I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.

Host: The London rain fell in quiet threads, glimmering against the lamplight that spilled through the tall windows of the parliament café. It was late—well past closing—but the staff had long stopped reminding them. Steam rose from two untouched cups of tea, curling into the air like smoke from a battle that refused to end.

The clock on the wall ticked, heavy and deliberate. Outside, the Thames murmured—a low, indifferent voice that had heard every promise, every deal, every lie of power.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes fixed on the water, tapping his pen against a folder of notes. Across from him, Jeeny watched, arms crossed, her brows furrowed, the faint reflection of the river’s light trembling in her dark eyes.

Between them lay a single printed quote on crisp paper:
“I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.” — Margaret Thatcher.

Host: The words—part compliment, part challenge—had started their debate. Now, they hung between them like smoke, impossible to grasp, impossible to ignore.

Jeeny: “It’s astonishing, isn’t it?” she said softly, glancing at the quote. “How she managed to turn diplomacy into a kind of commerce. ‘We can do business together.’ As if peace was a transaction.”

Jack: “That’s exactly what it was. And that’s why it worked.”

Jeeny: “You can’t reduce the end of the Cold War to a handshake and a business deal, Jack.”

Jack: “Can’t I? Think about it. Thatcher wasn’t a dreamer. She was a realist with steel in her veins. She didn’t talk about ideals, she talked about trust and deals. That’s why she saw something in Gorbachev before anyone else did—because he was pragmatic too.”

Host: His voice had that hard edge—not cruel, but anchored in a kind of faith reserved for those who believe that reason, not emotion, keeps the world turning. The rain outside intensified, drumming against the window, syncing with the rhythm of their argument.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the tragedy? That we keep turning humanity into negotiations? Thatcher might have been practical, but what she lacked was empathy. You can’t do business with a man who’s trying to change history; you listen to him. You understand him.”

Jack: “Empathy doesn’t stop nuclear war, Jeeny. Clarity does. Business doesn’t mean greed—it means understanding mutual interest. And in 1984, mutual interest meant survival.”

Jeeny: “So you justify everything in terms of profit and loss—even peace?”

Jack: “Not profit. Value. Thatcher understood value. She knew you couldn’t change the Soviet Union by lecturing it about morality. You had to find the one man inside the machine who wanted to fix the gears instead of smashing them.”

Host: The room tightened with tension. The light flickered, the sound of traffic outside a distant hum. Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes bright, her voice low but fierce.

Jeeny: “You call it business, I call it bargaining with consequence. You know what’s lost in those transactions? People. Ordinary lives. Families in Moscow and London who never saw peace as a deal—they saw it as hope. And hope isn’t business, Jack. It’s belief.”

Jack: “Belief gets people killed. Look at history—Chamberlain believed. Roosevelt believed. Gorbachev believed. But Thatcher calculated. That’s why she survived the storm.”

Jeeny: “And yet it was belief that made him open his country. Belief that made him tear down the walls she couldn’t. You talk about Thatcher’s steel, but it was Gorbachev’s humanity that ended the Cold War. He was the one who blinked first—and thank God he did.”

Jack: “No, Jeeny. He didn’t blink. He looked—and for the first time, someone on the other side didn’t look away.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy, almost reverent. Outside, a bus passed, its lights cutting through the fog like brief memory.

Jeeny: “You admire her, don’t you?”

Jack: “I respect her. There’s a difference. You don’t have to like a person to recognize they changed the world.”

Jeeny: “But she didn’t just change it. She reshaped it into her image. Ruthless. Strategic. Efficient. And cold.”

Jack: “Cold kept us alive.”

Jeeny: “Warmth keeps us human.”

Host: The wind howled outside, rattling the glass. Inside, the air grew still again. The tea had gone cold, but neither noticed.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what those words really meant to her? ‘We can do business together.’ Not ‘We can build peace,’ not ‘We can trust each other’—but do business. That’s not partnership; that’s transaction. It means: I’ll give you what you want if it gets me what I need.”

Jack: “That’s diplomacy.”

Jeeny: “That’s manipulation.”

Jack: “That’s reality.”

Host: The exchange was sharp, like steel clashing on stone. Jack stood, walking to the window, his reflection merging with the city lights beyond the glass.

Jack: “You think she didn’t believe in anything. But she did. She believed in stability. She saw the world not as a dream but as a balance sheet—debits and credits of trust. And when she met Gorbachev, she realized he wasn’t like the others. He wanted to save the USSR, not destroy the West. That’s why she said those words—not to flatter, but to test him.”

Jeeny: “And what if he failed that test? What then?”

Jack: “Then she’d have crushed him. That’s what made her dangerous—and effective.”

Jeeny: “And lonely.”

Jack: “Leaders always are.”

Host: The rain had eased, softening into a fine mist. The city outside gleamed, quiet, almost fragile under its veil of fog.

Jeeny: “You know, I met a diplomat once. He said the saddest thing about negotiations is that truth always comes last—after pride, after ego, after calculation. Maybe Thatcher liked Gorbachev because he was the first man who reminded her truth still existed.”

Jack: “Or maybe he was just the first man who didn’t lie to her.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Jack: “Not always.”

Host: He turned, his eyes tired, but alive with that spark that comes only from conviction.

Jack: “Look, I’m not saying she was kind. I’m saying she was clear. She saw peace as something you negotiated, not prayed for. And maybe that’s why it happened at all. Idealists start the conversation—but pragmatists finish it.”

Jeeny: “But at what cost? Humanity stripped for strategy? Connection traded for caution? You can do business with anyone, Jack. But you can only make peace with someone you respect.”

Jack: “And respect,” he said, “is the first term of every real deal.”

Host: The rain had stopped entirely. The moonlight broke through the clouds, silvering the Thames, the bridge, the faint outline of Westminster beyond.

Jeeny rose, joining him by the window. The city’s reflection flickered across both their faces—hers soft and questioning, his set and illuminated by that strange, familiar melancholy that comes from believing too deeply in reason.

Jeeny: “Maybe they both needed each other. A woman of iron and a man of glass. She needed someone to reflect her humanity, and he needed someone to test his resolve.”

Jack: “And together they made history.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said, after a pause, “but history has a habit of forgetting the tenderness behind the transactions.”

Host: He looked at her then—really looked—and for the first time, something in his expression softened, like steel melting in the presence of light.

Jack: “Maybe that’s our problem too, Jeeny. You want to believe in hearts. I want to believe in hands. But it takes both to build anything that lasts.”

Jeeny: “So what are we building?”

Jack: “Understanding.”

Host: The clock struck midnight. The lamplight flickered, casting two long shadows across the table—one rigid, one fluid, both stretching toward the window, merging where the light met the dark.

Outside, the river flowed—steady, unjudging, endless. The city slept, but its echoes—of power, of belief, of fragile reconciliation—lingered like breath on glass.

And somewhere, perhaps in the depths of that night, Thatcher’s words still rippled through history: not as arrogance, not as cynicism, but as the uneasy truth of human nature—

that even peace, in the end, is something we must learn to do business with.