Chapter Eight
Zephairi led Mr. Owenbach to the first pyramid uncovered by Flower. The large pyramid of Xuleiha was certainly bulky because of its size, but Zephairi compared it unfavorably with the ones found in Chichen Itza, and influenced the thoughts of Mr. Owenbach and his peers on the recently discovered site. After serving all the inspectors a copious lunch, Zephairi managed to shape their opinion on the pending assignment. As a result, the members of the World Heritage Center committee agreed unanimously to abandon the idea of considering Miradorcito as a possible World Heritage Site. They left the village and its new Mayan grounds, going instead to a less frequented tourist area on the East Coast of Yucatan, the biosphere reserve of Sian Ka'an, a World Heritage Site holding tropical forests and marshes, and over a hundred species of birds and mammals such as the jaguar, ocelot and tapir.
Clarity began coaxing Ms. Morales about the idea of turning Miradorcito into an ecovillage.
"What exactly is an ecovillage?" asked Ms. Morales. Clarity didn't know the official attributes of an ecovillage but she knew that it was a community idea, and that she had to provide an example of what was being done in other places to gain Ms. Morales’ attention. She turned to Flower.
"I just remember that the cost of building an ecovillage is about one hundred thousand dollars," said Flower.
"We need our land back first, but I'm not so sure that we can find one hundred thousand dollars to build anything. We're better off recovering our crops," said Ms. Morales.
"That's not that difficult. Once the project has a good advocate, the land will be donated back to those who live in Miradorcito," said Clarity.
"Where are we going to find this advocate?"
"We need to see the environmental impact report that Fahibian's Real Estate Development Company wrote to the authorities of Campeche," said Clarity. Ms. Morales grumbled that Zephairi was a self-centered person interested exclusively in getting all the glory for his discovery of Mayan ruins in Miradorcito. He would never accept sharing the report. Clarity decided to investigate Zephairi’s tent while the Egyptologist was busy having lunch with Kish aboard the gondola that swayed every day above the craftsman's house. Zephairi was hoping to convince Kish of leaving his home, offering the craftsman a post to operate the gondola and a spot to sleep in one of the tents. Kish wasn't at all interested in abandoning his loom or his hut, he simply agreed to climb along the ladder dropped from the gondola, in order to enjoy a free lunch provided by Zephairi. Clarity saw Duldu holding an induction balance metal detector in Kish's garden, looking for the keys to the giant G-earth excavator, which was still stranded near the home of the craftsman.
Ensuring Zephairi's crew was also having lunch at a picnic table, Clarity stepped inside the Egyptologist's tent, finding his laptop on a white plastic garden chair. She turned it on and looked for a folder or file labelled with the word ecovillage. She found a report titled 'Environmental conflicts in Mexican conservation', and printed a page that spoke of a ecovillage in a very small town of New Mexico, Chamisal, with a population of three hundred ten people, as blueprint for future projects to be carried out in Mexico.
The Rural municipality had donated the land to carry out the ecoproject, which included an energy efficient restaurant built with straw bales and timber from an out-of-use grain elevator. The restaurant used fryers, convection ovens, griddles, icemakers, and hot food holding cabinets that displayed the energy star label, saving twenty to forty percent in energy costs amounting to about two hundred dollars per year in utility bills, and also using less water. The buildings were heated using geothermal technology and solar panels, and an environmentally friendly golf course planned for business executives had been built. The golf course boasted limited pesticide use, a habitat specially designed for endemic wildlife, solar-powered carts, an all-organic course, limiting the use of chemicals used on turf grass. Mexican authorities had seen the project of Chamisal and were looking for ways to implement the idea in Mexico.
Clarity moved the cursor down a few pages to read the name of the authorities favoring the project in Mexico, but the name was not visible, as Zephairi had taken the precaution of erasing it. Hearing the noise of canvass being lifted behind her, she turned around and nearly collided with Duldu, who was lifting his metal detector towards her.
"What are you doing here?" asked Duldu. His eyes darted towards Clarity, who was caught off guard. Duldu prevented Clarity from stepping out of the tent, and called the man who was replacing his boss, the Egyptologist, on his cell phone, asking him to come return immediately to his tent. Clarity kept her nerve and found an excuse in those few seconds. She managed to speak calmly.
"Just checking how the construction work is moving along on a chart prepared by Mr. Zephairi." She turned off the computer and sat down on a second garden table, until Zephairi came into the tent, leaving Kish checked by the metal detector of Duldu, who was bent on finding the excavator keys.
"What are you doing here? You should be working with your friend," said Zephairi.
"I was looking for you," said Clarity, "I was wondering why the people from the World Heritage Center have left so quickly?"
Zephairi led Duldu outside the tent and sat down near Clarity. He didn't like Clarity meddling with his archaeology project, but knew that the Malibu teleoperator could be a nuisance if he brushed her aside too quickly.
"I think the World Heritage Center has some good ideas," she added.
Speaking confidently, she spoke her mind to Zephairi, telling him that he was not engaging in the right approach with his support of the Xuleiha gambling resort in Miradorcito. In fact, he was better off leaving, taking some of the findings uncovered, like stela B, and letting the inspectors of the World Heritage Center perform additional due diligence to decide whether the ruins of Xuleiha were worthy of becoming part of the monuments included in the World Heritage List. Zephairi led her outside the tent.
"Come here, look, we can do better than the World Heritage Center."
Clarity stepped outside the tent and saw Zephairi's crew taking measurements of the large pyramid, which was going to be dismantled and taken to Egypt, replaced by one of the wings of the new gaming resort. A second crew hired by Fahibian was installing night lights for the site's ballgame court, which was becoming a large amphitheater for tourists looking for evening entertainment.
"You're not leaving, then?" asked Clarity. She knew the answer but she thought that her discovery of the ecovillage report was safe as long as she kept distracting Zephairi.
"No, I'm not leaving, I like this place, I'm the keeper of all the findings here."
Clarity saw Ms. Morales and Lanai walk towards them. Duldu lifted his metal detector towards Ms. Morales, to check whether she held the excavator's missing keys. Ms. Morales pushed away the detector, which landed on a metal clamp holding one of the poles of the tent in place. Duldu attempted to lift the detector, but the device held on to the clamp.
"Check the home of Ms. Morales, Duldu," Zephairi ordered. Duldu lifted the metal detector off the tent's pole and walked away towards his tent to leave the device.
"My home? You can't do that, he can't do that, it's my home," said Ms. Morales.
"All the land here belongs to us, Ms. Morales," said Zephairi, "we can step anywhere in this place."
Ms. Morales was appalled that Zephairi was planning to dismantle the large pyramid. According to her, the finding belonged to Miradorcito. The Mayan Mysteries were older than the Egyptian Mysteries, and the Mayans had brought their religion and wisdom to Egypt. Therefore, Egyptian pyramids came from Mayan pyramids.
"No, let me show you how it happened," said Zephairi.
Zephairi led Ms. Morales into his tent, followed by Lanai, Kish and Clarity. The Egyptologist drew a map on a blank sheet of paper, explaining that America was geographically united at some point in the past, with the Old World, Europe and Africa, through a lost continent known as Atlantis. According to him, the Egyptian Mysteries were older, an
d Egypt had spread them to Mesoamerica, the land between North and South America.
"We disagree, Mr. Zephairi. We disagree strongly, we were here first."
Flower came inside Zephairi's tent, holding a marble toucan similar to the one that Ms. Morales owned, and joined the conversation. She enjoyed her work, digging below stela B to find any trace of a Mayan codex, but she didn't enjoy it when Zephairi wasn't working as well to encourage her.
"Are you explaining the Egyptian-Mayan relationship that we hope to find in the codex here?" Zephairi glared at Flower, who was not expected to share their findings with others on the site.
"What codex?" asked Ms. Morales.
Zephairi said nothing of the manuscript he was trying to find in the soil of Miradorcito, one that was mentioned in another well-known Mayan manuscript known as the Tro-Cortesianus codex, or Troano Codex. He was looking for a finding that had eluded archaeologists and ethnographers ever since British-American antiquarian Auguste Le Plongeon had photographed and documented entire Mayan buildings at Yucatan sites Uxmal and Chichen Itza. Le Plongeon had attempted to translate the Troano Codex, and believed that there were links between the Mayas and the lost continent of Atlantis, itself a link with the pyramids of Egypt. Le Plongeon's theory had survived over one hundred years in alternative beliefs derived from occult knowledge and theosophy. This particular fact, Zephairi was not sharing with anyone, for no one would give credibility to an archaeologist who believed in the occult, and Zephairi was such a man.
Zephairi scratched his head, wondering what to say next. He believed the opposite of Le Plongeon's theory, thinking that Egypt was the cradle of civilization, which had then spread to the Mayas through Atlantis. In any event, he thought that the Mayan codex of Xuleiha, mentioned in the Troano codex, held one of the secrets of the Mayas, why its civilization had suddenly vanished. That was a discovery worth making, and one that would put him and Egypt on the map of archaeological fame and fortune.
Ms. Morales pressed the question of the Codex on Zephari, but Duldu stepped inside the tent with the wooden toucan, completely burned by fire, the beak displaying a charcoaled black color.
"I found this," he said proudly.
"My toucan, my God, it's completely burned."
"This is what happens when keys don't show up."
"Well, truth be told, he took the toucan, he stole it," said Clarity.
Lanai looked at her friend as though she was saying something crazy. In Lanai’s opinion, it was crazy to face Zephairi or Duldu directly, for they were far more powerful than them. Duldu stared at Clarity, looking briefly in the direction of his detector, but refraining from taking it.
"Well, you can still use it to do prayers with it," said Duldu, looking at Ms. Morales.
"It's not the same," said Ms. Morales, "it's just not the same."
Clarity saw a look of powerlessness emerge briefly on the features of Ms. Morales. She turned to Flower.
"I want this marble toucan instead."
Zephairi took the bird made of stone from the hands of Flower, and gave it to Ms. Morales. He knew that there was a way to diffuse the conflict, as long as Duldu was not too close to the one creating it.
"You can have the toucan."
"It's my first finding," said Flower, "I was looking forward to keeping it."
"No, Ms. Morales is entitled to keep something from here, then she will leave the village and follow our generous proposal to live in Egypt."
Ms. Morales tapped on the marble toucan impatiently, shaking her head, meaning a definite no. Flower pouted briefly, wondering why everyone was in such a bad mood. Clarity mentioned the idea of the ecovillage to Ms. Morales, thinking that it was an appropriate time to discuss it in the presence of Zephairi.
"The ecovillage is not a good idea, there is no money and no advocates, stop bothering me with it," said Ms. Morales.
Holding the marble toucan close, Mrs Morales took one last look at the burned wooden toucan and left the tent. Clarity, Lanai and Kish immediately followed. Her rift with Ms. Morales was deepening, thought Clarity, brushing aside the metal detector, which Duldu was moving too close to her backside. She noticed that the local keeper of Mayan traditions, Ms. Morales, was weathering all hurts without being withered by the adversity of the situation. Despite being rejected and turned down as confident by Ms. Morales, Clarity admired the former head of the village. She longed for that kind of resilience in the face of deep problems, and wondered where Ms. Morales received such inner strength.