I saw the girl again too, the one with the carrot-colored hair, the weird pigtails and the horse bicycle. She was on a narrow street far away and it was late at night, just before we went back to the hotel. She looked to be about my age, but there didn’t appear to be anyone with her, which was strange. It occurred to me once again that I might be imagining her.
* * *
The next day Grandpa left me alone again during the morning. He didn’t say a word about where he was going, and I didn’t ask. It was likely just him and other adults talking anyway.
I didn’t get freaked-out this time when he left nor when Sven or Mats or whatever his name was came with my meal—French toast and sausages for lunch!
When Grandpa came back he took me on a ferry ride all around Stockholm. We visited islands and stopped in for a meal of reindeer roast beef (not kidding), which was actually delicious, though it made me wonder—what kind of people butcher the beautiful animals from Santa’s sleigh? Later we went on a tour of City Hall, where they hold the banquet for the Nobel Prize awards. The building was ancient and funky, like something out of The Lord of the Rings. Then we checked out a museum that had a warship from the 1600s that was an absolute killing machine. And on the way home we walked past this place called Icebar—an entire restaurant made of ice. It was all a bit strange. And to add to the weirdness, Grandpa started acting a little on edge, sort of anxious, like time was running out or we were in danger… or something.
* * *
The next day, which would be our last full day in Stockholm, he went out in the morning again and returned in the early afternoon. This time he had stayed away a little longer than before, but I didn’t mind, not in the least. This evening we were going to the hockey game. I had a hard time concentrating on the TV. I just wanted to get to the rink.
Grandpa barely spoke to me from the minute he arrived. Something serious seemed to be on his mind.
We spent a few hours in the early afternoon shopping in the commercial area in modern downtown Stockholm, which was the other way from the Old Town, heading up and down these promenades, as they call them—pedestrian streets with modern cobblestone surfaces, filled with tourist stores and fashionable places. All the clerks looked like models to me. I bought Mom and Dad a shirt each.
Then we ate some sort of fish at the hotel and got ready for the game. Though it had an early start, a six-o’clock puck drop, Grandpa seemed to be really rushing us. I couldn’t figure it out. It seemed to me we had plenty of time. We’d eaten really early, just before four o’clock, and now he was pushing me to get out the door. He seemed worried.
But I didn’t think too much about it, because my mind was on the game. I had dreams of being a pretty good hockey player someday, though I had doubts about my abilities. I was all right in the league I played in. I could hold my own against my Canadian cousins on the ice too, although DJ, who is the oldest and biggest, is a bit of a load out there. But I felt like a million bucks when I was on the ice with the wind blowing in my face. I felt free from all my worries. Even being near a rink, smelling it, feeling the excitement in the air, was amazing. Swedish Elite League hockey on the big international ice arena right in Stockholm! This was going to be unforgettable.
I left the hotel room that night as excited as I’d ever been. I had no idea that in a very short while it would be obvious to me that I was never coming back.
SIX
The arena was to the south, past the Old Town, in a suburban area where there was a sports park called Stockholm Globe City that had two football (that’s soccer to us normal people) fields and two—count them, two—professional ice-hockey arenas.
Grandpa hustled me out of the hotel and we took a cab, even though our first stop was only about four or five blocks away, near the bottom of Sveavägen Street.
We passed a city square and drove along a street with big clothing stores like H&M and then stopped at a little glassed-in structure with a big white T on a round blue sign above it.
“Hurry!” cried Grandpa, and he actually grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the backseat and onto the sidewalk. What was going on?
We went inside and descended on some escalators, Grandpa actually striding down the moving steps instead of waiting for them to take him along, going so fast that I had to really move to keep up. It wasn’t long before I realized we were in one of Stockholm’s subway stations—the Metro, they call it. It was awfully nice, very modern, and the trains themselves were really clean, of course. But there didn’t seem to be too many of them, and we waited a good ten minutes for the next one (I’d been on subways in Toronto when visiting my cousins and in New York too, and I knew that was a long wait). Grandpa stood next to me, tapping his foot nervously and looking at his watch. He seemed really anxious now. It didn’t make any sense—we had nearly an hour and a half until the game started. Had they moved it to Finland or something?
“Grandpa,” I finally said, “what’s wrong? Why are we in a hurry?”
“Nothing,” he said and looked up and down the subway platform as if searching for someone. He even looked behind us a few times. Were we being followed?
Finally, a train came and we got on with a whole crowd of fashionable and very clean and well-groomed Swedes (clothes all the colors of the rainbow) and headed south on the Green line. Grandpa seemed to relax a little.
The train was modern and sleek and almost completely silent when it moved, which seemed almost unreal. How did they do that? It was eerie.
Some of the subway stations we passed through were absolutely awesome. I’d never seen anything like them. They were like caves (and I’m a big fan of caves), though not natural ones. They were like something out of Dungeons & Dragons. Some were blue, others red or green, and all of them were kind of glowing. It was amazing! There was lots of graffiti too—everywhere—and most was really inventive…though some was a bit inappropriate. What we were seeing, it seemed to me, was the real Swedish nature coming out.
It only took us about ten or fifteen minutes to get to Globe City, which really made me wonder what Grandpa was so worried about, because it still wasn’t five o’clock when we arrived, and the game wasn’t starting for over an hour.
The suburban area around the arenas was full of apartment buildings and busy roads with multiple lanes, though it was all neatly put together (of course), so it was easy to find the Globe Arena as soon as we got off the train. The Hovet Arena, which was really old and looked like a silver trashcan punched in the middle, was beside its big modern brother. Djurgårdens IF and AIK Stockholm, the two teams we were going to watch, both really famous and big rivals, played in the older rink most of the time, but tonight, to start the season (which seemed weird on such a nice, sunny day), they were going to face off in the big one. From the outside it looked awesome. It was shaped like an actual globe, a gigantic white golf ball planted in the ground in the middle of Stockholm. There was a large gathering area like a square in front of the arenas, but the crowd wasn’t too large yet.
For some reason, Grandpa was still rushing us. He was even breathing hard, which was unusual for him. He took my hand, something he hadn’t done for many years, and pulled me along toward the Globen (as the Swedes call it). It began to loom over us, casting its huge circular shadow.
Then I saw something really weird. There was a house, a sort of cottage, sitting way up near the top of the Globe, set there on a steep angle and just hanging from the surface! A little house!
“Look!” I said to Grandpa. He glanced up, still pulling me along.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “Some artist had that put up there. The Swedes have to do things like that.”
It was pretty freaky. It struck me as a symbol of being alone in the world, on a round sea of snow. Or maybe a symbol of fear—perfect for this country.
Grandpa rushed us around to the far side of the Globe and then right up to it. I could see tracks, almost like a railway line, running along the ground and up the side of the Globe, all the way
to the top. Huh? I spotted a smaller ball halfway up, made mostly of glass. It was coming down along the tracks, almost hanging upside down, with people in it! What was this?
SkyView, a blue sign said.
Grandpa said something to the man who appeared to be in charge of this thing that climbed the very side of the big sphere. But what Grandpa said was even weirder.
He spoke in Swedish.
He hadn’t done that the whole time we’d been here, and yet he talked to this guy really fluently, and when the guy answered him, Grandpa completely understood him. Then Grandpa seemed truly relaxed for the first time since we’d left the hotel, although, as he turned to me, he looked a little guilty too.
“Grandpa,” I said, “you speak Swedish?”
“Uh, yeah, I picked a little up here and there over the years.”
“But—”
“But that isn’t what matters. We made it!” He glanced up at the ball that was descending the Globe toward us.
“Made what?”
“This was my surprise for you, Adam. This SkyView thing closes down at five o’clock, so it isn’t running when the game is on. I was really worried we wouldn’t make it on time. You are going to love this! I’m taking you up into the air to see all of Stockholm and half of Scandinavia!”
And so he did. And it was supernatural. And I almost barfed.
It was the strangest sensation, somewhere between extreme excitement and paralyzing fear. I both wanted to go way up there and dreaded doing it. I both loved every second of it and hated it. I’m kind of like that. I have sort of a double personality, almost like there are two parts to me, two different Adams. Maybe we are all like that in a way.
I turned away from Grandpa as we shot up the side of the building. We were doing something that felt absolutely impossible. The ground completely disappeared beneath our feet, as if we were hanging in the air. My stomach shot up ahead of me or stayed just behind—I’m not sure which. It was only when we got to the top and stopped that I kept my eyes open for a while. That part was a bit beyond awesome. You could indeed view all of Stockholm, probably all fourteen islands, and the old city, and the lakes and rivers and even the Baltic Sea (it seemed to me) way off in the distance. I wondered if the land I was seeing on the horizon beyond the water was actually Russia. Grandpa had been there a few times too. As the ball paused at the top, he pointed out the Old Town, the palace, the bridge over the water that led to our hotel. There it was, the Grand! But my eyes also wandered farther north toward the commercial area, the big buildings…and the spot where the prime minister had been gunned down in cold blood on the street. Why did I always have to think like that? I’m not sensitive.
When we got down to earth again, Grandpa took me over to a little food truck in the plaza and bought me one of the largest hot dogs I’d ever seen. I put some sauerkraut on it. We stood there eating, watching the crowd grow, filling the square now, fans moving in groups, wearing their team’s colors and chanting slogans, the excitement building. But there was something kind of scary about it all too.
There were police officers everywhere. There seemed to be almost as many of them as fans, great crowds of polis, as they are called. They looked big and strong, and they had weapons and riot sticks.
What was going on?
“Let’s go in,” said Grandpa.
It was time for the game.
SEVEN
The arena was shaped like a globe inside too, with red seats ringing the building from ground to roof. The ice surface was huge, much wider than at home—it looked like a frozen-over soccer field. And there was advertising everywhere: on the boards, on the referees and even in the huge circles around the face-off dots, which were colored and not in dim shades—one of them was pink!
And the atmosphere was incredible. I’d been to one Sabres game—they’d lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, which really, really, really sucked—but even at that game and in a bigger crowd than this one, the feeling in the arena wasn’t anything like it was in the Globe.
First of all, the two teams, or at least their fans, hated each other. These were the two Stockholm clubs in the Swedish Elite League, after all. The Djurgårdens supporters were at one end, wearing red, blue and yellow, and the AIK’s were at the other end, in black and yellow (got to have gold or yellow around these parts). And man, were they loud: singing and shouting and clapping and pointing at each other and saying what appeared to me to be nasty things. That seemed rather un-Swedish. No, it wasn’t, I reminded myself.
And the cops had come indoors too—in squadrons. They were all over the place—in the corridors, along the boards and even up in the stands with the fans! I didn’t like the looks of that.
The players came out to warm up, Djurgårdens in their mainly white uniforms, absolutely covered with advertisements, and AIK in mostly black, looking equally like moving billboards.
The crowd went wild. So wild it was freaky. It felt like the whole Globe was rocking, and as the two ends of the rink swayed, covered in enormous team banners that looked like the world’s two biggest flags, I started to get scared.
Then it got a lot worse.
Just as the players left the ice, a riot broke out at one end. I’m not sure why; maybe the opposing team’s fans had gotten into that area. Soon there was a massive fistfight going on, and then the police waded into it, bearing their riot sticks and whacking people. The whole arena started whooping, and I actually reached out and put my hand on Grandpa’s arm. The fight seemed to be spreading, coming our way. It had an end-of-the-world, chaotic feel to it, like something really bad was approaching and we were going to be pulled into it and die in this violent crowd whirlpool.
But when I looked up to see Grandpa’s reaction, he was laughing.
“Ah, yes, the unemotional Swedes,” he said.
“Shouldn’t we leave?” I asked, and I’m guessing my face was really white this time. He looked down at me, a little startled. Then he smiled. For a second I thought he was going to tell me that I was too sensitive. “It’ll be all right,” he said with a warm expression. “Just watch.”
Sure enough, within moments the police, who were dressed in blue with a little yellow (of course) and wore what looked like bullet-proof vests across their chests, had everything in order. They’d removed the few bad guys and the arena was calm again—or, at least, back to roaring for the game to start.
It was a fast-paced match, the crowd was really into it, and I found it pretty entertaining. Not nearly as much hitting as in an NHL game and not a single scrap, but different and more wide open.
Partway through the third period I could feel that I was getting close to needing to pee. It wasn’t surprising, given that Grandpa had bought me not only all the ice cream and popcorn I could eat but also jumbo drinks.
But the game was close, Djurgårdens leading by a goal and AIK pressing, and I didn’t want to leave the rink. I hoped I could time it so the two of us could go to the men’s room together after the game ended. But with three minutes left, my bladder felt like a lacrosse ball about to explode.
“I need to go,” I told Grandpa.
“Go where?” he asked, looking at me as if there was something wrong with me.
“To the washroom.”
“Oh, that, sure.” He turned back to watch the game. He’s a Canadian, and he didn’t want to miss a minute.
“On my own?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said and looked back at me and then at the game again. “Why not? Remember what I said about growing up, Adam, getting a little older? Surely you can make your way to the washroom. There’s one in the corridor right at the top of the stairs here. They have little signs, you know. They’re universal…a man and woman? Don’t go to the girls’ one.” He smirked and smacked me on the shoulder and then put his full attention on the game.
It took me a while to get up. But I had to do this…or pee my pants. As I walked up the aisle, Grandpa called out to me, but as he did, the crowd erupted in a huge roar
and I looked down and saw that AIK had scored—a beauty goal, apparently “top shelf,” as someone screamed out in English. Half the people went nuts, and it was deafening. I looked at Grandpa, and he shouted something at me. I couldn’t hear it. But it could wait. I’d be back in a few minutes.
But I wasn’t. Out in the corridor, I couldn’t find the washroom right away. It certainly wasn’t right at the top of the stairs as Grandpa had said, so I had to walk down the hallway a fair distance. I started getting a little anxious, unsure if I could find my way back, but finally I located a little blue-and-gold man sign. There was a bit of a lineup inside, which surprised me. I imagined the clock ticking down on the game, and before I even got up to the urinal, I heard the arena thunder again and the sounds of Djurgårdens supporters chanting. Their team must have scored in the dying seconds. I rushed over to the sink and washed my hands and then raced out into the corridor.
It was full of people streaming out of the arena. The game was over!
I moved as fast as I could, but there were tons of fans on all sides of me and many had had too much to drink and weren’t looking where they were going, so it was hard to get past them. It seemed like it took forever to get to our staircase. In fact, it felt like the kind of dream I often have where I’m trying to do something or get somewhere and I can’t because things keep getting in my way, delaying me, and I grow terrified.
I wasn’t totally terrified yet, but my heart rate was increasing and I could feel fear invading me like something was being dumped in my stomach, something hot.
Finally, I reached the top of our stairs and hurried down them, past exiting fans, until I came to our row.
Grandpa wasn’t there.
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