He thought he had got rid of her, but she had followed him in the men's room. She didn't even notice. She only cared about one thing. She said, This thing cannot be your father. Her shrill voice echoed on the flowered tiles. He washed his hands self-consciously in front of an aggressive mirror and left the room without a glance at her. He would not justify himself. He had made a five thousand miles trip to attend this conference and present the work in which he was both a neutral observer and a candid subject. And she had raised her hand and asked questions far off the purely technical field where her youth should have constrained her. Forgetful of any sort of hierarchical respect, she had attacked him bluntly, on core issues, in public at that. He had been set upon and humiliated by a kid. He would survive. He eventually managed to lose her by carving his way through the cafeteria, packed at lunch hour with famished students and caffeine-crazy congresspersons. He escaped through the kitchen's back door, under the placid stare of the cooks, crossed the parking lot and made it to his hotel without further trouble. Another looking-glass was waiting for him, on a closet door, even crueller than the one in the restroom. He took a long hard look at himself. Two arms, two legs, symmetrical organs. Odd ones, too. On the whole, not a particularly pretty sight. It didn't bear the slightest resemblance to his father's handsome outer and inner body organisation. She was so right. All that he could bring were material proofs, proven proofs everybody would believe but himself and the one bright student, sincerely truth-seeking or just fame-hungry. Old thing with tentacles, I'm sorry, but you can't be my father, he thought out loud, speaking to the blown-out, grainy, fatherly photographed figure that he ritualistically tacked on the wall facing his bed in every hotel room where he