This week in the saga

The five-hundredth week of the record, and the two halves of it do not fit in the same story. On Tuesday his son lands on an ice runway in Greenland and posts a reception; on Wednesday the hills above Los Angeles catch and do not stop, and by Thursday whole neighbourhoods are gone. He writes about the fires the way a man writes about an inheritance he has not received yet — no water in the hydrants, no money in the agency, this is what is being left to him — and he keeps writing it, every day, until Monday night, when it is one line in capitals about a reservoir four hundred miles from the flames. And on Friday morning, in a Manhattan courtroom he attends by video link, the last case ends. He is sentenced: guilty on thirty-four counts, forever, and the penalty is nothing at all. An unconditional discharge — no fine, no probation, no supervision, a felony with no weight attached to it. Then over the weekend the special counsel leaves the department for good and he marks it twice, once at one in the morning and once at breakfast, in the same three words: he is gone.