Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

— Why did you marry him? he said.

Joskar gave an ironic laugh. -Why do you think? He‘s ethnic Russian; moreover, he‘s a powerful man. He protects me and my children.

Arkadin took her chin, moving her face fully into the light. -But who protects you from him?

She snatched her face away as if his fingers had burned her. -I made certain he never touched my children. That was all that mattered.

— Doesn‘t it matter that they should have a father who, unlike Antonin, genuinely loves them? Arkadin was thinking of his own father, either falling-down drunk or absent altogether.

Joskar sighed. -Life is full of compromises, Leonid, especially for the Mari. I was alive, he‘d given me children whom I adore, and he swore to keep them from harm. That was my life, how could I complain when my parents were murdered by the Russians, when my sister disappeared when I was thirteen, probably abducted and tortured because my father was a journalist who repeatedly spoke out against the repression of the Mari? That was when my aunt sent me away from the Volga, to ensure I stayed alive.

Arkadin watched one of the girls playing in the backseat of the car. Her two sisters had fallen asleep, one against the door, the other with her head on her sleeping sister‘s shoulder. In the pale, ethereal light slanting in they looked like the fairies in their mother‘s stories.

— We must find a place soon to immolate my son.

— What?

— He was born on the solstice of the fire-god, she explained, — so the fire-god must take him across into the death-lands, otherwise he will wander the world forever alone.

— All right, Arkadin said. He was impatient to get to Moscow, but considering his complicity in Yasha‘s death he felt he was in no position to refuse her. Besides, she and her family were his responsibility now. If he refused to take care of them, no one else would. -As soon as Tarkanian and Oserov return we‘ll head out into the woods so you can find a suitable spot.

— I will need you to help me. Mari custom dictates a male‘s participation. Will you do this for Yasha, and for me?

Arkadin watched the play of light and dark chasing themselves across the flat planes of her face as vehicles swept by, their headlights pushing back the oncoming night. He didn‘t know what to say, so he nodded mutely.

In the near distance, the spire of the Orthodox church rose up like a reproachful finger, in admonition to the world‘s sinners. Arkadin wondered why so much money was spent in the service of something that couldn‘t be seen, heard, or felt. Of what use was religion? he wondered. Any religion?

As if reading his thoughts, Joskar said, — Do you believe in something, Leonid-god or gods-something greater than yourself?

— There‘s us and there‘s the universe, he said. -Everything else is like those stories you tell your children.

— I saw you listening to those stories, Leonid. They caught and held something inside you even you might not know about.

— It was like watching movies. They‘re entertainment, that‘s all.

— No, Leonid, they are history. They speak of hardship, migration, sacrifice. They speak of deprivation and subjugation, of prejudice and of our unique identity and our will to survive, no matter the cost. She studied him closely. -But you‘re Russian, you are the victor, and history belongs to the victor, doesn‘t it?

Funny, he didn‘t feel like a victor, and he never had. Who had ever stood up and spoken for him? Weren‘t your parents supposed to be your advocates, weren‘t they supposed to protect you, not imprison you and abandon you? There was something about Joskar that touched a place inside him that, as she‘d said, he hadn‘t known existed.

— I‘m a Russian in name only, he said. -There is nothing inside me, Joskar. I‘m a hollow man. In fact, when we place Yasha on the funeral pyre and light the wood I‘ll envy him the pure and honorable method of his dissolution.

She looked at him with her bourbon eyes and he thought, If I see pity in her face I’ll have to strike her. But no pity was evident to him, just a singular curiosity. He glanced down and saw that she was holding out her hand to him. Without knowing why, he took it, felt her warmth, almost as if he could hear the blood singing in her veins. Then she turned, went back to the car, and gently drew out one of her daughters, whom she deposited in his arms.

— Hold her like this, she directed. -That‘s right, shape your arms into a cradle.

She turned and stared up into the night sky where the first saltings of stars were becoming visible.

— The brightest ones come out first, because they‘re the bravest, she said in the same voice she used when telling her stories of gods, elves, and fairies. -But my favorite time is when the most timid appear, like a band of gossamer lace, the last decoration of night before morning comes and spoils it all.

Through this all, Arkadin held the slender-limbed child in his arms, his skin brushed by her diaphanous hair, her small fist already curled around one of his calloused forefingers. She lay within the heart of him. He could feel her deep, even breathing, and it was as if a core of innocence had been returned to him.

Without turning around, Joskar said softly, — Don‘t make me go back to him.

— No one is sending you back. What makes you say that?

— Your friend wants no part of us. I know, I see how he looks at me, I feel his contempt burning my skin. If it weren‘t for you, he‘d have dumped us at one of the rest stops and I‘d have no choice but to go back to Lev.

— You‘re not going back to him, Arkadin said, hearing the sleeping girl‘s heartbeat close to his own. -I‘ll die before I let that happen.

This is where we part company, Bourne said to Tracy the next morning. As close as he could tell, they were five blocks from 779 El Gamhuria Avenue. -I told you I wasn‘t going to put you at risk. I‘ll make my own way into