fic: the pursuit of happiness.

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It’s his PR manager, Gerard, who approaches him about the young journalist who has shown interest in writing his biography. Philippe inquires about his CV and is handed a document of approximately ten pages’ length, which is considerable considering that the young journalist in question is only 26 years old. With a raised eyebrow, Philippe reads through the headlines, various jobs at big name newspapers in France, but the past two years the man’s been dedicated to writing biographies and memoirs. What does he normally say about ambition and youth? The seedling, too, knows that one day it’ll be a huge tree. It’s in its biology. Then again, where was Phillippe at 26? Certainly not here.

Looking up at Gerard, he awaits his PR managers verdict, although it’s obvious enough. He wouldn’t even have bothered bringing the request before Luxembourg’s very busy Prime Minister, if he hadn’t thought it was worth his time.

“The kid’s written that book on Kutter everyone’s still talking about,” is his only comment.

Philippe hands him back the stack of papers. “Book a meeting,” he replies. He doesn’t need his PR manager to clarify how this is the perfect time to put out a book in Philippe Barrault’s name. Elections are little less than a year away.

Interest needs to be piqued before then, loyalties rekindled.


~*~


Frederic Weber doesn’t have to do much more than step inside Philippe’s office, and Philippe knows. Gay. Raging. It’s no particular mannerisms of his or the slight lisp to his S’es that alerts him to this fact, it’s simply a feeling, something inside him recognising something inside Weber. Feeling slightly uncomfortable at the realisation, Philippe asks the man to sit, waits for his secretary to pour coffee and leave, before folding his hands on the table, looking the tall, slender man right in the face.

“I am not flattered by what I consider a natural interest that the public should show towards the political landscape in general and their leader in particular,” he says as a way of introduction.

Weber doesn’t as much as flinch. “What about a personal interest, does that flatter you?”

“Not just from any fool walking into my office, no,” Philippe replies.

“Don’t worry, I’m not any fool,” Weber says.

So, Philippe hires him.


~*~


The first week, Frederic just follows him around, a quiet, unintrusive shadow at his heels at all times. Philippe lets him sit in on all the most important meetings, contracts have been signed, lawyers on the side line, waiting, should rumours begin to prevail where they shouldn’t, and they walk away from people as varied as the Luxembourgish Minister of Social Affairs in a right fit and, two days later, the President of the United States, much more composed. None of it daunts Frederic Weber even in the slightest. Philippe is fairly sure, he wasn’t half as brave at that age.

He knows, in fact. He wasn’t.

“Where do your conservative views stem from, if you have to say so yourself,” Frederic asks, once they’ve settled into a comfortable, borderline intimate routine.

Philippe drinks his coffee and longs for a cigarette that he can’t have, because he’s promised Violette. For Marie-Claude’s sake, if nothing else. Another mouthful of coffee, then a piece of gum. He chews around his answer. Apparently, they’ve grown that close now, Frederic and him. Chewing gum answers. “My parents have raised me to believe in the importance of history, in upholding history as a standard. Not just as pieces in a museum, but as building blocks of information and instruction.”

“And history is never mistaken,” Frederic wants to know, clever as he is.

“That’s the catch,” Philippe smiles, slowly, pushing his gum in against the inside of one cheek so he can answer unobstructed, “we will never know in our lifetime, Frederic.”


~*~


A month into the process, Philippe takes Frederic to his parental manor in the Luxembourgish countryside, the great estate counting acres of field currently worked by the neighbouring farmers, as well as a big park and a small patch of forest, tended to by a whole staff that Philippe only ever pays attention to when he’s here in person. Violette and he, along with little Marie-Claude, usually spend Christmas out in these parts. Just a day or two, before Luxembourg’s Prime Minister must return to the city for New Year speeches and various celebratory nonsense. They walk around the park, which is a minor, modern reconstruction of parts of the one at Versailles, because the Barrault family is centuries old and pretentious enough not to fear sticking out their necks.

State leaders and the aristocracy aren’t decapitated any longer, not within the confinements of the EU, at least.

Frederic takes photos with a cheap polaroid camera, of the roses and the view and one of Philippe, too, from the side, in motion. When Philippe asks him what they’re for, he smiles and shrugs and says, visual notes. Without commenting on it, the way it means keepsakes and personal, Philippe stops in front of an old barn on the south side.

“I was born in that building,” he tells him.

“What, really?” Frederic doesn’t sound doubting as much as amazed.

“My mother suddenly went into labour and there was no time to take her to the hospital. One of the milkmaids had to help deliver me in the hay.”

“Sounds messy.” There’s a slightly disgusted twinge to the younger man’s lips. Having been present at Violette’s birth of his daughter, Philippe can only sympathise. A beat, then Frederic continues tongue-in-cheek, “and messianic.”

“The story goes that I was the cleanest baby the milkmaid had ever seen,” Philippe says, sounding amused. The narratives that can be created about a person, huh? Messianic, even. “Then again, she had only ever helped deliver calves before.”

“What you mean to imply is that cows are a low bar to meet,” Frederic rightly concludes, laughing.

“Not something we will know for certain in my lifetime,” Philippe smiles.

“Not unless you let someone else make the call for you.” There’s a shoulder bump and they’re suddenly walking much closer than before. Frowning, Philippe sidesteps.

“We all have to make our own calls, that’s our responsibility as citizens, as human beings.”

Frederic gives him a long look, also moving out of range. Neither of them says anything else before they return to the main house.


~*~


A week before the scheduled release date of the book, a parcel lands on his desk and he opens it with a half-emptied cup of coffee next to him, still longing for a cigarette and something else, too, something more intangible than smoke. It’s rectangular, the package, heavy and feels distinctively like the book it proves to be, with the brown wrapping off. He lifts it up and inspects the cover, a portrait of his own face in profile, black and white, a dark blue font beneath reading, MAKING HISTORY. It’s a luxuriously looking tome and Philippe takes a moment to simply hold it, the fruit of their combined labour, his and Frederic’s.

They haven’t spoken in a couple of weeks now, though they are scheduled to meet at the grand release party next Friday, and Philippe is being very particular about the sense of nostalgia which lingers at that realisation. He doesn’t give it room, doesn’t buy it time, it’s a notion and then it’s gone. He has work to do.

About to put the book down on top of a stack of papers he won’t get to until Monday at the earliest, a piece of paper falls out from between two pages and lands right in front of him, front side up. It’s a polaroid photograph, muted colours, green and blue, showing a blurry contour of Philippe’s own sweater-clad upper body, head turned slightly aside, away from the camera. As if he’s departing, going somewhere else. There’s a distinct sense of intimacy to it, like a bedroom moment put on display right there out in the open.

Though, Frederic has done nothing unseemly with it. Will you look at this, it’s something personal captured and something personal returned to its rightful owner. Philippe holds it gingerly between his fingers for a moment, then pushes it back inside the book, where it’s safe and unseen by any eyes but his.

And Frederic’s, of course. That’s the point.

As such, he’ll only stay a short while at the release party next week. It’s the young journalist’s achievement, in the end, that book. Barrault has done nothing except what he always does, talked at length and been listened to, because his oral skills are unmatched and the position he’s risen to, likewise.

Though, apparently, he’s been seen as well.

He’s been looked right through.

fic: heirs.

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HIM

Jean Louis’ name has been on all Parliament’s lips for years at this point, at first by way of Stéphane who favours the boy, as he puts it, the implications understood by all, seeing as everyone knows of the SD leader’s tastes (broad or ‘fluid’ as the new generation would say), though no one speaks of it openly. Philippe has watched the young man travel through the ranks of the Social Democrats’ youth party with a sour aftertaste to his undeniable interest which he shall call worry for lack of a more fitting term. Someone from Jean Louis’ background, God knows exactly how underprivileged, is an easy prey for a man like Stéphane, next in line for power and never reluctant to use that position to the advantage of himself and his favoured ones.

When, a couple of years later, Jean Louis leaves the SD’s and joins the CDP’s youth fraction instead, however, Philippe thinks maybe ‘prey’ wasn’t the right description to begin with.


HER

She grows up so fast. Philippe is ready to swear, she was a toddler just yesterday. However, Marie-Claude has become a serious, focused girl and he tries to support those of her interests that will get her the furthest – the literary subjects, her debate team, she’s a skilled analyst and essayist, as eloquent in writing as her father is in speech. He images her as a non-fiction author, perhaps a journalist, though she strikes him as an academic more than a practitioner. She talks about joining the CDP’s youth party once she’s eligible. He tries to talk her out of it.

“Politics are messy,” he warns her.

“I thought cleaning up messes was what you expected women to do,” she replies.

He takes money out of her allowance for being sassy.


HIM

One moment, Jean Louis has cemented his name in the youth party, the next he’s running for a seat in Parliament and had it been anyone else, Philippe would have warned them that getting in on their first try is an extremely rare occurrence, they’re young, they have time, but he would not be surprised if Jean Louis actually makes it in his first go. The boy is like the living proof of how the seedling knows it’ll be a huge tree eventually, that it’s in its biology to expect its own growth spurt, and definitely not to expect less.

So Jean Louis, naturally, makes it. At the victory celebrations afterwards, Philippe calls his toast and welcomes him from the ashes into the fire. “The Devil isn’t afraid of Hell,” someone laughs from behind them, Philippe giving the man a raised eyebrow for his efforts. He shrinks. He’ll be out in four years from now, surely.

Contrary to their new colleague here.


HER

The year the CDP goes in for their third term in government, Marie-Claude joins the SDP’s youth party against his wishes and best recommendations. “What’s the alternative,” she asks him, dressing for her first International Worker’s Day demonstration, “joining the CDP?” Her jeans cling to her legs and her chequered, flannel shirt is tied up across the belly. He frowns, watching her in the mirror. How big his little girl has grown and although youth is naturally inclined to experience the world on its own terms, this is too pointed even for her.

“No, the point is that politics isn’t an alternative at all,” he tells her.

“You’ve always said yourself, politics is the only alternative,” she reminds him. She’s got the memory of an elephant. Aren’t they matriarchal, too, those beasts? He folds his arms over his chest.

“Not for everyone,” he clarifies.

“You mean, not for women,” she corrects him. He throws his hands up in defeat and moves aside so she can leave her room. His obstinate teenage daughter. God knows, he has tried his best. As she passes him by, he grabs her by the elbow and holds her back just long enough to kiss her cheek and mutter:

“Not for someone with such rigid morals.”

“Parliament needs more rigid morals than yours and Jean Louis Girard’s, Dad,” she says, softly, turning her head enough to kiss his cheek back. Philippe releases her and watches her hurry down the staircase, someone ringing the bell at the front door. Another of Stéphane’s favoured ones, no doubt, here to pick her up.

If she weren’t on her way out to celebrate the 1st of May, that utter nonsense, maybe he would have agreed that Parliament might benefit from some diversity in the future. As it is, he’s got a meeting with Jean Louis later in the afternoon.

Let that be a test of their morals.