“I… I know Peter’s naive and credulous, but he… he would never do anything illegal on purpose. He’d never expose me and the kids to the risk. Dear God, he won’t even park the car too close to a fire hydrant! But even so…”

  Her colleague squeezes her arm and whispers:

  “Seriously, though, Kira, where’s the fun in defending someone who’s innocent? That isn’t even a challenge!”

  * * *

  All sports are built on minuscule margins. Thousandths, inches, ounces. Behind all of the most famous achievements in sporting history there are thousands of invisible “if only”s and “if that hadn’t”s and “so close”s.

  Benji is driving the campervan through Beartown, blowing smoke out of the wound-down window. He slows down when he reaches the ice rink. He has to sit there for a long time with weed in his lungs and childhood in his heart merely to check if he wants to go back, but nothing happens. He wonders if he would have gone on loving hockey if he had stayed here two years ago instead of taking off. He finds himself asking more and more often who he might have been if his life hadn’t been governed so much by other people’s decisions: if his dad hadn’t done what he did, if Kevin hadn’t done what he did, if all the others hadn’t done what they did, and no one had ever found out the truth about Benji… what would his life have been like then? If he had a time machine now, would he have used it?

  He takes some deep drags and pulls out his phone, calls the same number three times without getting an answer. All sports have minuscule margins, sometimes it’s just a friend who doesn’t give up hope on you.

  He lets the campervan drive on, all the way to the Hollow, drives around the parking lot below the apartment blocks and looks at the time. There are no children outside, days like this are the exception every year, suddenly there’s too much snow to take your sticks out and play in the yard, but the ice on the lake isn’t thick enough for you to grab your skates and play there. The campervan rolls slowly in front of one of the buildings until it reaches a basement door. Then Benji calls the same number again and hears a phone echoing in the shadows.

  Sports and margins: a two-inch-wide goal line can determine how an entire life is remembered. A final can be decided at the last second so that a town far out in the forest more than twenty years later still defines itself with the word “almost.” A boy can be born several thousand miles away and still end up being the one who one day makes them feel like something else.

  Amat is skulking by the shadow of the wall with his hockey bag on his back. Benji pulls up beside him in a time machine.

  “Training starts soon, do you want a lift?”

  Amat tries to smile but his jaw is shaking too much with cold and fear.

  “I don’t know,” he admits.

  Benji leans against the steering wheel and blows smoke out through his nose.

  “How long have you been standing here?”

  “I… don’t know.”

  His lips are blue and his eyes are exhausted from the fear of disappointing everyone again.

  “Why don’t you just go to training and talk to Zackell?” Benji asks.

  “Because I don’t know if I’d be welcomed back,” Amat shivers.

  Benji smokes and runs a careless hand through his hair, almost burning off his eyebrow in the process. That makes Amat’s chest bounce with giggles and probably warms them both up. Benji brushes the sparks from his pants and mutters:

  “I’m not going to give you a motivational speech, if that’s what you’re waiting for…”

  Amat manages a sarcastic sigh between shivers.

  “No? I thought you were going to yell ‘pain is just weakness leaving your body’ or ‘winners don’t wish for success, they create it!’ ”

  Benji grins. He rolls a new cigarette between his fingertips, filling it carefully and looking for his lighter.

  “No. I’m not here for your sake. I’m here for mine.”

  Amat stamps in the snow to force the blood through his body.

  “Okay?”

  Benji nods seriously.

  “I’ve never seen anyone play hockey like you, my friend. I can’t bear having to live the rest of my life wondering how good you could have been if you hadn’t given up.”

  Considering it isn’t a motivational speech, it’s actually a damn good motivational speech. Amat’s breath catches. He will never forget how Benji looks just then: inquisitive eyes and messy hair in an old campervan. A gentle heart. An outstretched hand. A little click when he reaches across the passenger seat and opens the door. Amat hesitantly puts his bag in, but doesn’t get in himself. Then he says:

  “Okay. Take my bag and I’ll run. It’s going to be hard enough persuading Zackell to take me back as it is, I can’t show up stinking like a hash factory…”

  Benji roars with laughter so hard that the smoke catches in his throat and he coughs until someone yells “shut up” from a balcony. He likes that about the Hollow, you never have to wait long to find out what someone thinks. He pulls the bag onto the seat and turns the campervan around in a wide circle.

  Amat is already running along the main road when the campervan catches up and overtakes him. Benji blows the horn cheerily, Amat watches the rear lights as they vanish toward the town. It’s one of the first ice-cold days of the year and one of the last truly happy ones. Amat starts playing hockey again this evening, he never gives up, but Benji will never find out how good he can be.

  68 Enemies

  Tails is used to complicated transactions, he’s built much of what he owns on unusual deals with dubious partners weighed down by hazy loyalties, but this Tuesday is odd even for him. For months he has tried to persuade powerful men to shut down the hockey club in Hed, but now he finds himself trying to save it. He starts a war by trying to find peace. He needs friends, so he calls enemies.

  The first call is to a politician, the second to a hockey supporter, they have barely anything in common except that hardly anyone calls them by those words. Most people call Richard Theo and Teemu Rinnius far, far worse things.

  “Why are you calling me?” both men ask suspiciously when they find out what Tails wants to talk about.

  “Because we want the same thing,” Tails tells them both.

  “And what’s that?” the two men wonder, and Tails replies:

  “To win.”

  * * *

  Richard Theo is sitting in his office in the council building, laughing loudly.

  “I’ve heard you don’t like my politics, Tails, so why would you want to help me?”

  “I don’t think you like your politics either, Richard, I just think you do whatever it takes to beat your opponents,” Tails replies from his own office at the supermarket.

  Richard Theo purses his lips.

  “If you want a favor, you should ask your friends in the party that actually runs the council. After all, I’ve heard that my party is just a little protest party on the margins. Perhaps it would be better for you to talk to someone with real power?”

  Tails sighs over the line.

  “You and I both know that after the next election you’ll be running the council.”

  The politician smiles contentedly at the other end.

  “Don’t say that! I think it suits me better to be in opposition, because around here people love complaining.”

  “The other politicians can’t do what I need help with,” Tails admits.

  “Really. You have my attention. What are you after?”

  The tone of gentle mockery in his voice hides how intrigued Theo is.

  So Tails explains. He says he’s changed his mind about the merger of the two hockey clubs. He’s suddenly realized that the towns need their own clubs, for the sake of public health, but mostly for the sake of the children.

  “Absolutely, absolutely, ‘the children,’ of course,” the politician laughs sarcastically, but Tails pretends not to notice.

  “I’m going to set up a pressure group of local businessmen to push for the rebuilding of the ice rink in Hed as part of the same budget as the construction of Beartown Business Park! To demonstrate that the council’s investment will benefit the whole district!”

  Richard Theo thinks for a moment.

  “I assume you’re soon going to tell me how this helps me?”

  Tails takes a deep breath.

  “Almost all the politicians in the council have decided that they only want one hockey club, not two…”

  “Because that’s what you and your ‘pressure groups’ have persuaded them, yes. You’re the people who have been pushing to get Hed Hockey closed down because it would save so much taxpayers’ money!” The politician chuckles, but he sounds genuinely curious about where this conversation is going.

  “If all the politicians are on one side, you can win a lot of votes by standing on the other side,” Tails points out enigmatically.

  The politician sighs and pretends to be disappointed.

  “My whole financial policy is based upon cutting unnecessary expenditure by the council, and now you want me to support a plan which would see millions plowed into the renovation of the ice rink in Hed, and save Hed Hockey? Why would I do that?”

  Tails’s chest rises and falls so deeply that it creaks before he realizes that there’s no point lying to Theo, he’s far too smart a snake, so he admits:

  “I know that you helped steer the takeover of the factory by foreign owners a few years ago. You got them to sponsor Beartown Hockey and save the club’s finances. So you know perfectly well what contacts and capital are worth. But you also know that if the clubs are merged, external auditors will examine all the accounts, and there are things there that would be unsuitable for… well… ‘public consumption,’ so to speak.”

  The politician rocks back and forth on his chair, holding the phone between his shoulder and his chin, and starts tapping at his computer. He hasn’t read the local paper as thoroughly as he usually does in recent days, but now he finds the article about Tails’s vandalized car. Then he smiles. It isn’t the auditors Tails is afraid of, it’s the journalists.

  “Can I ask something, Tails? It seems as if you’ve been doing all you can recently to present Hed Hockey as a club on the brink of bankruptcy, full of hooligans who vandalize cars? But now all of a sudden you want to rescue them?”

  Tails tries to control his pulse.

  “Circumstances change, I suppose. I’d like to think I’m capable of changing my opinion.”

  Richard Theo taps at his keyboard again.

  “Hmm. Let me guess, your change of opinion has something to do with the fact that you need to conceal the evidence of that business about the ‘training facility’ that the council bought, and which you all think I don’t know anything about?”

  Tails is breathing heavily at his end of the line.

  “There’s an awful lot that I hope you don’t know anything about, Richard, but very little that I imagine actually gets past you.”

  The politician tries to resist the flattery.

  “So you want to create a new narrative now? Bury the scandal about Beartown behind the news that the council is investing money in Hed? Because you hope that if enthusiasm about the hockey clubs is strong enough, the reporters might stop digging? That isn’t going to work forever, Tails. Sooner or later someone is going to investigate anyway.”

  Tails loosens his tie, he’s sweating so much that he has to keep switching the phone from one ear to the other.

  “I don’t need forever, I just need a little while. So I have time to get all the paperwork in order. You know how it is: scandals aren’t as interesting to anyone in hindsight. Once the training facility has been built, no one’s going to care how it came about. And by then the reporters will have moved on to hunt for other scandals. It’s like hockey: it’s only cheating if you get caught.”

  Richard Theo doesn’t laugh at this last remark, he’s never been very keen on sports, but he hears the logic in what Tails is saying. Theo knows that everything and everyone is connected here in the forest, hardly anyone has been better at exploiting that than him, because no one is independent in a small community. Not even journalists.

  “So what do you want from me?” he asks.

  Tails has evidently rehearsed his reply:

  “Let me be honest: I need your political support, but Hed Hockey doesn’t just need the council’s money, it also needs sponsors. The way Beartown has the factory. It would look far too suspicious if I tried to find sponsors for the club I hate, but I think you could do it. So… well… if you help me to save Hed, I can save Beartown.”

  “And what do I get in return?”

  Tails closes his eyes, ashamed of what he says next:

  “I’ll see to it that everyone knows that it was you who saved both clubs.”

  Theo snorts.

  “That isn’t enough, you know that.”

  Tails breathes in quickly, breathes out slowly.

  “What more do you want?”

  “I want to be involved in this ‘Beartown Business Park’ that you’re building.”

  “I didn’t think you were interested in making money…,” Tails blurts out, making the mistake of sounding hopeful, because suddenly he thinks Theo can be bribed.

  The response sounds almost amused:

  “No, I’ve got enough money, Tails. The only capital I’m interested in is political. But this district needs to grow in order to survive, and you have to build to grow. Men like you do the building, but men like me decide where and how you get to do it.”

  “So you want all the public credit for Beartown Business Park?” Tails guesses.

  “No, no, my friend, not ALL the credit. Just a shovelful here and there. A few photographs in the local paper. And in the fullness of time I’ll ask for one more condition.”

  “Which is?”

  The politician taps at his computer and says:

  “I don’t know yet. But I’ll get back to you. Now, let me get to work.”

  * * *

  Teemu has stopped his car a little way into the forest, he’s standing in the snow, smoking and listening to Tails’s bullshit with extremely limited patience.

  “… so you see, Teemu, you and I want the same thing! What’s best for our club! I need…”

  “It isn’t your club. It will never be your club,” Teemu corrects with a darkness in his voice that makes Tails gasp for air in his office even though they’re separated by several miles.

  “Okay. Okay, sorry. I… can I be honest, Teemu?”

  “Please do.”

  “I know that the club wouldn’t have survived without the supporters in the standing area. But without a few of us in the seats it wouldn’t…”

  “You mean your smarming to the council? I’ve heard that it was YOUR idea to merge Hed and Beartown! Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

  Tails swallows and chooses his words with great care.

  “The politicians in charge of the council don’t want to merge the clubs. They want to shut them both down and start a new one. They think that hockey is a ‘product,’ Teemu. They don’t want people like you in the stands, and soon they won’t want people like me either, not real supporters. Just consumers. They think they can get rid of us from the stands if they erase our history. No Hed, no Beartown, just some new damn club that some PR company has invented…”

  “You probably shouldn’t make comparisons between you and me,” Teemu advises, but he doesn’t sound quite so threatening now, so Tails feels bold enough to go on:

  “There are journalists digging into Beartown’s finances. You know what journalists are like, they go looking for scandals, and scandals always require a scapegoat. And the scapegoat they’ve chosen is Peter.”

  All he can hear at the other end of the line for almost a minute is the gentle crackle of Teemu’s cigarette. Then he says in a low voice:

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  Tails breathes out and wipes the sweat from his brow.

  “It isn’t anything that I want you to do, it’s something I want you not to do: you and your guys mustn’t start any trouble right now. If there’s more violence, the council will see that as another good reason to shut down both clubs. And then everything’s over for us. And I really don’t want to give those reporters any more reasons to dig into Beartown Hockey…”

  “What exactly are you worried the reporters will find?”

  “No need to worry about that.”

  Teemu’s tone isn’t threatening, but it almost is.

  “I’m not worried. I’m interested.”

  So Tails doesn’t come straight out and say what he really wants, but he almost does.

  “The editor in chief has been poking about in the club’s accounts.”

  “Do you want me to keep an eye on her?”

  “What? No, no, don’t do anything stupid!”

  Teemu understands exactly what they’re talking about. Over the years he has become extremely good at hearing when someone can’t ask him for precisely what they’re asking him for.

  “I won’t do anything stupid. But I need something from you too, Tails. You’ve got to help us save the Bearskin.”

  “The Bearskin? From what?”

  “Do you know who Lev is?”

  Tails knows, of course. Everything is connected, in the end, tighter and tighter. Teemu explains the story of Ramona’s debts and Lev’s threats. Tails promises to talk to his political contacts and see what he can do. Before they end the call he says cautiously:

  “Thanks, Teemu. I know you’d rather have seen Hed Hockey go bankrupt. I have a feeling you’ve been dreaming of killing that club off almost as long as I have…”

  Teemu lets out a short laugh. He sometimes forgets that Tails also possesses hatred, it almost makes him sympathetic.

  “Well, what else am I going to do, Tails? If we can’t play against Hed, we can’t beat the shit out of them. And if they haven’t got a hockey club of their own, maybe those little assholes would start supporting ours, and do you think I want them in MY stand? Not on your life!” They end the call. This is how a community’s corruption is measured. It isn’t cheating if you don’t get caught, and it isn’t a scandal if it never gets revealed. Until then, there are just secrets. All forests are full of them.