Objects of Worship Read online

  Take The Mighty, they’re protectors. They save the world from catastrophes and invasions and terrorism, that kind of stuff. They don’t try to find trouble. They react when threats occur. They’re warriors, always ready to defend.

  Then there are adventurers, like the Detective of Dreams or the Preservers. They explore outer space, ocean depths, mystical dimensions, or any kind of uncharted terrain . . . and seek out the unknown because they can. They investigate strange occurrences, just to gain more knowledge about the universe. They don’t want to fight, but, when they uncover an unexpected danger, they deal with it.

  And there are crimefighters. Like Doc Shadow or Blind Justice. They patrol at night. Foil armed robberies. Break up organized crime. Fight crazy supervillains. Avenge murders. That kind of thing.

  There’s some overlap, and it’s not all cut-and-dried. Superheroes, like anybody, don’t always fit into facile categories.

  Dad wasn’t really like any of those. Maybe he fit the crimefighter profile to some extent, but that’s not what he was about.

  What Dad liked to do most was find lost pets. Or talk to people who wanted to throw themselves off rooftops. Or get drunk drivers off the road before they hurt anyone. Or stop adults from beating on kids, husbands from beating on their wives. Expose slumlords and sweatshop owners. Protect the homeless. Be a shoulder to cry on for the desperately lonely in the middle of the night. Heal accident victims. Listen to crazy people so that they felt better about themselves, about being alive, about connecting with someone. I mean, sure, if he saw a mugging, he’d stop it. If some supervillains got the mistaken impression that Montreal would be an easy stomping ground, he’d teach them a lesson. If a weirdo cult tried to open a gateway to some demon dimension in the heart of downtown, he’d make sure they could never try something like that again. But that’s not where his heart was. Dad had this way with people. He made them feel like they could talk to him, even in that crazy superhero getup of his. More often than not, he didn’t have to throw a punch or get violent in any way. He’d just show up and defuse the situation by saying exactly the right thing. There’s a famous newsclip of him partying with two rival biker gangs, everyone singing together, former enemies with their arms around each other’s shoulders, slugging back Molson beers instead of slugging each other.

  “I get it, Dad,” I said. “But it’s really cool that they asked.”

  “That’s right.” He took a sip of beer and laughed.

  Then Bernard said, “Remember when you first told us about how you got your powers?” He looked so serious, so grim. He didn’t look like someone who just found out they have superpowers. At least, that’s not how I would have looked if I’d just found out I’d inherited Dad’s abilities.

  “You and Mom laughed, said it was an old joke between the two of you. I want to know what that joke is.” I’d forgotten that, but it came back to me now that Bernard mentioned it.

  Dad put down his beer. “Sure. It’s no big thing — not really a joke; more like a deeply satisfying irony. My powers were created by the Nazis, the most evil villains you could ever think of, and I’m sure they only intended to use me as a disposable guinea pig until they could safely create supersoldiers out of their own men. They meant this power to be used for evil. For hatred. To hurt people. To kill people. But fate played a joke on them. Because I’ve got that power, and I use it for the opposite of everything those monsters stood for. I use the power to make the world a better place for everyone. The irony of it makes me laugh. I love it.”

  “You think that’s funny. I thought it was something like that.” He spoke with more than a touch of venom, and he walked out of the room without another word. I made to follow him, but Mom grabbed my arm and said, “This has been a weird day for him. Let him work things out. He’ll come to you when he needs to talk.”

  But he never did.

  Later, we all went out to an Indian buffet for our birthday dinner, and by then Bernard had grown even more sullen. He only picked at his food, even though it was our favourite. He hadn’t done more than grunt all evening, and when we were almost done eating, with no preamble, he said, “I want my own room. I don’t want to share anymore.” He didn’t even look at me when he said that.

  That night he slept in what used to be the guest room, and for the first time that I could remember I spent the night alone. It took me almost a month before I was able to sleep normally. Every other night or so, I’d just toss and turn until morning.

  Soon after, Bernard stopped sharing meals with the family. He’d take his plate and sequester himself in his room. That year, we didn’t even have a single class together in school, so I barely ever spent any time with him.

  Starting a month after Bernard had manifested the power, Mom and Dad, always singly so as not to crowd him, tried to get Bernard to talk to them, to return to family life, but those conversations always ended badly and only succeeded in exacerbating the situation. All of a sudden, Bernard hated them both, especially Dad, and he wasn’t shy about saying it. Gradually, they stopped trying. Dad, especially, was crushed by Bernard’s rejection. The one good thing that came out of all that was that he started spending more time than ever with me, and, while I’d always loved him and admired him, it was during those years, my early to mid teens, that we grew to become more than just family but also friends.

  I never saw Bernard use his powers again; Mom and Dad were relieved by his reticence. One especially warm and sunny weekend in early autumn, Dad and I went camping in the Laurentians. Our first night out he told me he hoped that, when Bernard was ready, my brother would ask him about the power, so Dad could share his experience with him. In the meantime, it was just as well that he didn’t get into trouble or bring undue attention to himself.

  “How long can this grim phase of his last?” Dad had said then. “The four of us have always been such a good team. Haven’t we always had fun together?”

  At the end of the school year, Bernard said he wanted to go away to a place called Camp Emet. It was a Jewish summer camp, with religious instruction and everything. “Why do you want to go there?” I asked, but he just ignored me.

  So off he went, and when he returned three weeks later he had a yarmulke on his head and asked Mom and Dad to sign papers for his enrollment at the Solomon Shainblum Yeshiva. Mom and Dad didn’t question him. They were determined to let him take his own path, find whatever answers he was looking for in his own way. Opposing him would only push him farther away. But he was my brother. My twin. I couldn’t let go that easily. Every day, even while he’d been away at camp, I felt stabbed by his distant attitude, by his rejection — my isolation intensified by my jealousy and frustration that he had the power and that it was wasted on him. I would have been out there helping Dad. I would have been proud to be his sidekick, to learn from him about being a hero.

  “But what about your powers? Why are you doing all this?”

  That time he didn’t ignore me. “The powers are treyf, unclean.”

  Every radio station, every television station, every web newsfeed reported it. “Montreal hero Hochelaga is believed to have died at the hands of a new superterrorist calling himself the Herald of Hate. This attack is suspected to be connected with the Hegemony of Hate’s concerted forays into Europe and the Middle East, an escalating terror campaign that The Mighty are currently struggling to contain and stop.”

  There was no body, but hundreds of eyewitnesses had seen their hero explode as the Herald of Hate’s fist punched through Hochelaga’s chest. “Hochelaga had been pursuing the Herald of Hate after the terrorist’s as yet unexplained public execution of an unidentified middle-aged woman,” the broadcaster said.

  They’d caught the execution on camera. I watched it on four different channels, hoping I was mistaken. Every time, I saw the same thing: the woman set on fire by a glowing red skeleton wearing a black vest emblazoned with a white swastika. That neo-Nazi monster laughed as my mother burned.

  I tried calling B
ernard. We hadn’t spoken in years — he’d made a life for himself in Montreal’s Orthodox community and had long ago made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to hear from any of us again. Mom dutifully mailed him invitations to every family milestone — birthdays, wedding anniversaries — but he never responded. Nevertheless, I knew his address and phone number by heart. I didn’t spy on him, or intrude on him, or anything, but I kept track of him. I had never accepted that he could shut me out so completely. As his voicemail message kicked in, I remembered that it was Saturday morning. The Sabbath. Bernard was devout. He wouldn’t answer the phone — would certainly not be watching television. He probably didn’t even know that Mom and Dad had been killed. Well, as unlikely as it seemed, Dad could have survived. Maybe he teleported at the last minute. Maybe he was planning a new, surprise attack on the Herald of Hate at that very moment.

  Last week, the Hegemony of Hate, after nearly a decade of silence, had declared all-out war on the rest of the world. Their first act was the nuclear annihilation of both Israel and Palestine; ever since, their forces had been sweeping through Europe and the Middle East. The Mighty appeared to be losing the fight; there were rumours of numerous casualties: Metal Man, Webmistress, Thunderer, Doc Colossus. The Hegemony had unleashed a new wave of apparently indestructible supersoldiers, like the Herald, who was now singlehandedly destroying Montreal, with Dad apparently dead. Murdered. Already several city blocks in the downtown area had been reduced to rubble.

  Hailing a cab was out of the question; traffic was chaotic, as thousands — maybe hundreds of thousands — of people evacuated in a panic. But the bridges couldn’t handle all the traffic; the city streets were jammed in every direction, and the sidewalks overflowed with people. Bernard’s house in Outremont was about an hour’s walk from my downtown apartment. I ran — uphill all the way — and I made it in under a half-hour.

  There was no answer when I rang the doorbell. For all I knew he was inside but too pious to open the door. I broke a window and let myself in.

  Nobody was home. Bernard was probably at his synagogue, praying or something. No — he must at least have heard about the Herald. There were so many Jews in this neighbourhood. More than anyone, they knew to fear the swastika on the Herald’s chest.

  Still, I might be able to find him through his synagogue. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could think of. I had no idea where he went for that, but maybe if I looked around I’d find an address. I started in the room that looked like his office. I’d barely begun my search when I was surprised by my brother’s voice.

  “I know,” he said. “I know every detail of it. Mom’s dead. Dad’s dead.”

  I turned around. He was standing in the doorway of the office, with his coat still on. I hadn’t seen him since he’d moved out at the age of sixteen. In my mind’s eye, Bernard still looked like a teenager, not like the adult I was now seeing. Behind the beard, I saw Dad’s face, my face.

  “We don’t know that Dad’s dead for sure. His powers . . .”

  “He’s dead. Trust me, I know.”

  We glared at each other for a few seconds. But I thought about Mom and Dad, and I softened. “C’mon, Bern. We don’t have to be like this. It’s time for us to be brothers again.”

  My brother gazed at the floor for a second, and then he grabbed my shoulders and hugged me. I hadn’t expected that; I almost cried. I was tempted to just abandon myself to the grief, to the comfort of this unlikely reconciliation with my twin, but the urgency that had driven me to seek him out reasserted itself.

  Wiping my moist eyes, I untangled myself from him and said, “You have to stop that monster, before he kills anyone else, before he kills us. He killed Mom. He knows. He’s bound to come after us soon. He’s out there right now, tearing the city apart.”

  “I won’t. I won’t use that treyf power. The Nazis created it. It’s an abomination in the eyes of God.”

  “What about letting that monster kill more people? Isn’t that a sin in the eyes of your god? I read about Judaism after you left us. I wanted to understand you. It was the only way I could still feel like you were in my life at all. I know about Tikkun Olam: that it’s everyone’s responsibility to repair and mend the world. Dad’s powers would allow you to do that.”

  Bernard stayed silent.

  “And more to the point, I know about Pikuach Nefesh. A duty that overrides everything else. The duty to save lives. According to your own religion, you’re committing a sin by refusing to use your powers to stop this monster!”

  We were glaring at each other again.

  “The Herald of Hate killed Mom. What did she ever do to deserve that?”

  Bernard looked away, but I wasn’t done with him. Something he’d said was nagging at me. “And why are you so sure that Dad’s dead? There are several ways he could have used the power to make it look like he died while he regrouped. I know it looks bad, but we have no real evidence yet.”

  “I said, Dad’s dead. He’s dead. The exact moment he died, the energy that gave him Hochelaga’s powers, drawn to my own energy, shifted into my body. I felt him die. His energy is with me still. In that moment, I remembered — felt — everything he ever experienced since he gained that power at the end of the war. Already the details are fading, but the sensation of his death will stay with me forever. One more reason to hate this power.”

  His words hit me like a punch in the gut. And then I thought about what he’d told me.

  “You’ve got Dad’s energy on top of your own . . . ?”

  “Yes. I’m more powerful than Dad ever was. The increase in my power level is exponential. Unlike Dad, I could — if I exerted the energy — manifest several powers at once. Now, not using the powers is an effort of will, requiring constant concentration. I can feel that filth course through me, taking me over. The temptation is so great. This obscenity is polluting me, and I loathe it.”

  “You selfish, irresponsible idiot. You could stop that murderer just by blinking. You could probably take out the entire Hegemony of Hate if you wanted to. And you choose not to? Even though your own beliefs dictate that you have to act?”

  I wanted to hit him. In that moment I think I hated my brother even more than I did the monster who killed our parents. Because he was more real to me. Because it was so easy to hate him.

  People part before me like the Red Sea. They cheer me on. Some of them cry from relief because they think their beloved Hochelaga is still alive.

  The Herald of Hate is easy to find. Downtown is cordoned off by the police and the military. The Herald is destroying McGill University — hurling cars into buildings, ripping the grounds apart, setting everything on fire — while laughing off the hail of bullets and artillery.

  What do I think I can accomplish here? Besides adding another corpse to the Herald of Hate’s tally?

  The police wave me through without question. When they see me, hope springs up in their faces.

  Someone calls off the shooting, and I walk toward my parents’ executioner.

  The Herald of Hate casually throws another car into the air and sneers at me. “Didn’t I kill you?” He stares at me with his empty skull eye sockets, and I feel his gaze pass through me. “You’re not Kurtz. You’re one of his whelps. Good. It’ll save me the trouble of hunting you down.”

  I lunge at the monster, hoping to snap his neck. Dismissively, he slaps me with the back of his hand, and I crumple to the ground. He keeps me pinned down under his foot. My rib cage is slowly shattering.

  “You don’t even have the power — the power your father stole from us. You’re just another subhuman Jew. Not worth my time.”

  He lifts me up with one hand, his bony fingers ripping through the fabric of the jumpsuit, scratching the flesh near my heart. Without another word, he tosses me away. I soar through the air over several city blocks and crash through the glass window of a skyscraper. Only the pain is keeping me conscious. That and the fact that the helmet protected my head from the worst of the im
pact. But I’m dying anyway. Blood is filling up my lungs, and more blood is staining Dad’s uniform from several open wounds. My ribs are broken, the bones of my hands splintered, my legs — which I can’t even feel anymore — twisted at impossible angles. I’m slipping away.

  “You always were such a romantic fool, Gordon.”

  Bernard?

  My brother lays his hands on me, and I feel my body repair itself.

  In no time, I’m fully mended.

  “Bernard . . . What . . . ?” I close my eyes. A momentary feeling of gratitude at being whole and alive is quickly crushed by my still-fresh grief. Yet, my brother is here, and that, too, provokes a rush of strong, conflicting emotions. I open my eyes and look at him. “Thank you. Thank you. I know this is a big sacrifice for you.”

  Bernard is crying. “Thanks for saying that. For recognizing that. Now you must stop the Herald of Hate. He’s a rodef. A stalker. A killer.”

  “I can’t. I tried. He killed Dad. And there are others like him picking off The Mighty overseas. I don’t know if anyone can stop him. Or the rest of the Hegemony. He’s going to destroy the entire city. It took him less than two seconds to massacre me. He called me subhuman. Flung me away like a piece of trash.”

  “He won’t this time.”

  Bernard enfolds me in his arms. And . . .

  “I never wanted this power. This filthy, filthy power. But you, you don’t see it like that at all. You see it the same way Dad did. As a way to mend the world.”

  “You . . .”

  “It never occurred to me before that I could do this . . . but after you stormed out of my house I thought about how Dad’s energy slipped into my body. And I knew that this was possible. I knew how to do it, and it would solve everything. I could give you the energy. All of it. You’re now more powerful than Dad ever was, Gordon. You have his power and mine, combined, amplified exponentially. Go. Kick that monster’s ass. Make the world a better place. For Dad. For Mom. For me.”