How I was doing? It occurred to me that because of his manner, and its place in the chronology of our conversation, he did not merely mean this as a casual, rhetorical question. And yet I could not imagine what, in particular, he could be referring to. Certainly it would be impossible for me to address how I really was: my investigation, my suspicions, my unease.

“Well,” I said, a little stiffly, and then I made an expansive gesture that I hoped would suggest that my answer encompassed a whole variety of circumstances. “No complaints.”

Professor Pindar looked as though he was waiting for me to say more.

When I didn’t, he said, “I know that you and your father weren’t … Maybe you were close, I don’t really know. But there was Barbara and the little girls, so that must have been…” He trailed off. “I can’t imagine it was easy.”

The nape of my neck pricked.

“And,” he said, shifting uncomfortably, “I’m sure it can’t help that that graduate student is in our department—in fact, I think you know each other—Kirstie Johanssen? She’s the one who … knew your father, isn’t she?”

He stopped now and began to rub his right eye with his index finger.

“I’m not going to pretend that this type of thing is my forte. All I’m trying to say is that from the outside, at least, the relationship looked a little strained. I mean, don’t get me wrong, what an exceptional man and a great president for the university—but those kinds of people don’t always make the easiest fathers, do they?”

A moment—a strained silence—passed. Then a strange set of conditions threatened to intrude. I held myself still, very still, because the image of Professor Pindar and Kirstie walking side by side was constantly on the edges, pressing in. I fixed my gaze on a point above Professor Pindar’s gray head—incidentally, on the harpoon.

He turned, following the direction of my line of sight, and brightened visibly.

“Yes,” he said. “Isn’t that a hoot? As a matter of fact, my great-great-grandfather worked on the Essex. That’s the whaler that inspired Moby-Dick.”

Another little silence went by.

“Have you read it?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“No, well,” he said. “It’s very long. Took me several tries myself.”

He turned away from me to look once more at the harpoon, and then turned back.

“These family things,” he said. “They have a strange kind of power, don’t they? Actually, I grew up in Nevada, about as far from the sea as the day is long, and never saw the ocean until I went to college, but that thing was my dad’s, and when he died I thought I should give it a special spot.”