Work Text:
Sacré-Cœur
Paris, 2381
Since they both had jobs – not to mention responsibilities to their government – they arranged to reconvene for lunch. Parmak, returning to the residence around the agreed time, came to the door that led into the office of the ambassador’s aide. It was standing slightly open. Hearing voices inside, he stopped. Was it eavesdropping? No, not really. More, taking a moment to collect himself.
“So you’re out for lunch today,” said Akret.
“Mm,” said the ambassador.
“And is Dr. Parmak joining you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. He’ll be here any minute. Why?”
“No reason. Just asking.”
“Just asking.”
“He’s handsome, isn’t he?”
“Mey…”
Now this was proving irresistible, even for a man as scrupulous as Parmak. He checked the time (he was still early enough) and settled in to eavesdrop a little longer.
“I’m just saying that he’s handsome. Also, you’ve never brought anyone home before. In the six years that I’ve worked for you.”
“How would you even know, Mey?”
“Oh, I’d know. Anyway, I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss.”
“I’m not the one… It’s complicated, yes?”
Was it complicated, thought Parmak. Was it really? Certainly they could make it complicated if they wanted. But that seemed… unnecessary?
“It really isn’t that complicated,” she said. “You’ve not looked this cheerful in… Actually, you’ve never looked this cheerful. Not in—”
“The six years you’ve worked for me, yes, I know. I didn’t realise I was such a permanent rain cloud on the blue skies of your days, Mey.”
“Not a permanent rain cloud, sir, no. But you do have a tendency to mope, every so often. Anyway, enjoy your lunch. You look nice.”
“Mope… Yes, we shall. Thank you.”
“Apropos of nothing,” she added, “your afternoon and evening have, by some miracle, become completely free.”
There was a pause. Then, quietly: “Thank you, Mey.”
Parmak coughed, to alert them to his presence, tapped on the door, and poked his head round. The ambassador was leaning back against Akret’s desk, arms folded. He stood up, quickly, when Parmak entered. He was particularly smart today, Parmak thought; black suit, charcoal grey short coat, black gloves, and a pale blue wool scarf that set off his eyes. “Dr. Parmak,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too.” He glanced at the ambassador’s aide. “Hello, Akret,” he said, and smiled at her. She held his eye and smiled back, nodding slowly. Yes, she would surely be a most helpful accomplice in all this. Whatever this was going to be.
The ambassador came to join him at the door; they pressed palms and smiled at each other. He looked happy. “Shall we go?”
“Let’s,” said Parmak, and followed him out. As they left, Akret called out after them.
“Have a nice time, boys.”
Parmak laughed. The ambassador sighed. “One day,” he said, “she’ll be the end of me.”
The brasserie he’d chosen was just round the corner. They clearly knew him well there. They sat outside, working their way through steak au poivre and salad and a bottle of red wine, and talking about music. Their tastes more or less overlapped, and where they didn’t there was potential for entertainment – if not, necessarily, enjoyment – on both sides. Near the end of the meal, as the ambassador picked over a selection of cheeses, Parmak cracked the crust of a crème brûlée and said, “Tell me about the books.”
“Which books?”
“You know the ones I mean. On your bookshelf. The banned books.”
The ambassador’s mouth twitched. “There are no banned books any longer.”
“Yes, but there were. When did you read them?”
The ambassador’s eyes slid away from his face and fixed on a point slightly behind him. That was going to take some work, wasn’t it?
“Some I picked up here,” he said. “The human literature… that started in exile. Know your enemy. Lang’s books I mostly read when I was in the Order. Well, she was under surveillance, of course. Like I say – know your enemy.”
“Quite.”
“And one or two I read a very long time ago when I was undercover at U of U and infiltrated a student reading group.”
Parmak sat back in his chair. “Is that true?”
“Completely true.”
“Really?”
“I’m not lying, today.”
“I suppose I did ask.”
“Yes, you did.” He leaned back too, mirroring him. He looked relaxed, but then he was a consummate performer. “I enjoyed my term at U of U,” he said, airily. “I would have liked to have stayed longer. Not that I asked permission. I very much doubt my father would have agreed.”
Ah, so he did know who his father was… They would return to this, Parmak predicted. When he was ready. He didn’t let information slip, not without a plan for it. “Given the choice, what would you have studied?”
“Political ethics.”
Parmak laughed out loud. “Now that’s a lie!”
“Yes, I admit, that is a lie. But the rest is true. And I would have studied literature, of course. What else?”
“But you didn’t.”
“Evidently not.” The Cardassian Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets looked out across the busy street. “Oh well. It seems to have worked out more or less satisfactorily. I do wonder sometimes what my life might have been like, had that route been allowed. I imagine I would have died in the Fire, clutching my books to my chest.”
“Or been exiled, for writing seditious novels?”
The ambassador’s eyes glittered. “How do you know I wasn’t?”
“Oh, I wish that were true!”
“Alas, I wasn’t even exiled for reading them. Since, as I say, that was part of my job, on and off.”
After lunch, they went to the Musée Rodin, where they looked at a statue of two doomed lovers kissing, and another which seemed to show half-a-dozen starving officials being dragged away after the siege of their city ended badly. The ambassador, arms folded and head tilted to one side, said, “I’m beginning to regret my choice of venue.” He turned away. “The garden’s nice.”
The garden was nice; formal and meticulously laid-out. The bronzes displayed were powerful and strong. Parmak did not dislike them. In one corner, there was a massive frieze depicting two huge doors covered in small figures each of which appeared to be in agony. This, according to the label, was called the Gates of Hell. The ambassador, staring at the frieze, said, “My father, for the record, was Enabran Tain.”
Even prepared, as he was, for the eventuality that they would be returning to the topic of the ambassador’s paternity, Parmak had to take a moment to recover from that one. He went and sat down on a nearby bench, the fingertips of his right hand pressed against his temple. The ambassador came to sit beside him. He leaned forwards; his hands were turning over and over.
“Well,” said Parmak. “That explains a great deal.”
“Doesn’t it?” agreed the ambassador. He looked at him directly, very briefly, then back down at his hands. He studied them closely, front and back, front and back. “If you decided to leave now, I wouldn’t be offended.”
Parmak stared at the figures on the frieze, each one trapped in their own particular torment. “We heard about his death at home, you know,” he said. “Dukat made a special broadcast. I have to admit, I celebrated that night with friends. The death of the Order…”
“Yes, well, that was a… rather more difficult time for me, but your reaction is perfectly understandable. Are you leaving now?” His voice, despite his phenomenal self-control, held a faintly plaintive edge.
“No,” said Parmak. “No, I’m not.” And there it was; decision made, and it turned out not to be a complicated one, after all.
“Well. Good. I’m very glad to hear that.” He swallowed, and put his hands down flat upon his knees. “Shall we go somewhere else?”
“Let’s.”
They went to the Jardin des Tuileries and talked shop. The ambassador looked grateful to be on safer topics, as was Parmak, and grateful to have someone as a sounding board. So that was another thing they could do together, in this future they were making up as they went along. Somewhere in the shade of the trees they switched to first names. As they wandered back across the river, Parmak thought, I wonder when I’ll persuade him it’s safe to hold hands?
At the Musée d’Orsay, they stood in front of a pink and gold and grey painting of an old palace emerging from the fog. The scene overflowed with water and light. What a place this was, marvelled Parmak, this Earth of his. No wonder he loved being here, even if it wasn’t home.
“This isn’t Paris, is it?”
“No,” he said, “that’s London. Not far from here. Let’s go, next time you visit.” Panic flared up in the ambassador’s eyes. “You are visiting again, aren’t you?”
“Elim,” he said, patiently. “Of course I am.”
They went back across the river at a bridge marked by a statue of a man called ‘Thomas Jefferson’. Through the course of the rest of the afternoon, they walked steadily uphill. In Montmartre, they stopped for coffee and patisserie, and came the closest to touching since they’d woken up holding each other that morning. But not quite. At the top of the hill, rosy in the last light of the afternoon, the cathedral stood before them wildly and transgressively, completely unlike anything that had ever existed at home. Parmak was enchanted. “What a place this is,” he said. “What a world this is.”
“That… wasn’t actually what I brought you up here to see,” said the ambassador, apologetically. He pointed behind them, over his shoulder. Parmak, turning, saw the whole of Paris laid out below him, like a gift. The daylight was golden, and the black lines of the Eiffel Tower stood out sharply. As advertised, there was a beacon at the top, shifting round.
“You implied last night that you wanted to see the Eiffel Tower,” he said.
Implied… Parmak covered his laugh, which might have been construed as unkind, but in fact would have signified delight. “Yes, I did imply that.”
They stood and watched the sun set, and the city come alive with lights. The beacon continued on its circular course. Under the cover of the growing darkness, the ambassador took his hand, and rested his head against him.
“I think,” he murmured, staring out, “that I’m in danger of falling in love.”
“Perfectly understandable,” said Parmak. “Shall we go home?”
“Let’s.”
Back at the apartment, Parmak observed that one of the armchairs had been replaced by a sofa. From the way the ambassador’s eyes narrowed, Parmak suspected Akret’s mischievous hand at work. For the moment, however, it served only as a repository for their jackets. In the coming days, weeks, months, years, Parmak would realise exactly what it meant that the ambassador had not stopped to hang up their clothes. But that was one of many things they both still had to learn.
16th March 2026
The story continues in Liberté, égalité, fraternité.