“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 Bernard. 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 impact. 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.”