A lie with taste is an art. A tasteless lie is simply vile.
The barbershop is five hundred meters from the General Staff. The staff have become familiar, part of the scenery. In the evenings we close up and dine right here; a familiar delivery man brings the pizza. When staff officers order a lot of pizza instead of their usual lunch, there will soon be no peace at the front. Tonight we four watch the stream.…
Formally I cut hair at Diana’s. In fact I collect what the staff officers let slip in the chair. My fiancée’s cover: the engagement spared Zhenya extra questions. I introduced a drink for clients at the barbershop, and loyalty rose. I proposed a debate: one of you the devil’s advocate, the other the prosecutor. I stood above the fray myself, to avoid arguing with my fiancée in front of her friend.…
I sit at the counter and the accounting. Nobody knows I’m also observing for MI6. While Diana defended lying, I looked up quotations from Sun Tzu, then became the prosecutor: “Our Man in Havana,” taking a village “on credit,” where a single “yes” costs many lives. Something else troubles me too: doesn’t telling the truth mean disclosing a military secret? An awkward silence fell in the room.
The three friends clinked glasses, took a sip, and wept. They decided to fit out a little kitchenette in the barbershop’s back room with two chairs, a table, and a decanter for clients from the staff. Diana liked the idea, John found it risky, and Zhenya was already weighing what to send to London.