There were three chairs ranged in a rough semicircle in front of the president’s desk. Two of them were, of course, filled. Veronica took the third chair, acutely aware that she was flanked by the two men, doubtless by design. She laughed inwardly. If these two thought to intimidate her by making her feel surrounded, they were sorely mistaken. But then as the president began to talk she hoped to God her laugh wouldn’t echo hollowly in her mind an hour from now.
Dominic Specter hurried around the corner as Bourne was locking the door to his office. The deep frown that creased his high forehead vanished the moment he saw Bourne.
“David, I’m so glad I caught you before you left!” he said with great enthusiasm. Then, turning his charm on Bourne’s companion, he added, “And with the magnificent Moira, no less.” As always the perfect gentleman, he bowed to her in the Old World European fashion.
He returned his attention to Bourne. He was a short man full of unbridled energy despite his seventy-odd years. His head seemed perfectly round, surmounted by a halo of hair that wound from ear to ear. His eyes were dark and inquisitive, his skin a deep bronze. His generous mouth made him look vaguely and amusingly like a frog about to spring from one lily pad to another. “A matter of some concern has come up and I need your opinion.” He smiled. “I see that this evening is out of the question. Would dinner tomorrow be inconvenient?”
Bourne discerned something behind Specter’s smile that gave him pause; something was troubling his old mentor. “Why don’t we meet for breakfast?”
“Are you certain I’m not putting you out, David?” But he couldn’t hide the relief that flooded his face.
“Actually, breakfast is better for me,” Bourne lied, to make things easier for Specter. “Eight o’clock?”
“Splendid! I look forward to it.” With a nod in Moira’s direction he was off.
“A firecracker,” Moira said. “If only I’d had professors like him.”
Bourne looked at her. “Your college years must’ve been hell.”
She laughed. “Not quite as bad as all that, but then I only had two years of it before I fled to Berlin.”
“If you’d had professors like Dominic Specter, your experience would have been far different, believe me.” They sidestepped several knots of students gathered to gossip or to trade questions about their last classes.
They strode along the corridor, out the doors, descended the steps to the quad. He and Moira walked briskly across campus in the direction of the restaurant where they would have dinner. Students streamed past them, hurrying down the paths between trees and lawns. Somewhere a band was playing in the stolid, almost plodding rhythm endemic to colleges and universities. The sky was steeped in clouds, scudding overhead like clipper ships on the high seas. A dank winter wind came streaming in off the Potomac.
“There was a time when I was plunged deep in depression. I knew it but I wouldn’t accept it-you know what I mean. Professor Specter was the one who connected with me, who was able to crack the shell I was using to protect myself. To this day I have no idea how he did it or even why he persevered. He said he saw something of himself in me. In any event, he wanted to help.”
They passed the ivy-covered building where Specter, who was now the president of the School of International Studies at Georgetown, had his office. Men in tweed coats and corduroy jackets passed in and out of the doors, frowns of deep concentration on their faces.
“Professor Specter gave me a job teaching linguistics. It was like a life preserver to a drowning man. What I needed most then was a sense of order and stability. I honestly don’t know what would have happened to me if not for him. He alone understood that immersing myself in language makes me happy. No matter who I’ve been, the one constant is my proficiency with languages. Learning languages is like learning history from the inside out. It encompasses the battles of ethnicity, religion, compromise, politics. So much can be learned from language because it’s been shaped by history.”
By this time they had left campus and were walking down 36th Street, NW, toward 1789, a favorite restaurant of Moira’s, which was housed in a Federal town house. When they arrived, they were shown to a window table on the second floor in a dim, paneled, old-fashioned room with candles burning brightly on tables set with fine china and sparkling stemware. They sat down facing each other and ordered drinks.
Bourne leaned across the table, said in a low voice,”Listen to me, Moira, because I’m going to tell you something very few people know. The Bourne identity continues to haunt me. Marie used to worry that the decisions I was forced to make, the actions I had to take as Jason Bourne would eventually drain me of all feeling, that one day I’d come back to her and David Webb would be gone for good. I can’t let that happen.”
“Jason, you and I have spent quite a bit of time with each other since we met to scatter Martin’s ashes. I’ve never seen a hint that you’ve lost any part of your humanity.”
Both sat back, silent as the waiter set the drinks in front of them, handed them menus. As soon as he left, Bourne said, “That’s reassuring, believe me. In the short time I’ve known you I’ve come to value your opinions. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met.”
Moira took a sip of her drink, set it down, all without taking her eyes from his. “Thank you. Coming from you that’s quite a compliment, particularly because I know how special Marie was to you.”
Bourne stared down at his drink.
Moira reached across the starched white linen for his hand. “I’m sorry, now you’re drifting away.”
He glanced at her hand over his but didn’t pull away. When he looked up, he said, “I relied on her for many things. But I find now that those things are slipping away from me.”
“Is that a bad thing, or a good thing?”
“That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Moira saw the anguish in his face, and her heart went out to him. It was only months ago that she’d seen him standing by the parapet in the Cloisters. He was clutching the bronze urn holding Martin’s ashes as if he never wanted to let it go. She’d known then, even if Martin hadn’t told her, what they’d meant to each other.
“Martin was your friend,” she said now. “You put yourself in terrible jeopardy to save him. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything for him. Besides, by your own admission, you’re not Jason Bourne now. You’re David Webb.”
He smiled. “You have me there.”
Her face clouded over. “I want to ask you a question, but I don’t know whether I have the right.”
At once, he responded to the seriousness of her expression. “Of course you can ask, Moira. Go on.”
She took a deep breath, let it go. “Jason, I know you’ve said that you’re content at the university, and if that’s so, fine. But I also know you blame yourself for not being able to save Martin. You must understand, though, if you couldn’t save him, no one could. You did your best; he knew that, I’m sure. And now I find myself wondering if you believe you failed him-that you’re not up to being Jason Bourne anymore. I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that you accepted Professor Specter’s offer at the university in order to turn away from Jason Bourne’s life.”
“Of course I’ve considered it.” After Martin’s death he’d once again decided to turn his back on Jason Bourne’s life, on the running, the deaths, a river that seemed to have as many bodies as the Ganges. Always, for him, memories lurked. The sad ones he remembered. The others, the shadowed ones that filled the halls of his mind, seemed to have shape until he neared them, when they flowed away like a tide at ebb. And what was left behind were the bleached bones of all those he’d killed or had been killed because of who he was. But he knew just as surely that as long as he drew breath, the Bourne identity wouldn’t die.