Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity

“I’m still not sure I should be here… I knew that man, I saw his face, I was in Marseilles forty-eight hours before he was killed!”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“Then why was I there? Why do people think I did? Christ, it’s insane!” He sprang up from the chair, pain back in his eyes. “But then I forgot I’m not sane, am I? Because I’ve forgotten… Years, a lifetime.”

Marie spoke matter-of-factly, no compassion in her voice. “The answers will come to you. From one source or another, finally from yourself.”

“That may not be possible. Washburn said it was like blocks rearranged, different tunnels … different windows.” Jason walked to the window, bracing himself on the sill, looking down on the lights of Montparnasse. “The views aren’t the same; they never will be. Somewhere out there are people I know, who know me. A couple of thousand miles away are other people I care about and don’t care about … Or, oh God, maybe a wife and children—I don’t know. I keep spinning around in the wind, turning over and over and I can’t get down to the ground. Every time I try I get thrown back up again.”

“Into the sky?” asked Marie.

“Yes.”

“You’ve jumped from a plane,” she said, making a statement.

Bourne turned. “I never told you that.”

“You talked about it in your sleep the other night. You were sweating; your face was flushed and hot and I had to wipe it with a towel.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did, in a way. I asked you if you were a pilot, or if flying bothered you. Especially at night”

“I didn’t know what you were talking about. Why didn’t you press me?”

“I was afraid to. You were very close to hysterics, and I’m not trained in things like that. I can help you try to remember, but I can’t deal with your unconscious. I don’t think anyone should but a doctor.”

“A doctor? I was with a doctor for damn near six months.”

“From what you’ve said about him, I think another opinion is called for.”

“I don’t!” he replied, confused by his own anger.

“Why not?” Marie got up from the bed. “You need help, my darling. A psychiatrist might—”

“No!” He shouted in spite of himself, furious with himself. “I won’t do that. I can’t.”

“Please, tell me why?” she asked calmly, standing in front of him.

“I … I … can’t do it.”

“Just tell me why, that’s all.”

Bourne stared at her, then turned and looked out the window again, his hands on the sill again.

“Because I’m afraid. Someone lied, and I was grateful for that more than I can tell you. But suppose there aren’t any more lies, suppose the rest is true. What do I do then?”

“Are you saying you don’t want to find out?”

“Not that way.” He stood up and leaned against the window frame, his eyes still on the lights below. “Try to understand me,” he said. “I have to know certain things … enough to make a decision … but maybe not everything. A part of me has to be able to walk away, disappear. I have to be able to say to myself, what was isn’t any longer, and there’s a possibility that it never was because I have no memory of it. What a person can’t remember didn’t exist … for him.” He turned back to her.

“What I’m trying to tell you is that maybe it’s better this way.”

“You want evidence, but not proof, is that what you’re saying?”

“I want arrows pointing in one direction or the other, telling me whether to run or not to run.”

“Telling you. What about us?”

“That’ll come with the arrows, won’t it? You know that.”

“Then let’s find them,” she replied.

“Be careful. You may not be able to live with what’s out there. I mean that.”

“I can live with you. And I mean that.” She reached up and touched his face. “Come on. It’s barely five o’clock in Ontario, and I can still reach Peter at the office. He can start the Treadstone search … and give us the name of someone here at the embassy who can help us if we need him.”

“You’re going to tell Peter you’re in Paris?”

“He’ll know it anyway from the operator, but the call won’t be traceable to this hotel. And don’t worry, I’ll keep everything ‘in-house,’ even casual. I came to Paris for a few days because my relatives in Lyon are simply too dull. He’ll accept that.”

“Would he know someone at the embassy here?”

“Peter makes it a point to know someone everywhere. It’s one of his more useful but less attractive traits.”

“Sounds like he will.” Bourne got their coats. “After your call we’ll have dinner. I think we could both use a drink.”

“Let’s go past the bank on rue Madeleine. I want to see something.”

“What can you see at night?”

“A telephone booth. I hope there’s one nearby.”

There was. Diagonally across the street from the entrance.

The tall blond man wearing tortoise-shell glasses checked his watch under the afternoon sun on the rue Madeleine. The pavements were crowded, the traffic in the street unreasonable, as most traffic was in Paris. He entered the telephone booth and untangled the telephone, which had been hanging free of its cradle, the line knotted. It was a courteous sign to the next would-be user that the phone was out of commission; it reduced the chance that the booth would be occupied. It had worked.

He glanced at his watch again; the time span had begun. Marie inside the bank. She would call within the next few minutes. He took several coins from his pocket, put them on the ledge and leaned against the glass panel, his eyes on the bank across the street. A cloud diminished the sunlight and he could see his reflection in the glass. He approved of what he saw, recalling the startled reaction of a hairdresser in Montparnasse who had sequestered him in a curtained booth while performing the blond transformation. The cloud passed, the sunlight returned, and the telephone rang.

“It’s you?” asked Marie St. Jacques.

“It’s me,” said Bourne.

“Make sure you get the name and the location of the office. And rough up your French. Mispronounce a few words so he knows you’re American. Tell him you’re not used to the telephones in Paris. Then do everything in sequence. I’ll call you back in exactly five minutes.”

“Clock’s on.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I mean, let’s go.”

“All right… The clock is on. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Jason depressed the lever, released it, and dialed the number he had memorized.

“La Banque de Valois. Bonjour.”

“I need assistance,” said Bourne, continuing with the approximate words Marie had told him to use. “I recently transferred sizable funds from Switzerland on a pouch-courier basis. I’d like to know if they’ve cleared.”

“That would be our Foreign Services Department, sir. I’ll connect you.”

A click, then another female voice. “Foreign Services.”

Jason repeated his request.

“May I have your name, please?”

“I’d prefer speaking with an officer of the bank before giving it.” There was a pause on the line. “Very well, sir. I’ll switch you to the office of Vice-President d’Amacourt.”

Monsieur d’Amacourt’s secretary was less accommodating, the bank officer’s screening process activated, as Marie had predicted. So Bourne once more used Marie’s words. “I’m referring to a transfer from Zurich, from the Gemeinschaft Bank on the Bahnhofstrasse, and I’m talking in the area of seven figures. Monsieur d’Amacourt, if you please. I have very little time.” It was not a secretary’s place to be the cause of further delay. A perplexed first vice-president got on the line.