are active – factions that might have emerged as a result of systemic government brutality.  Tellez, of course, is Colombian, a country with a long, rich history of bloody insurrection and government-sponsored brutality. He makes very clear that the barbershop into which the military commander, Captain Torres, has entered sits in the midst of such insurrection and brutality.  And, the barber, as he acknowledges, is a revolutionary. As such, the reader fully anticipates that the barber, tasked by Captain Torres to shave his four-day-old beard, will use his notably sharpened (“I was stropping my best razor”) straight razor to slit the captain’s throat.  As the barber notes, “ . . .with the enemy in my house, I felt a certain responsibility.”

Here is where the first instance of irony comes in:

“Yes.  I was secretly a revolutionary, but at the same time I was a conscientious barber, proud of  the way I did my job.”

Tellez’s protagonist may be a revolutionary sickened by the presence of this military commander, who boasts of torturing and executing rebel prisoners for entertainment, but he is a barber first. The following passage encapsulates this conundrum spendidly:

“The razor kept descending.  Now from the other sideburn downward. It was a blue beard, a thick one. He should let it grow, some poets, or some priests.   It would suit him well.  Many people would not recognize him.  And that would be a good thing for him, I thought, as I went gently over all the throat line.   At t his point, you really had to handle your blade skillfully, because the hair, while scantier, tended to fall into small whorls.  It was a curly beard.  The pores might open minutely in this area and let out a tiny drop of blood. A good barber like myself stakes his reputation on not permitting that to happen to any of his customers.”

And, then, for good measure, the barber boasts of his abilities, “. . .I am a good barber, the best in this town, and I say this in all modesty.”

He is not oblivious as to the irony in his situation (“I am a revolutionary, but not a murderer.”), reiterating to himself the blood of his companions that stains this customer’s hands.  He is adamant, however, that his pride in his professionalism will not compel him to change his nature: 

“I don’t want to stain my hands with blood. Just with lather, and nothing else.  You are an executioner; I am only a barber.  Each one to his job.  That’s it. Each one to his job.”

This is a fine example of situational irony, the commitment to his profession over the military and political imperative of killing Captain Torres.  The greater irony, though, is in the surprise delivered by Captain Torres in the story’s final sentences.  The captain’s parting comment – “They told me you would kill me.  I came to find out if it was true.  But it’s not easy to kill.  I know what I’m talking about.” – strongly suggests that the captain is more situationally aware than the reader has been led to anticipate, and that he is cognizant of the moral boundaries on the far side of which he operates on a daily basis.

The supreme irony of the Hernando Tellez short story, "Just Lather, That's All," concerns the secret identity of the barber. When Captain Torres enters the barber's shop, he announces that he wants a shave. The barber recognizes him immediately as the killer of the rebels with whom the barber is secretly affiliated. Throughout the shave, the barber contemplates cutting Torres' throat, but thinks better of it, preferring to give him "just lather, that's all." He refuses to kill Torres in order to protect his secret and to uphold his professional code of a bloodless cut. But, as we find out at the end, Captain Torres has already heard of the barber's possible connection, and he has come to test the man himself. This is the irony--that the barber's secret was no secret at all, and that the captain had one of his own.