The Book of Lies - Brad Meltzer [121]
Mitchell’s eyes went dark. “You think that matter!? All that matter is men gave lives for it. Men died for it, Jerome!” Mitchell cut himself off, thinking back to how his own father used to raise his voice. He took a heavy breath through his nose. “Is your gift now, Jerome. Yours to protect.”
Shifting his weight on the radiator, Jerry glanced over his shoulder and stared out the second-story window, where his two older brothers played skully in the street. “Why didn’t you give it to Harry or Leo—or even Minerva?” Jerry said, referring to his older sister. “I mean, I’m the smallest.”
Standing over his youngest son, Mitchell knew Jerry was right. Of his six children, Jerry was the smallest. And weakest. And least popular. When his siblings came home from school and raced out to play games in the street, Jerry regularly stayed inside, scribbling stories and drawing daydreams.
Just as Mitchell used to back in Lithuania when he was the same age.
“You argue with your father? Show respect!” his dad insisted, seizing Jerry’s shoulder in his meaty mitt.
Still staring outside, Jerry nodded, knowing better than to fight.
For an instant, his father’s grip softened and Jerry thought his dad was about to say something else.
But he never did.
In a slow, heavy shuffle—Jerry always thought he was hiding a limp—Mitchell Siegel headed for the door.
“Oh, say, Pop—can I ask one last thing?”
His father turned, framed by the threshold.
“What you said about those men—the ones in the cave, with the cloaks and the blood and the—”
“What’s your question, Jerome?”
Jerry looked at his father. “They tried to kill you, didn’t they?”
Mitchell didn’t say anything.
“What if they try again?” Jerry asked, his foot tapping faster than ever.
“They won’t,” Mitchell promised. “They can’t. There is no way they know where I am.”
Jerry nodded as though he understood. “But still . . . when you were there . . . do you really think they were trying to create some kind of monster?”
“Jerome, this was long time ago. Nothing to worry about today.”
“I’m not worried. I—” Jerry put aside the book. His eyebrows furrowed. “It’s just, well . . . if someone really could do magic or summon something or build whatever Aryan creature those men were building . . .” He tilted his head slightly, and the streaming outdoor sun made him look like a little boy. “I don’t know, Pop. Couldn’t it also be done for good instead?”
82
The word Superman comes from
Nietzsche’s Übermensch and George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman.
But it was Hitler, stating he wanted a nation of “supermen,” that gave the term its popularity.
—Maltz Museum brochure
Today
Marina del Rey, California
You look scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I tell Serena as I grip the steering wheel of our rental car, which is parked at the end of the wide cul-de-sac. “I’m just nervous.”
“About this—or you still thinking about your father?”
I pause for a second too long. “About this.”
In the passenger seat, Serena tucks her legs into an Indian-style position, never taking her eyes off me. “If it makes you feel better about it, Cal, your dad—”
“Please don’t give me a Buddha quote right now. Can’t I just worry I’m being too easy on him?”
“Maybe you are,” she admits. “But just remember—”
“I said no Buddha.”
“No Buddha. Just listen: When baby Superman gets rocketed to the planet Earth and his real parents die on Krypton, he lands here and gets two new flawless parents who treat him perfect as can be.”
“So?”
“So that’s just a comic book. Real life has much more complicated endings. And beginnings.”
“And that’s it? Now I’m supposed to feel better? Or just forgive him? Or not second-guess myself for potentially inviting him back into my life?”
She turns to me, her yellow blue eyes trying to absorb whatever pain and regret she thinks I’m feeling. She’s not my girlfriend. I know she’s not. But there’s no denying the fact that throughout this whole mess, she’s the one clear reminder, even with all the hokey self-help quotes, that not everything