Life in front of the cameras, in the shadow of a (quite) controversial father, can be very lonely.
It is not easy to be the heir of the most media-savvy child in the White House. It is not easy for Barron to be the first son of a president since John John played around in the Oval Office. Little Barron has a circumspect look and impeccable manners. The same existential castaway gesture as Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous. The son of a tycoon about to fall off the ship so that a Portuguese sailor can teach him what life, love, and desperation are all about.
Barron Trump cannot avoid being judged by those who watch him. And he seems to know it from his deep shyness. He stands before the cameras with a shield of composure. With his 11 years armored with seriousness. Barron Trump, quiet and expectant. Like a delicate little toy. Flashbulbs hit him in the face, but Barron doesn't flinch. He has the adult manners that his father sometimes seems to forego. Trapped in a Brooks Brothers suit that he wears with more elegance than real gentlemen.
Perhaps Barron doesn't hold more mystery than all the Peterpans at 11 years old. Perhaps those eyes that sometimes seem sad only scrutinize what happens around him: the endless multicoloured parade that his life has become. But it's sad to see him silent and alone contemplating an eclipse of the sun from the balcony. The sky in Washington darkens and Barron's expression fades with some dismay. Barron is a false only son with impossible siblings. The last in a marital relay race. A rich boy who is occasionally taken out into the street like a kidnapped person in a golden cage that never gets light. With his skin so white and his scared little face.
There has always been too much space in Barron's life. Square meters to spare, where the echo of the games reminds you that the only one playing is you. He had an entire floor in his father's building on Fifth Avenue. They say that miniature cars were piled up on the marble floors. Toy traffic jams replicating real traffic jams. Metal and wheels that all the kids smile at. Surely Barron does too. They say that Barron's floor in Trump Tower always smelled of caviar. Not because the boy is a careful gourmet of Iranian delicacies, but because his mother has the habit of smearing him with her own sturgeon roe cream. That mother who proudly tells that Barron is good and pretty. He is. That is not post-truth.
Barron has not been seen playing marbles on the hills in the White House garden. Nor doing tricks like John John. He went out one day through a side door to kick a ball and a cameraman caught him. He was wearing the red Arsenal shirt. It is not known if he was playing well or badly. Yes, he was alone again. With no company but his ball. The official story goes that Barron likes golf. That he resembles his father. That they call him Little Donald although they baptized him Barron William.
With his compound name and his family tree on his back, the presidential son breaks the heart of sensitive America: so quiet, as if mummified in his own beauty of a sad child. As if vacuum-packed, with the suspicion that this emptiness is an emptiness in the heart.
From his father's inauguration, Barron's little face will forever remain, distracted, perhaps annoyed by the rain, as if he were the only one who realized that the clouds had darkened the official act. But his luminous smile will also remain, unseen, when he found an accomplice in the entourage. The president signed important papers to the rhythm of a copy shop and he played clapping with his nephew who is barely a baby. He covered his eyes with his hands and peekabooed. And perhaps that is all that little Barron wants: to stop seeing so he can forget that everyone wants to look at him.
One day little Barron will grow up. And perhaps he will be like John John. And he will continue to wear suits with that elegance of his that does not allow for pretense. And who knows if, at last, we will see him smile. I hope so.
