This week in the saga

Their week, not his. Tuesday the discarded king gets his hour and spends it taking credit for four years that were not his; the man watching from the dark writes the review before the applause has died. Thursday night the hall in Chicago crowns her and he covers it live, post by post, from ten o'clock — a running commentary on a coronation he was not invited to, delivered to his own network of one. When it is over his verdict is a list of everything she did not say. Then Friday he flies to the desert, and the surprise he has been advertising walks out onto the stage beside him: the heir of the other dynasty, the family that has opposed his for sixty years, endorsing him by name. Too big to rig, he tells the crowd. The room believes him.