understood it anyway. It says simply: “Island?”
The bass player is sitting on a stool in a rehearsal room. He’s not playing anything. Just holding a pair of skates in his hands, waiting for hours for someone who never shows up.
***
It won’t be summer for another couple of months, but the water in the lake has started to stir in its winter sleep, and the ice above it is slowly yielding to a few more cracks each day. If you stand on the shore, it’s all still a peaceful scene in a hundred shades of white, but here and there are tiny promises of green. A new season will come, followed by a new year, life will go on and people will forget. Sometimes because they can’t remember, and sometimes because they don’t want to.
Kevin is sitting on a rock looking out at his and Benji’s island, the place that used to be a secret, and which as a result was the only place where they never had any secrets from each other. Kevin has lost his club, but he hasn’t lost his team. He can see his future. He will spend a year playing for Hed Ice Hockey, then he’ll accept an offer from one of the big teams, and then go over to North America. He’ll be drafted by the NHL, the professional teams will dismiss the police investigation as “off-ice problems.” They’ll ask a question or two about it, but they know how it is, of course. There are always girls who want attention; you have to let the courts and the police deal with things like this, they’ve nothing to do with sports. Kevin will get everything he’s ever wanted. There’s just one thing left.
***
Maya is waiting on the steps in front of the house when her mom comes home. Her mom is still clutching the note her colleague gave her, crumpled into a ball, like a loaded grenade. She and the girl rest their foreheads together. Say nothing, because they couldn’t have heard anything anyway, the echo of the screams in their hearts is deafening.
***
Benji walks all the way through the forest, in the snow, on his broken foot. He knows that’s exactly what Kevin wants. He wants proof that Benji is still his, that he’s still loyal, that everything can go back to the way it was. When Benji emerges and stares at his best friend, they both know that it can. Kevin laughs and hugs him.
***
The mother holds her hands to the girl’s cheeks. They wipe each other’s eyes.
“There are still things we can do, we can ask for fresh interviews, I’ve been in touch with a lawyer who specializes in sexual offenses, we can fly him in, we can...,” Kira babbles, but Maya gently hushes her.
“Mom, we have to stop. You have to stop. We can’t win this.”
Kira’s voice is trembling:
“I’m not going to let the bastards win, I’m not...”
“We have to live, Mom. Please. Don’t let him take my family as well, don’t let him take all our lives. I’m never going to be okay, Mom, this is never going to be properly okay again, I’m never going to stop being afraid of the dark, ever again... but we have to start trying. I don’t want to live in a permanent state of war.”
“I don’t want you to think that I... that we can’t... that I’m letting them get away... I’m a LAWYER, Maya, this is what I DO! It’s my job to protect you! It’s my job to avenge you, it’s my job... it’s my damn job...”
Maya’s breathing is ragged, but her hands are still as they touch her mom’s temples:
“No one could have a better mom than you. No one.”
“We can move, darling. We can...”
“No.”
“Why not?” her mom cries.
“Because this is my fucking town too,” the girl replies.
***
Maya goes into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. Astonished at how strong she has learned to pretend to be. At the number of secrets she can hold these days. From Ana, from her mom, from everyone. Anguish and terror are roaring through her head, but she becomes calm and cool when she thinks about her secret: “One bullet. I only need one.”
***
Peter comes home and sits down at the kitchen table next to Kira. They don’t know if they will ever stop feeling ashamed that they were forced to give up. How can anyone lose like this without dying? How does anyone go to bed at night, how do they get up in the morning?
Maya comes in, stands behind her dad, wraps her arms around his neck. He is fighting back tears. “I let you down. As your dad... the manager of the club... I let you down, just like every...”
His daughter’s arms hold him tighter. When she was little they used to tell each other secrets instead of bedtime stories. Her dad might confess in a whisper, “I ate the last cookie,” and his daughter might reply, “It was me who hid the remote.” It went on for years. Now she leans over and says into his ear:
“Want to know a secret, Dad?”
“Yes, Pumpkin.”
“I love hockey too.”
Tears roll down his cheeks as he admits:
“Me too, Pumpkin. Me too.”
“Will you do something for me, Dad?”
“Anything.”
“Build a better club. Stay and make the sport better. For everyone.”
He promises. She goes to her room, comes back with two wrapped parcels. Puts them down on the table in front of her parents.
***
Then she goes around to see Ana. The girls each take a shotgun and head out so far into the snow that no one can hear them anymore. They fire at plastic bottles filled with water, watch the explosions when the shots hit them. They shoot for different reasons. One does it out of aggression. The other does it for practice.
***
Benji has always felt that he has different versions of himself for different people. He’s always known that there are different versions of Kevin too. The Kevin who exists on the ice, the Kevin in school, the Kevin when they’re on their own. Above all, there’s a Kevin out on the island, and that Kevin is Benji’s alone.
They’re both sitting on rocks now, looking out at it. Their island. Kevin clears his throat.
“We’re going to do all the things in Hed that we wanted to do in Beartown. The A-team, the national side, the NHL ... we can still have it all! So this town can go to hell!” Kevin smiles with a self-confidence that only Benji’s presence can give him.
Benji puts his broken foot down in the snow, presses gently on it, gathers the pain.
“You mean you can have everything,” he corrects.
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Kevin exclaims.
“You’ll get what you want. You always get what you want.”
Kevin’s eyes open wide, his lips narrow.
“What are you talking about?”
Benji turns around, until their faces are barely a yard apart. “You’ve never been able to lie to me. Don’t forget that.”
Kevin’s pupils drown as the rest of his eyes turn black. He raises his forefinger furiously at Benji.
“The cops dropped the investigation. They interviewed everyone, and they DROPPED it. So there was no fucking rape! So don’t even try, because you weren’t even there.”
Benji nods slowly.
“No. And I shouldn’t be here either.”
As he gets to his feet, the expression on Kevin’s face changes in the space of a breath, from hate to terror, from threat to plea.
“Come on, Benji, don’t go! I’m sorry, okay? SORRY! FUCKING SORRY! What do you want me to say? That I need you? I need you, okay? I NEED YOU!”
He stands up, arms outstretched. Benji puts more and more weight on his broken foot. Kevin takes a step forward, and he isn’t the Kevin everyone in Beartown knows, he’s Kevin from the island. Benji’s Kevin. His feet are soft in the snow as his fingertips gently touch Benji’s jaw.
“Sorry, okay? Sorry... It... it’s going to be all right.”
But Benji backs away. Closes his eyes. Feels his cheek grown cold. He whispers:
“I hope you find him, Kev.”
Kevin frowns uncomprehendingly; the wind finds its way under his eyelids.
“Who?”
Benji has put his crutches down in the snow. Is hopping slowly over the rocks, up into the forest, away from his best friend on the planet. Away from their island.
“WHO? YOU HOPE I FIND WHO?” Kevin shouts after him.
Benji’s reply is so quiet that even the wind seems to turn and carry the words so that they reach all the way to the water.
“The Kevin you’re looking for.”
***
In a kitchen in a house sit two parents, each opening a present from their daughter. In Kira’s: a coffee cup with a wolf on it. In Peter’s: an espresso machine.