Still, it was all Matt had needed to make him bound and determined to put research first, and worry about the students later.
Mama brought the coffee in a demitasse, steaming and strong. “You still drink it black, no?”
“Coffee!” Matt hadn’t had a drop in four years. He sipped it and let the drops roll back over his tongue, closing his eyes in ecstasy.
Mama stared. “You don’t have coffee at the university?”
“Not like yours, Mama.” Matt took another sip, closed his eyes again to savor it, then opened them to say, “I’ve, uh, been trying to quit.” Well, he hadn’t been trying, but he had quit.
Mama nodded, looking wise. “Two months is just long enough to make you crave it, Mateo. Let this be the only cup for today then, eh?”
Two months? Matt was amazed. He’d been well into the semester before he’d been translated to Merovence, which meant that only a few days had passed here. But five years had passed in the world of Merovence! Apparently Saul was right about time flowing at different rates in the two universes… or at the intersection points, anyway.
The door opened, and Papa came in. Matt looked quickly enough to see the haggardness before Papa saw him. His face lit up, and he crossed the room in two strides to catch Matt to him just as he was standing up. “Matt! What a great surprise!” He held his son away and looked him up and down, grinning. “You’ve never looked better.”
“You, too, Papa.” Matt couldn’t help admiring his father. At fifty, he was still lean, still moved with the grace of a man of thirty. The black hair was touched with silver at the temples now, but the mustache was still black. He looked very distinguished, and still very handsome. Matt began to realize why he had always thought of himself as homely. He was glad Alisande hadn’t.
“So to what do we owe this good fortune?” Papa’s brow creased with sudden anxiety. “Not trouble, I hope.”
“No, Papa… good luck. But I’ve had to make a very big decision, and I wanted to tell you about it in person.”
“Tell later,” Mama said firmly. “Dinner now.”
The men bowed to her will, and her menu. Dinner was chicken and rice, every bit as good as Matt remembered it, and better because he’d been so long away from it. The talk was light and gossipy, for them… but it ranged from the gaffes of the neighbors to the blunders of the government, then off into the greater blunders of the Merovingian kings, and what would have happened if the Moors had never conquered Spain. For a scholar’s home, it was light but pleasant talk.
When the supper was done, Papa sat back with coffee and said quietly, “Okay, son. Tell.”
Suddenly Matt wondered if it had been such a good idea to come home, after all. His stomach tightened with the apprehension of having to tell his parents something they weren’t going to like; a child’s fear enveloped him…
And he realized how silly it was. He was a man, not a child, and a very successful one, too! Not that he could give his parents the details…
So he put it into the terms of their world. “You know I’ve been stalled on my dissertation, right?”
“Over a scrap of parchment you couldn’t translate.” Papa shook his head, the professor coming to the fore in him. “A few lines are not enough to build a vocabulary, my son. I know I should not tell you again, but one verse does not a dissertation make.”
“Well… I did manage to translate it,” Matt said, trying to ease into it.
Mama exclaimed with surprise, and Papa’s eyebrows rose. “So? Then you’re moving on your dissertation again?”
“Not exactly. The parchment turned out to be a plant.”
“A plant?” Papa frowned.
“Someone planted it for you to find?” Mama exclaimed angrily. “And made you go off on a useless tangent for months? How cruel!”
“Not useless,” Matt said. “It was kind of a… test.”
“A test?” Papa’s frown deepened. “You mean it told you a direction?”
“Sort of,” Matt said, trying to be his ambiguous best. “It led me to… well, I suppose you would call it a government bureau.”
“Government?” Mama leaned forward in sudden fear. “Are you in trouble after all, Mateo?”
She had been a teenager when Castro took over. No wonder “government” meant trouble.
“No, Mama.” Matt smiled. “It seems I… well, I’ve qualified for a… government job.” He supposed that was a fair description of being Her Majesty’s Wizard.
“What kind of government job?” Papa was very tense.
“Research,” Matt ad-libbed. It was true, in its way… he’d had to figure out magic every step of the way, in his new universe.
“Research?” Papa sat forward with hope. “Then you will finish your Ph.D.?”
“I suppose I could,” Matt said slowly, “but I don’t think the research can be made public for a long time.”
Mama made a little mourning sound, and Papa frowned again. “You only have seven years to finish, Mateo. Surely you will not give up when you have come so close!”
Inspiration struck. If it mattered to them, why not finish it? If five years in Merovence only equaled five days in New Jersey, surely Matt could find time to finish his research by visiting from time to time!
Then he remembered that a day here would take up a year there. Even if he did everything else by correspondence, he’d still have to take a year away from Merovence, just to defend his thesis in oral examination. Still, he might found a university there…
“You take so long in answering!” Mama protested. “I am proud that you try to spare my feelings, my son … but do not lie to me! You will not finish the degree, will you?”
“Probably not,” Matt admitted. “It’s not completely impossible, mind you, but there really isn’t going to be a lot of time.”
Time! A full year, if he stayed here twenty-four hours! Suddenly he was very anxious to get back to Alisande and the baby.
“You will work long hours at this job, then?” Papa asked, frowning. “What kind of work is it, Mateo?”
“Using the magic of words, Papa,” Matt said carefully.
“Propaganda?” Papa frowned. “What is it? The Voice of America? The USIA?”
“It has to be secret,” Matt said lamely. “I can tell you it involves a lot of translation, though.” He did have to translate a great deal of verse from his own universe, to work his spells in Merovence.
“Translation! So! This parchment was an artificial language, then? No, no, I know you can’t tell me!”
Papa waved a flat palm, as if wiping a blackboard. “Something international, like Esperanto, but more Germanic probably. Well, I know you would not willingly work for an evil cause, my son. But be careful … the USIA may not be the CIA, but corrupted men can use good things for evil causes.”
Matt remembered that Papa had grown up in the shadow of World War II, and had the sense not to argue. “I’m working for a worthy cause, Papa, and for good people. I’m sure of it.”
“Test everything, son. I agree with Plato with this much, at least… that the unexamined life is not worth living.” Papa scowled. “In this day of ideologies, that is more true than ever.”
“I hope it pays well,” Mama said faintly.
“Oh, very well, Mama.” Matt turned to her. “Better even than a full professor’s pay… in the sciences.”
“Well.” Papa seemed a little comforted. “It is worth doing for some years, then. You can always come back to scholarship when you have saved enough. But what of job security?”
“It’s as secure as the government,” Matt assured him, “and I’ll have the best doctors in the country.” He didn’t mention that he wouldn’t trust one of Alisande’s physicians within a mile of the castle.