What to read: the novel "Bear's Corner" about a provincial Swedish town where everyone is obsessed with hockey

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

An excerpt from a new work by the author of The Second Life of Uwe, which reveals acute social problems from an unexpected angle.

1

One evening at the end of March, a teenager took a double-barreled gun, went into the forest, put the muzzle to the man's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Here is the story of how we got there.

2

It's early March, nothing has happened yet. It's Friday, everyone is looking forward to it. Tomorrow in Bjornstad, the junior team will play in the decisive match - the youth semi-final of the country. You say, so what? To whom so what, and to whom there is nothing more important in the world. If you live in Bjornstad, of course.

The city, as always, wakes up early. What can you do, small towns have to give themselves a head start, they need to somehow survive in this world. The even rows of cars in the factory parking lot have already managed to be covered with snow, and the rows of people peck their noses and silently wait for their turn to the electronic controller to record the fact of their presence in its complete absence. On autopilot, they shake off dirt from their boots and talk in answering machine voices while waiting for caffeine, nicotine or sugar to reach their destination and keep their sleepy bodies with normal functioning until the first coffee break.

Electric trains leave the station for large settlements on the other side of the forest, frosty mittens knock on the heater, and curses sound such that usually drunk, dying, or sitting in the early morning at the wheel of a completely frozen Peugeot.

If you shut up and listen, you can hear: “Bank-bank-bank. Bank. Bank.

Waking up, Maya looked around her room: on the walls, pencil drawings and tickets from concerts in the big cities that she had once visited were alternately hanging on the walls. There are not as many of them as she would like, but much more than her parents allowed. Maya was still lying in bed in her pajamas, fingering the strings of her guitar. She loves her guitar! She likes to feel how the instrument presses on the body, how the wood responds when she taps on the body, how the strings dig into the pads of her fingers that are swollen after sleep. Simple chords, gentle transitions - pure delight. May is fifteen years old, she often fell in love, but her first love was the guitar. She helped her, the daughter of the sports director of a hockey club, to survive in this city surrounded by forest thickets.

Maya hates hockey, but understands her father. Sport is the same instrument as the guitar. Mom loves to whisper in her ear: "Never trust a person whose life does not have that which he loves without looking back." Mom loves a man whose heart is devoted to a town where everyone is crazy about sports. The main thing for this city is hockey, and, whatever they say, Bjornstad is a reliable place. You always know what to expect from him. Day after day the same thing.

Bjornstad is not close to anything and even looks unnatural on the map. As if a drunken giant came out to pee in the snow and inscribed his name on it, some will say. As if nature and people were engaged in pulling the living space, others, more balanced ones, will say.

Be that as it may, the city is still losing, it has not had to win at least in anything for a long time. There are fewer jobs, fewer people, and every year the forest eats up one or another abandoned house. In those days, when the city still had something to brag about, the local authorities hung a banner at the entrance with the slogan in the then popular manner: “Welcome to Bjornstad! New victories await us! " However, after several years of blowing by wind and snow, the banner has lost the syllable "by". Sometimes Bjornstad seemed like the result of a philosophical experiment: what would happen if an entire city collapsed in the forest, but no one noticed it?

To answer this question, let's walk a hundred meters towards the lake. Before us is not God knows what, but nevertheless it is a local ice palace, built by factory workers, whose descendants in the fourth generation roam Bjornstad today. Yes, yes, we are talking about the very factory workers who worked six days a week, but wanted to have something to look forward to on day seven.

It sat in the genes; all the love that the city was slowly thawing, he still put into the game: ice and board, red and blue lines, clubs, puck - and every ounce of will and strength in his youthful body, rushing at full speed in pursuit of her. Year after year, it’s the same thing: every weekend the stands are full of people, although sporting achievements are falling in proportion to the fall of the urban economy. Perhaps this is why everyone hopes that when things get better again at the local club, the rest will catch up.

This is why small towns like Bjornstad always put their hopes on children and adolescents, because they don't remember that life was better before.

Sometimes this is an advantage. The junior team gathered on the same principle as the older generation built their town: work like an ox; endure kicks and jaws; Don `t cry; shut up and show these metropolitan devils who we are.

There is not much to see in Bjornstad, but everyone who has been here knows that it is a stronghold of Swedish hockey.

Amat will soon turn sixteen. His room is so small that in a richer area, where there are more apartments, it would be considered too cramped for a toilet. The walls are covered with posters of NHL players, so you can't see the wallpaper; however, there are two exceptions. One is a photograph of Amat at the age of seven, wearing a helmet sliding over his forehead and leggings that are clearly too large for him. He is the smallest of the whole team.

The second is a sheet of paper on which my mother wrote scraps of prayer. When Amat was born, his mother lay with him on a narrow bed in a small hospital on the other side of the world, and she had no one else in the whole world. The nurse whispered this prayer in her ear. They say that Mother Teresa wrote it on the wall above her bed, and the nurse hoped that this prayer would give the lonely woman hope and strength. Soon, for sixteen years now, this leaflet with a prayer hangs on the wall in her son's room - the words got a little confused, because she wrote down from memory that she could: “An honest person can be betrayed. Be honest anyway. Kind can be stipulated. And still be kind. Everything good that you have done today may be forgotten tomorrow. And still do good."

Every night Amat places her skates by the bed. “Poor your mother, you were probably born in skates,” the old watchman in the ice palace often repeats with a grin. He suggested that Amat leave the skates in a locker in the warehouse, but the boy preferred to carry them with him. I didn't want to part with them.

In all teams, Amat was always the smallest in stature, he lacked neither muscle strength nor throwing power. But no one could catch him: there was no equal to him in speed. Amat did not know how to explain this in words, here as with music, he thought: some, looking at the violin, see pieces of wood and cogs, while others hear the melody. He felt the skates as a part of himself and, having changed into ordinary boots, he felt like a sailor stepping on land.

The leaf on the wall ended with these lines: “Everything that you build, others can destroy. And yet build. Because in the end it will not be others who will answer before God, but you. " And just below the decisive hand of a second grader brought out in red crayon: “WELL AND LET THEY SAY, I DIDN'T GET GROWING TO PLAY. WILL ALWAYS BECOME A COOL PLAYER!"

Bjornstad's hockey team once ranked second in the major league. Twenty years have passed since then, and the composition of the major league managed to change three times, but tomorrow Bjornstad will have to again measure his strength with the best. Is the junior match really that important? What does the city care about some semi-finals in the youth series? Of course not. Unless we are talking about the aforementioned gnarled spot on the map.

A couple of hundred meters south of the road signs, an area called Kholm begins. There is a cluster of exclusive cottages overlooking the lake. Here live the owners of supermarkets, the management of the factory or those who go to big cities for better work, where their colleagues at corporate events, round their eyes, ask: “Bjornstad? How can you live in such a wilderness? In response, they, of course, mutter something unintelligible about hunting, fishing and closeness to nature, thinking to themselves that it is hardly possible to live there. At least recently. Except for real estate, the price of which falls in proportion to the air temperature, there is nothing left there.

They wake up from the sonorous "BANK!" And smiling while lying in bed.

3

For ten years, the neighbors have already got used to the sounds that came from the garden of the Erdal family: bank-bank-bank-bank-bank. Then there is a short pause while Kevin collects the pucks. Then again: bank-bank-bank-bank-bank. He first skated when he was two and a half years old; at three he received his first club as a gift; at four he could beat a five-year plan, and at five he surpassed his seven-year rivals. That winter, when he was seven, he had such frostbite on his face that, if you look closely, you can still distinguish small white scars on his cheekbones. That evening he played for the first time in a real match, and in the last seconds of the game did not score a goal in an empty net. Bjornstad's children's team won with a score of 12: 0, all goals were scored by Kevin, and yet he was inconsolable. Late in the evening, the parents discovered that the child was not in bed, and at midnight the whole city was combing the forest in chains.

Bjornstad is not a suitable place for playing hide-and-seek: as soon as the child takes a couple of steps away, the darkness swallows him up, and at a temperature of minus thirty, the small body freezes instantly. Kevin was found only at dawn - and not in the forest, but on the ice of the lake. He brought the gate, five pucks and all the flashlights that he could find at home. All night long, he scored the puck into the goal from the angle at which he could not score in the last seconds of the match. When they took him home, he sobbed desperately. White marks on the face remained for life. He was only seven, but everyone already knew that he had a real bear inside him, which was impossible to contain.

Kevin's parents paid for the construction of a small ice rink in their garden, which he looked after every morning, and in the summer, neighbors dug out whole cemeteries of pucks in their beds. For centuries descendants will find pieces of vulcanized rubber in the local gardens.

Year after year, the neighbors heard the boy growing, and his body getting stronger: the blows became more frequent and harder. Now seventeen, there hasn't been a better player in town since Bjornstad's squad made it to the big leagues before he was born.

He had everything in place: muscles, arms, heart and head. But most importantly, he saw the situation on the court like no one else. You can learn a lot in hockey, but the ability to see the ice is innate. Kevin? Golden guy!”Said the sports director of the club Peter Anderson, and he knew that if Bjornstad once had a talent of this magnitude, then this talent was himself: Peter went all the way to Canada and the NHL and played against the strongest players the world.

Kevin knows what is needed in this business, he was taught this when he first set foot on the ice. I need you all. Hockey will take you without a trace. Every morning at dawn, while your schoolmates see their tenth dream under warm blankets, Kevin runs into the forest, and bank-bank-bank-bank-bank begins. Then he collects the pucks. And the bank-bank-bank-bank-bank repeats. And again he collects the pucks. And every evening, an indispensable training session with the best team, and then exercises and a new round in the forest, and then a final training session in the courtyard under the spotlights specially installed on the roof of the villa.

Kevin received offers from large hockey clubs, he was invited by a sports gymnasium in a big city, but he consistently said no. He is a simple guy from Bjornstad, like his father. Perhaps in other places it is an empty phrase - but not in Bjornstad.

So, how important is some junior semi-final in general? Just enough for the best junior team to remind the country of the existence of the town where they come from. Exactly enough for regional politicians to allocate money to build their own gymnasium here, and not in some Hede, and the most talented guys from the surrounding area wanted to move to Bjornstad, and not to big cities.

The best local team will not disappoint and will again break through to the big league and attract cool sponsors, the commune will build a new ice palace, lay wide tracks to it, and maybe even build conference and shopping centers, which have been talked about for several years, new ones will open businesses, more jobs will be created, residents will want to renovate their homes instead of selling them. All this is important for the economy. For self-esteem. For survival.

It’s so important that a seventeen-year-old boy has been standing in his yard - since he froze on his face at night ten years ago - and scores one goal after another, and holds the whole town on his shoulders.

This is what it means. And the point.

To the north of the signs lies the so-called Lowland. If the center of Bjornstad is occupied by cottages and small villas, located along the descending line in proportion to the stratification of the middle class, then the Lowland is built up with apartment buildings, located as far from the Hill as possible. The unsophisticated names Kholm and Lowland were originally developed as topographic designations: the Lowland actually lies lower than the main part of the city, it begins where the terrain descends to a gravel pit, and the Hill rises above the lake. But when, over time, the locals began to settle in the Lowlands or on the Hill, depending on the level of wealth, the names turned from ordinary toponyms to class markers. Even in small towns, children instantly learn what social status is: the further you live from the Lowlands, the better for you.

Fatima's twin is located on the very outskirts of the Lowlands. With a gentle forceful technique, she pulls her son out of bed, and he grabs the skates. Apart from them, there is no one on the bus, they silently sit in their seats - Amat has learned to transport his body on autopilot, without turning on his mind. At such moments, Fatima affectionately calls him a mummy. They come to the ice palace, and Fatima puts on the uniform of a cleaning lady, and Amat goes to look for the watchman. But first of all, he helps his mother clean up the trash from the stands until she chases it away. The guy worries about her back, and the mother worries that the boy will be seen with her and will be teased. As long as Amat remembered himself, he and his mother were alone in the whole world. As a kid, he collected empty soda cans in these very stands at the end of the month; sometimes he still does it.

Every morning he helps the watchman - he unlocks the doors, checks the fluorescent lights, collects the pucks, starts the ice harvester - in short, prepares the site for the beginning of the working day. First, at the most inconvenient time, the skaters come. Then all the hockey players, one by one, in descending order of rank: the most convenient time is for the juniors and the main, adult team. Juniors have become so tough that they occupy almost the top place in the hierarchy.

Amat has not yet got there, he is only fifteen, but maybe he will get there next season. If he does everything right. The day will come when he will take his mother from here, he knows it for sure; he will stop constantly adding and subtracting income and expenses in his head.

There is a clear difference between children living in families where money can run out and where money never ends. In addition, it is important at what age you understand this.

Amat knows that his choice is limited, so his plan is simple: to get into the junior team, from there to the youth team, and then to the pro team. As soon as the first salary in his life is on his account, he will take the cart with the cleaning equipment from his mother, and she will not see it again. Her tired hands will rest, and her sore back will bask in the bed in the morning. He doesn't need new junk. He just wants to go to bed one night, not thinking about a penny.

When all the work was done, the watchman patted Amata on the shoulder and handed him the skates. Amat laced them up, took a club and rode out onto an empty area. His duties include helping the watchman if it is necessary to lift something heavy, as well as open the tight doors of the side, which are beyond the power of the old man due to rheumatism. After that, Amat polishes the ice and gets the site at his disposal for a whole hour, until the skaters come. And that's the best sixty minutes of every day.

He put on his headphones, turned up the volume at full volume, and flew as fast as he could to the other end of the platform - so that the helmet hit the side. Then he rushed back at full speed. And so over and over again.

Fatima momentarily looked up from cleaning and looked at her son. The watchman, meeting her gaze, guessed a soundless "thank you" on his lips. And he nodded, hiding a smile. Fatima remembered her confusion when the coaches of the hockey club told her for the first time that Amat was an exceptionally gifted child. She didn't really understand Swedish at that time, and it was a miracle for her that Amat began to skate almost as soon as he learned to walk. Years passed, she was not used to the eternal cold, but she learned to love the city as it is. Yet she had never seen anything more strange in her life than a boy born to play on ice, whom she gave birth to in a land where snow had never been seen.

In one of the small villas in the center of the village, the sports director of the Bjornstad hockey club Peter Anderson came out of the shower, out of breath and with red eyes. That night he did not close his eyes, and the streams of water could not wash away the nervous tension. He vomited twice. Peter heard Mira busy in the corridor near the bathroom, going to wake the children, and he knew exactly what she would say: “Lord, Peter, you are already over forty! If the coach is more nervous about the upcoming junior match than the juniors themselves, then it's time for him to take a sabril, drink it with a good cocktail and generally relax a little. " For ten years now, the Anderson family returned home from Canada to Bjornstad, but Peter could not explain to his wife what hockey means to this city. "Are you serious? Grown men, why do you take this to your heart! - so repeated Mira throughout the season. - These juniors are seventeen years old! They are still children!"

At first he said nothing. But one evening he nevertheless spoke out: “Yes, I know, Mira, that this is just a game. I understand everything. But we live in the forest. We have no tourism, no mine, no high technology. One darkness, cold and unemployment. If in this city at least something starts to be taken to heart, it means that things are going well. I understand, my dear, that this is not your city, but look around: there are fewer jobs, the commune tightens its belt tighter and tighter. We are tough people, real bears, but they slapped us so much in the face."

“This city needs to win in something. We need to feel once that we are at least somehow the best. I understand this is just a game. But not only … And not always."

Mira kissed him hard on the forehead, pressed her back and, smiling, gently whispered in his ear: "Idiot!" Indeed, he knows it without her.

He walked out of the bathroom and knocked on the door of his fifteen-year-old daughter until the sound of a guitar came from there. The daughter loves her instrument, not sports. There were days when he was very upset because of this, but there were other days when he was only happy for her.

Maya was lying in bed. When there was a knock on the door, she played even louder and heard her parents busy in the corridor. A mother with two higher educations, who knows the entire set of laws by heart, but even in the dock will not be able to remember what a forward and offside position is. Dad, who knows all the hockey strategies in the finest nuances, but is not able to watch a series in which there are more than three heroes - every five minutes he will ask: “What are they doing? And who is this? Why should I be silent ?! Well, now I listened to what they said … can you rewind?"

Mai got laughed and sighed. Only at the age of fifteen can a person so intolerably want to run away from home. As her mother says, when the cold and darkness completely exhaust her patience and she drinks three or four glasses of wine: "You can't live in this city, Maya, you can only survive here."

Both did not even suspect how true their words were.

In the following chapters, the plot begins to unfold more rapidly. The decisive hockey match brings joy to someone, while others irreparably change their lives. This novel is very different from the previous works of Fredrik Buckman, filled with positives. Bear's Corner is a serious reading about social issues that affect not only the inhabitants of a small Swedish town, but all of us.