Shane Hollander liked ice because ice was honest.
It was smooth, but not yielding. It forgave no misplaced weight, no half-hearted decision, no moment when you were more concerned with someone else’s movements than with your own skates. Ice absorbed everything: pressure, speed, hesitation, fear. And if you lied, a fall followed as an immediate punishment.
That was precisely why he had hoped this evening could be simple.
A controlled charity night. Clean. Sporty. No whispering in the corridors, no old photos, no rumours, no glances that lasted longer than a change on the ice. He wanted to appear as captain of the British national youth team, shake a few hands, say a few words about international fairness, win, smile, and leave again. London would be satisfied. Montreal would act proud yet analyse everything. The United Nations would get their photos. The planned sports centre for international democracy education would get its funding.
A clean-cut evening.
And then Shane had seen this hall: no modern glitz, no futuristic technology, more like a museum of former glory. It wasn’t just the smell of the place; every scraped-back wooden detail on the banisters, every flaking paint behind the hastily hung drapes, told him he was in the wrong film.
Shane stood at the edge of the foyer, near a column whose marble only looked convincing from a distance. Dark plaster was flaking through the white paint. Above him hung garlands of silver paper, rustling with every draught like faint attempts at applause. The string quartet was playing something meant to be solemn, but which sounded even more antiquated in this hall.
He wore the dark blue team suit, a white shirt, a narrow tie, the British insignia on his lapel. It was a uniform. Fabric could give the body poise, even when the mind just wanted to run away and hide.
Cartagena had been hot and humid; it had invited courage behind the mask, freedom in a public sphere that would report nothing to London or Montreal. Sweet blossoms, damp walls, hot wax, salt on the skin, a heavy mist of perfume, a steam grotto. The hairs on the back of Shane’s neck stood on end from a mixture of shudder and lust. Then the colours came back to him: reddish-gold lanterns, green masks, black animal heads made of lacquer and feathers. A student masquerade that had been billed as boisterous and had taken on a ritualistic air far too quickly had become a mass grave, but also a forge of genuine friendship. Someone had spoken back then of Aztec steam, of Jesuit confinement. Shane remembered the vapour that had welled up in the grotto, sultry and bitter, the breath behind masks, the music that grew louder because somewhere someone no longer wanted to laugh.
Shane forced himself to look at the foyer. At real things like glasses, stairs, the reception desk and the boar emblem. The stuffed boar’s head had been the trigger for the memory of the masquerade. Shane quickly turned his head away.
He looked at the guests, who were taking themselves far too seriously. Only then did he take a maple syrup tartlet that looked as though someone had tried to turn Canada into bite-sized diplomacy.
“Captain Hollander?”
A committee official approached him, wearing a red dress, a silver brooch, and a smile born of organisational exhaustion. “In ten minutes, we’ll be asking the team captains to gather for a photo shoot under the chandelier.”
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Shane. That was actually the truth, even though he wasn’t allowed to say it, couldn’t bring himself to even hint at why he was looking forward to the photo. Someone else would be there that evening too. And that was more exciting than scholarships, chandeliers and memories of masks in Cartagena put together.
“The order would be: France, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, strictly alphabetical.”
She said it calmly. Nevertheless, he heard the last word more clearly than the others.
He just nodded. “Thank you.”
The official walked away, and Shane reached for the brochure lying on a bar table. He’d already read it on the bus, but reading was sometimes better than thinking. The cover showed the Chestnut Mountain Ice Hall, much prettier than it actually was, with a futuristic sketch of the Democracy Centre in the background: glass, light, flags, young people who looked as though they’d never once in their lives had a bad conversation in a changing room and gossiped about someone.
He turned to the page listing the tournament prizes.
The figures were printed there in gold lettering, almost insultingly elegant:
1 million US dollars for fifth place.
2 million US dollars for fourth place.
4 million US dollars for third place.
8 million US dollars for second place.
16 million US dollars for first place, invested in endowment funds for international sports scholarships.
Shane read the last line twice.
Sixteen million.
Not as a cheque held aloft. Not as a flashy trophy, not as some silly thing a player kissed in photos: endowment funds for scholarships.
He wanted to bring that money to London, or rather to Montreal. London had sent him as captain; Montreal had shaped him, injured him, loved him, put up with him. He knew how many young players vanished between being nurtured and being forgotten, because someone hadn’t paid enough, hadn’t looked closely enough, hadn’t believed enough. Sixteen million could open training halls, secure medical care, pay for travel, change lives.
Money was never just money. In sport, money was time. And time was sometimes the only mercy before one became too old and too frail for the next game.
“A big figure, isn’t it?”
Shane looked up.
A man in a cream-coloured tuxedo stood beside him. Too sun-tanned for Chestnut Mountain, too relaxed for a sponsor, too alert for a mere spectator. On his wrist gleamed a watch whose price Shane didn’t want to know. On his lapel he wore not a company pin, but a small pendant: a Venetian mask, silver, with an animal’s profile; a slender snout, narrow eyes, a jackal-like smile that wasn’t one.
Shane’s fingers tightened around the brochure.
He didn’t look at the pendant for long. Just long enough to be sure.
“Very generous,” said Shane.
“Generosity is a privilege of age.” The sponsor smiled. “You’re Hollander, the Brit?”
“That’s me.”
“I hear you don’t just play fast, but incorruptibly as well.”
“That sounds as though you’ve read something about me.”
“Or spoken to your mother.” The man took a glass of mulled ginger ale and took a large sip. “Such a sum creates pressure. Especially on a captain. And your mother already has the next plans on how to turn international activities into millions in advertising revenue.”
“Pressure is part of the game.”
“Not all pressure comes from the opponent.”
Shane looked him straight in the eye. “Are you saying that as a sports fan or as a warning?”
“As an admirer of fair play.”
The pendant shifted slightly as the man set down his glass. The silver mask caught the light from the chandelier. For a moment, it seemed not to hang from his lapel, but to float before his face.
Shane hated that his body reacted faster than his mind. A tightness in his throat. A brief, hot twinge in his stomach. The memory of a hand that had pulled him through a doorframe in Cartagena. He’d never quite decided whether that hand had saved him or led him deeper into it.
“Nice pendant,” said Shane.
The sponsor touched it with two fingers. “A souvenir.”
“From Venice?”
“I was there once for a medical conference. I’m here volunteering as the tournament doctor. If you break anything, I’ll set it for you.”
“That’s an interesting answer.”
“Just like with the Japanese, the French and the Ottomans—I make no distinctions. The Hippocratic Oath, you understand?” The man nodded. “Good luck tonight, Captain Hollander.”
He left before Shane could reply.
Shane stood still. His pulse was racing faster than it should. He forced it down: breathe in deeply, count slowly to ten, breathe out gently.
The captains were now gathering beneath the chandelier.
The Japanese captain was already standing there, slender and upright, too early and too controlled. His gaze swept once across the foyer, as if cataloguing exits, moods and potential weaknesses in a single polite breath. Beside him, the French captain was laughing with two officials, elegant, charming, too relaxed to be truly relaxed. The Ottoman captain was speaking to an older support staff member; his hands moved expressively as he spoke, but his eyes remained fixed on the ice entrance.
And then the Soviet captain arrived.
Shane sensed it before he saw him. A slight shift in the background noise. The Soviet player wore a dark red team tracksuit, his hair neatly combed back, his face serious, his shoulders straight. He had grown taller, or perhaps Shane remembered him as shorter. Cartagena had distorted everyone.
Ilya Rozanov.
Back then, he had worn a jaguar mask all night long.
Ilya stopped halfway across the rink.
Their eyes met. There was no greeting. No smile, just that one look that knew too much. Cartagena stood between them like a third player on the ice, invisible, against the rules and impossible to send off.
“Captain Hollander,” called the official. “Over here, please.”
Shane closed the brochure. The figure on the prize page remained in his mind: sixteen million. He thought of London, of Montreal, of young players who shouldn’t have to learn that talent without money was merely a polite form of loss. He thought of Ilya and of the tournament doctor with the Venetian mask.
Hockey was fast, hard and full of bodies that fell and got back up again. And sometimes it wasn’t the one who wasn’t afraid who won, but the one who saw the next pass despite his fear.
Shane stepped beneath the chandelier.
The Japanese captain gave a brief bow, the French one shook his hand, the Ottoman nodded with solemn warmth, and Ilya came last.
For a moment they stood facing each other.
“Hollander,” said Ilya.
His voice was deeper than it had been in Cartagena.
“Rozanow,” said Shane.
Their hands met. Firmly. Briefly. Long enough for the camera, too short for the past.
The flash went off.
In the light, Shane saw the tournament doctor with the mask tag over Ilya’s shoulder. The man wasn’t watching the captains. He was watching only Shane.
Shane smiled for the photo.
It was a professional smile that could only barely conceal the lies.