An American salesman was staying at the hotel. In the bar one evening he showed Mike something interesting from his case of samples. "The wind-up barber, a valet in your suitcase," he explained. It was a wooden, pin‑shaped individual with a painted face, white jacket and shiny black trousers, and a wondrous spring motor inside. When wound up it could perform numerous feats of coiffure, from the old short back‑and‑sides to fairly elaborate perfections of hair. The great advantage, it should be said at the outset, was not its creativity or personality but the speed and neatness with which it could perform its set tasks.

Needless to say, the wind‑up barber had found eager purchasers in a certain type of household ‑ commuters, recluses, but also people on the lookout for anything new.

The salesman said: "I demonstrated one in a small town in southern Europe. Fifty people stood around watching, dogs, everything, and nobody knew any English. So I gave the demonstration. I sat back, let my little friend here do all the work. It combed my hair out, expertly cut and shaped it, shaved me, rubbed lotion on, it made me look like a million bucks. I just had to sit there and look at one of those men's magazines. Anyway, at the end of it the people were amazed. I got out of the chair, the wind‑up barber brushed me down, and their jaws dropped as though I had just stepped out of the pages of Uomo moda or whatever. I didn't have to say a word to make the sales. That's how it was for the whole of southern Europe.

"Coincidentally, this was a time of political ferment of some kind in the region. I don't know, apparently there were some big things at stake between national groupings, nobody's fault, I guess. And somehow, the wind‑up barbers got involved. I think they were in a sensitive position, their complicated origin, all that. That's what I would attribute their involvement to. Soon they were on street-corners handing out leaflets with political slogans and outlines of their beliefs, you know, 'Support the historic struggle.' They were always commemorating important dates. They aligned themselves for a while with one of the political parties, or a faction of it, and then broke with them. They even started getting intellectual ... you know? Anyway, their whole thing became devalued. Haircuts are interesting, and what people do with their hair does say something about them, about society, and of course back then I didn't know there was such a thing as a political haircut, but in the long run what the wind‑up barbers did was not art. Not really. Kinda cute, though, eh?" He stroked the shiny black head. Mike had a closer look.

"What are those holes in its face?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, gunshot wounds."