Perhaps one day he’ll find words for that feeling of being different. How physical it is. Exclusion is a form of exhaustion that eats its way into your skeleton. People who are like everyone else, who belong to the norm, the majority, can’t possibly understand it. How can they?

Benji has heard all the arguments, he’s sat next to adults in the stands and in buses on the way to tournaments, people who say, “There are no homosexuals in ice hockey.” There were jokes, all the usual stuff, but that never really affected Benji. It was the little choices of vocabulary that everyone seemed to find obvious that cut deepest, when “fag” was used as an insult. “You play like fags!” “Fag referee!” “Damn fag coffee machine doesn’t work!” Three little letters used to describe weakness, stupidity, anything that didn’t function properly. Anything that was defective.

Naturally there were adults who never said the word. Some of them said other things instead. They didn’t even think about it, but Benji stored up tiny splinters of conversations for years. “They don’t bother with hockey. How would that even work? With the locker room and everything? Are we going to have three different locker rooms, just in case?” The people saying these things were ordinary parents, kind and generous people who did all they could for their children’s hockey team. They didn’t vote for extremist parties, they didn’t wish anyone dead, they’d never dream of being violent. They just said obvious, self-evident things such as, “People like that probably don’t feel at home in hockey, they probably like other things. You have to bear in mind that hockey’s a tough sport!” Sometimes they said it straight out: “Hockey’s a sport for men!” They said “men,” but even as a small boy Benji would stand alongside in silence, knowing that what they actually meant was “real men.”

* * *

It’s only words. Only letters. Only a human being.

* * *

Benji doesn’t train with his team today, because he knows he’s no longer one of them. He doesn’t know who he ought to be instead. And he doesn’t know if he wants that.

* * *

When the practice starts, Sune is sitting in the stands. Peter sinks down beside him.

“Have you reported the threat to the police?” Sune asks.

“They don’t know if it’s serious or not. Could just be some kid.”

“Try not to worry.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Peter admits impotently.

Sune doesn’t offer any comfort, he never does. He demands that people take responsibility. “You don’t know what to do, or what you ought to do?”

Peter sighs. “You know what I mean. It’s a messy situation to try to handle . . . Zackell and the team . . .”

Sune nods toward the ice. “They chose to come. Let the guys play.”

“What about Benjamin, then? How am I going to help him?”

Sune adjusts the fold of his T-shirt over his stomach. “You can start by giving up the idea that he needs help. It’s everyone else who needs help.”

Peter snaps back, hurt: “Don’t come here and try to tell me that I’m prej—”

Sune snorts. “Why are you still involved in this sport, Peter?”

Peter takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to stop.”

Sune nods.

“I tell myself that I’m still here because the ice is the only place I know where everyone is equal. Out there it doesn’t matter who you are. All that matters is if you can play.”

“There may be equality on the ice. But the same thing doesn’t apply to the sport in general, Peter.”

“No. And that’s our fault. Yours and mine and everyone else’s.” Peter throws his arms out. “But what are we supposed to do?”

Sune raises an eyebrow. “We see to it that the next kid who says he’s different in some way is met with a shrug of the shoulders. We need to say, ‘So what? That doesn’t matter, does it?’ And one day perhaps there won’t be homosexual hockey players and female coaches. Just hockey players and coaches.”

“The community isn’t that simple,” Peter says.

“The community? We are the community!” Sune replies.

Peter rubs his eyes. “Please, Sune . . . I’ve had reporters calling me for hours now . . . I . . . hell, maybe they’re right. Maybe we ought to do something symbolic for Benjamin. If we painted our helmets . . . would that help?”

Sune leans back in his seat. “Do you think that’s what Benjamin wants? He chose not to tell anyone. Some lowlife gave it away. I’m sure loads of journalists would like to make him into some sort of figurehead now, and loads of nutters on the other side will want to vent all their hatred on him. And neither side knows a damn thing about hockey. They’ll turn every game he plays in into a battle between their conflicting agendas, a political circus, and that may be what he’s most frightened of: becoming a burden to the team. A distraction.”

Peter snaps back in frustration, “So what do you think Benjamin wants us to do, then?”

“Nothing.”

“We have to do something!”

“Do you care about his sexuality? Does it change the way you look at him?”

“Of course not!”

Sune pats Peter on the shoulder. “I’m a silly old man, Peter. I don’t always know what’s right and what’s wrong. But Benjamin has been the cause of a lot of crap outside this ice rink over the years, fighting and smoking dope and God knows what else. But he’s a damn good player, so you and everyone else has said, every time, ‘That has nothing to do with hockey.’ So why should this have anything to do with hockey? Let the boy live his life. Don’t force him to become a figurehead. If we’re uncomfortable with his sexuality, then he’s not the one with the damn problem—we are!”

Peter flushes and swallows. “I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

Sune scratches his remaining hair. “Secrets weigh a person down. Can you imagine what it must have been like to carry around that secret about yourself your whole life? Hockey was his refuge. The ice may have been the only place where he felt just the same as everyone else. Don’t take that away from him.”

“So what do I do?”

“Let him earn his place in the team on the strength of his hockey alone, just like everyone else. He’s going to be treated differently everywhere else now. Don’t let that happen to him here.”

Peter says nothing for a long time. Then he says, “You’ve always said we should be ‘more than just a hockey club,’ Sune. Isn’t that exactly what we should be now?”

Sune considers this. Eventually he whispers sadly, “Maybe. Like I said, Peter, I’m an old man. I don’t know what the hell I’m saying half the time.”

* * *

Benji isn’t his father. He doesn’t do what Alain Ovich did. He doesn’t leave any gifts, doesn’t give any signs or symbols.

His mom and sisters call him; they’ve read the same things online as everyone else, and they’re worried. So he says everything’s okay. He’s good at that. He goes to Adri’s kennels, because one of the dogs was ill last night; Adri got home late from the vet’s and is still asleep.

Benji closes the door downstairs just hard enough to wake his sister from her slumber, and she falls asleep again straight away. Adri only ever sleeps really deeply if she knows her little brother is home, otherwise it’s just anxious dozing. Benji takes the garbage out, folds his bedsheets, and puts them neatly into a cupboard the way she’s always nagging at him to do. Then he goes out to see the dogs. They’re also asleep when he goes silently upstairs, knowing exactly which floorboards creak and which ones don’t, like a boy taking part in the world’s slowest game of hopscotch.

He very carefully slides his hand under Adri’s pillow and takes the key. He kisses his sister’s forehead for the last time.

* * *

Then he takes the shotgun and goes out into the forest.

* * *

After practice, Zackell stands in the parking lot smoking a cigar. Peter comes outside, stops beside her, and asks, “Do you really want Vidar on the team?”

She lets the smoke out through her nose. Yes.”

Peter groans. “Hold an open tryout, then. Say that anyone who hasn’t got a contract with another club can attend. If Vidar is good enough, he can play. But he only gets his place if his hockey’s good enough, like everyone else!”

Peter opens the door to go back inside, but Zackell asks, “Why are you so angry with Vidar? Is it normal to be that angry if someone shits on your desk?”

Peter suppresses his gag reflex at the thought of Vidar’s visiting card. He ended up with shit between the keys on his computer keyboard, and that’s not the sort of thing you get rid of easily, either from the keyboard or from your memory. But he shakes his head.

“Vidar’s unreliable. A team has to be able to rely on its goalie, but Vidar is completely unpredictable. Egotistical. You can’t build a team made up of egoists.”

“So why have you changed your mind?” Zackell asks.

Peter doesn’t know what to say. So he replies honestly, “I want this to be a club where we make people better. Maybe we can make Vidar a better person. Maybe ourselves, too.”

The snowflakes turn somersaults in the wind, and Peter is horrified that he has realized this too late. Benji might never come back. You can say a lot of things about Benjamin Ovich, but he was never an egoist.

* * *