Agent Running in the Field

by John le Carré

‘What about President Donald Trump then?’ he demands, enunciating the name as if it were the very devil’s. ‘Do you or do you not regard Trump, which I do, as a threat and incitement to the entire civilized world, plus he is presiding over the systematic no-holds-barred Nazification of the United States?’ I think I must have been smiling by now, but I see no answering light in Ed’s lugubrious face which is turned at an angle to me, as if he needs my answer in sound only, without any moderating facial expression. ‘Well, if in a less fundamental way, yes, I’m with you there too, Ed, if that’s any consolation,’ I concede gently. ‘But he’s not President for ever, is he? And the Constitution is there to inhibit him, not just give him a free rein.’ But this is not enough for him: ‘What about all the tunnel-vision fanatics he’s got round him? The fundamentalist Christians who think Jesus invented greed? They’re not going anywhere, are they?’ ‘Ed,’ I say, making a joke of it now. ‘When Trump’s gone, these people will scatter as ash in the wind. Now for God’s sake let’s have that other pint.’