Chapter Three
The work to drain all the mud from the village was tiring. Ms. Morales was scrambling on a borrowed cell phone to find a village nearest to Miradorcito that could provide drainage pumps. Zephairi had sent his crew to block the dam's crater with large branches, but the water continued to pour from the river towards Miradorcito, albeit with a lesser volume. After several hours of clean up work with only a shovel and buckets at hand, Ms. Morales decided to break for lunch. She opened the door of her palapa, followed by Clarity and Flower, and stepped inside, exhausted from all the work done. She wanted a good meal, and the feeling of uneasiness that the flood had created in her mind, showed on her weary face. She opened the drawer of the chest where she kept her toucan, but her hands didn't find the familiar feel of the wooden bird. The toucan was a talisman and very few people understood how it worked or why. Kept by her family for generations, Tokal, the name Ms. Morales had given to the toucan, was about ten inches tall. It was made of heartwood and had a four inch bill painted yellow whose tint had worn over the years. She opened the chest drawer wider, but there was no sight of the object that according to her experience, provided a sense of protection to the village, promoted safety, and to some extent, removed obstacles. She came to the conclusion that Clarity feared.
"The toucan, it's not here, it disappeared." Ms. Morales always kept her totem in the same spot, and it was clear that someone had come in and taken the bird. This was a disaster worse than the flood, because her precious totemic item acted as a strong emotional support. Its mere presence bolstered Ms Morales’ conviction that there was room to preserve Mayan traditions in the modern world facing Miradorcito. Tokal came from another era, the era of her ancestors, and with it present at her side, she felt strong inwardly despite the poverty surrounding her and facing the village. Its presence convinced her that she could confront the cultural gringo disintegration brought by Coca Cola and alcohol facing the Miradorcito zona indigena, its indigenous population, which included herself and Kish. Traditional healers considered the toucan as a way to enter the spirit world and Ms. Morales spread the idea that as a result of its sociable, colorful personality, it was a bird of good augury for the village. Touching the keel-billed wooden bird every day kept her inner strength intact, and she cherished it as one of her most precious possessions. Flower stepped forward, eager to comfort the head of the village.
"I saw Mr. Zephairi walk near your home a couple of hours ago, he thinks the Mayan ruins hidden in Miradorcito might be underneath this hut."
While Ms. Morales kept searching for the village totem inside her home, Clarity walked to the area where Zephairi and his crew of assistants had settled. Zephairi didn't travel alone, he had brought with him to Mexico a group of eight people coming from Egypt who were deft at locating, recording, collecting and interpreting archaeological facts during the various phases of any project, which included survey, testing, excavation and laboratory examinations. Clarity walked past Zephairi, who was using a hand shovel and bucket, and other digging tools such as a hand pick, a hand brush, mini hand mattock, and a hand tray looking for rocks, soil samples, or bones, that would indicate Mayan presence hundreds of years earlier.
She approached his Parthenon eight person tent and looked around, before stepping inside. The 'mansion style' six foot high tent was spacious, offering several features meant to add comfort, including mesh sidewalls to allow for ventilation during warm weather and a removable divider wall which split the tent into two rooms. Placed behind the vestibule, there was a table with a large map of the area, half-folded. Clarity walked towards the table and began reading the map, which depicted various Mayan sites in the Yucatán peninsula, Chichen Itza, Coba, Uxmal, Tulum, and the lesser known Etzna, Sayil, Becan, and Kabah.
On the table lied a luxurious, Venezia, scritto leather zipped Berluti agenda, which held a notebook planner inside. Clarity flipped the pages of the agenda to the current day, and noticed Zephairi had marked an appointment for that day with a person scribbled as Lever Fahibian. She heard the brushing noise of outdoor pants approaching the entrance of the tent. Caught on the spot, Clarity reached for the area behind the divider and hid inside.
"Mr. Fahibian, step inside will you, we have several things to put in place."
Clarity saw the square face of Zephairi with a man in his late fifties showing gold hair. Lehver Fahibian was a real estate developer coming from Belize, he was considered a driving force behind the recent bilateral agreement between Mexico and Egypt. Clarity pushed aside the mesh of the divider slightly to peek inside the front part of the tent, and saw Fahibian's girlfriend Casey, winner of a Miss bodybuilding pageant and of several mud wrestling championships as well, standing near her. The woman was like Fahibian’s shadow, never leaving the developer on his own, since their wedding a few months earlier was cancelled at the last minute by a business trip as a result of the bilateral agreement. Fahibian owned a full-service beach resort in northern Belize called the 'Moneghetti Suites', named after one of the districts in the ward of La Condamine in Monaco. Casey had arranged their resort bedroom in the island of Ambergris Caye like one permanently for newlyweds. Bent on pulling Fahibian towards the idea of marriage, Casey ensured that their room was always bright and well lit, that curtains and walls of the room were not painted pink, because it was said to cause a feeling of agitation and insecurity, that the bathroom door did not open directly to the bed, and that there was no stereo on the headboard, because sound affected the mind according to the mud wrestling competitor, and possibly the quality of sleep. Fahibian often listened to Mozart before going to sleep, and Casey disliked classical music, and so she had convinced her husband-to-be that he should listen to music in the mornings, with earphones, getting rid of his need for a stereo on the bed's headboard.
"Ms. Morales drove Duldu out of the village, I hear," said Fahibian. Zephairi nodded.
"Yes, I haven't gotten an archaeological permit for him yet, but we're working on it." Clearly, Fahibian had sent Duldu to Miradorcito, and Zephairi knew of him, thought Clarity.
"What did she think of the damage to the dam?"
"She thinks it might have been caused by someone, I'm leading her towards the hypothesis of explosives."
"That's like incriminating ourselves, you should have been less obvious."
"No one saw your retainer Duldu place the explosives, it puts me out of suspicion with her. Where is he now?" Fahibian extended the crumpled map of the region in front of him, taking a seat on a table, with his girlfriend looking over his shoulder.
"He's around, checking the damage of the flood and seeing whether an aerial cable car can be installed here across the large trees."
Clarity was appalled to know that Fahibian had created the flood in Miradorcito purportedly, and that Zephairi condoned the act. She heard the sound of the tent's zipper at the entrance open. Ms. Morales entered the Egyptologist's tent, ill-humored. The head of the village walked to the table, facing Zephairi. The reason for her anger was Duldu. As she was draining her garden from mud, Duldu had walked right into it, asking her what she thought the damages of the flood would be, and whether she would object to a cable car built over her home.
"Mr. Zephairi, do you know this man in the village whose name is Duldu? He's asking very strange questions, but they all relate to the damage done by the flood and the future of the village. If you know who sent him, please tell me, he makes me nervous."
"Duldu Kehlver is my employee," said Fahibian. The real estate developer stepped forward to shake hand with Ms. Morales. Zephairi introduced Fahibian while Casey stayed in the background, walking dangerously close to the divider, checking its mesh. Fahibian began speaking of their pleasant trip from Belize to Miradorcito, before continuing through to the reason for his presence in the village.
"Ms. Morales, we like Miradorcito, we like the land here, we want good things to happen for the village, to build a new resort that will bring business to the area."
"Wha
t kind of resort?"
"A gambling resort, something like the Princess Casino in Belize, or our own Moneghetti Suites, but more elegant, an integrated resort where gaming is one of the parts but not the only one."
"Integrated with Mayan pyramids and a falafel stand," added Zephairi.
"I don't like falafel," said Casey.
"The falafel stand is part of Egyptian life and there has to be something from Egypt in this resort," said Zephairi. Casey's eyes widened.
"I don't understand why there's a need for pyramids in this new Moneghetti II resort, it's a waste of money to pay for archaeological work."
Fahibian calmed her, stroking the forearm of her girlfriend who was wearing a sweater made of cotton.
"The presence of pyramids may move the resort towards a different segment of leisure, one that will make gaming in the resort a big source of income, more tolerable and acceptable to the community."
Ms. Morales could not believe what she was hearing.
"I dislike gambling and this notion of easy money that comes with gambling. If there is no work involved in the living you are making, there is something wrong and what you're doing cannot be properly called work. This project is not going through here."
Fahibian ignored her body language, in particular her index finger moving sideways, meaning no.
"You can make a lucrative deal with Mr. Zephairi and myself," said Fahibian, "you can sell the land of Miradorcito to Mr. Zephairi's Alabastriah foundation, who will then lease the land to my real estate development company 'Mangrove Barrier Resorts'. We'll pay you a sizeable amount in exchange for agreeing to sell the land."
"No," said Ms. Morales. She shook her head in refusal.
"Is that a definite no?" asked Zephairi, "you might like falafel a lot more than you think. The Museum of Cairo, majority shareholder of the Alabastriah Foundation, will use the rental income derived from the sale of Miradorcito land to Mangrove Barrier Resorts, to fund other archaeological projects. The money coming from the new resort wil be put to good use."
"There are no pyramids here, we don't want to sell our land or see a gambling resort, we want to keep the village as it is."
"Well, currently it's flooded," said Zephairi.
Clarity heard a noise behind her near the backdoor of the tent. Flower came inside, noticing Clarity, who quickly told her to hush by placing her finger on her lips. Behind Flower, Clarity noticed Lanai, Cynthia, Taimi and Jenna, opening the mesh of the tent's backdoor, sneaking inside the tent as well. The second room of the tent was getting filled and agitated with feminine energy. Clarity hushed the line of the argument spoken by Ms. Morales and Fahibian to Flower, who whispered it in telephone line style to Cynthia, Taimi and Jenna. Casey, hearing some noise, opened the mesh divider, nearly colliding her face against Clarity's nose.
"Who are you, this is a private conversation."
"We're assistants of Mr. Zephairi," said Flower. Fortunately, Flower knew how to stay casual in compromising situations. Zephairi got up and walked towards the far end of his tent, asking Flower what she was doing. This time, it was Lanai who spoke first.
"We came to bring our support, we think it's a good idea to build a gambling resort here," said the Malibu librarian, changing the subject, "it's going to bring jobs to the community here." Cynthia, Taimi and Jenna nodded.
"It's going to be like Vegas in the jungle, it's cool," said Taimi.
Flower and Clarity disagreed, thinking the resort would create unruly gamblers and a slew of problems for the local environment, like polluted waters.
Fahibian stood up and led his girlfriend to the entrance of Zephairi's tent. Zephairi turned to Ms. Morales, who was leaving also.
"Think about this proposal Ms. Morales, there will be trouble for the village if you don't sell this land to us."