Chapter Thirteen
Zephairi spent the night rambling, delirious in his trance, thinking that the God of rain Tlaloc was asking him to build a rainproof roof for the gambling amphitheater. Clarity watched Zephairi get up several times, and the Egyptologist attempted to reach for an imaginary miter above her head. Clarity, who didn't want to upset Zephairi, let him think that she was a Mayan goddess who had learned to speak English. Zephairi was satisfied with Clarity's answer and lied down in his bed. Turbina corymbosa was a powerful mixture that led to delusion, not very pleasant thought Clarity. Zephairi's words of nonsense made Clarity aware of how fragile a person's inner balance could be, and as a result, she became more lenient towards the shortcomings she perceived in others or the disagreements, which could arise between her and her friends. In a whim of generosity, Clarity decided to forgive her differences with Lanai and donate the underwear she had lent to her friend. For some reason, she thought that it would allow Lanai to share more confidences about the knowledge kept secret by Ms. Morales, and that it might get rid of their disagreements regarding the effects of gambling on a person.
"No, I don't want to keep it, I'll give it back to you," said Lanai.
"You don't have to," said Clarity. The head of Zephairi lifted upward with his arms reaching for Clarity's head, looking again for her imaginary miter. Clarity used the palm of her hand to press Zephairi's head down on his pillow.
"I don't want to owe you anything," said the librarian.
"I don't like disagreeing with you on things, it's creating a rift between us. This gift of underwear is like bonding for me, I'll feel closer to you if you accept it."
"No, we'll be all right, disagreement is not a bad thing, if everyone thought the same way it would be boring to talk. I'll return the underwear, no worries."
Clarity nodded, accepting her friend’s wishes. She knew friendship was more complex than giving away a piece of intimate clothing to re-instill trust or a sense of closeness, and suddenly felt that there was no need to feel any sense of rivalry with Lanai. It only divided their friendship. However, in the end, sharing a piece of clothing still made her feel closer to her librarian friend. Clarity took a warm cloth and wiped the sweat off of Zephairi’s forehead and began thinking about the next stage of her life. What would come after this adventure in Miradorcito? Lanai had considered returning to Malibu with her, and was hoping to work at the Malibu library, but the head librarian, Mrs. Marples, had informed her earlier that day, during a phone call, that there were currently no jobs available. As a result, Lanai was thinking of staying in Mexico, or possibly returning to working at the City of Wellington, the ocean liner that hired live entertainers to speak with the tourists cruising from Los Angeles to Acapulco.
Clarity enjoyed her work on the ocean liner, but Brock Cheevers wanted her to come back to Malibu and the teleoperator didn't know what to do, whether to return home or work at the City of Wellington again? She liked Brock, and in a sense, he was a mentor in addition to being a friend. Brock was the one who had given her a one hundred dollar voucher for her twenty fifth birthday, and he eagerly offered counsel to her to trade on ebay the gifts she would buy in exchange for the voucher and invest the proceeds on her account in shares of Google, Amazon or Apple. He wanted her attention by showing her how good he was with managing money. But the suggestion of investing the voucher money sort of spoiled things for Clarity, who saw her twenty fifth birthday as a special occasion to celebrate and buy something she liked, not to invest in a company Brock saw as good. A share of Amazon was worth nearly three hundred dollars, it was unattainable; that sum represented three vouchers, or three years of receiving one hundred dollar vouchers. Investing in Amazon would probably have to wait three years, at the very least, but Brock had taught her to keep money in the back of her mind.
While everyone around her posted photos on Instagram or kept sending messages on Snapchat, thinking only about their social lives, Brock studied the markets. She found that somewhat odd, because Brock wasn't a specialist of financial markets, his line of work was human resources. But apparently, according to him, markets were not that difficult to figure out, and he was simply trying to find a way to turn his money earned at work, into more money. She found the idea of building something over time of interest, and she also found the idea of saving something for a rainy day, wise. That is why she usually listened to what Brock had to say on the topic. On the other hand, she wasn't thinking that much about money, because, at twenty five, she wasn't particularly attached to money, or in turning money into more money. She thought of life more as painting, a picture rather than doing a sum, and she valued her spare time, because her job as teleoperator was not that interesting, it was all right, but also routine, somewhat repetitive.
And so Clarity enjoyed being sociable, she simply didn't like some of the superficial aspects, which came with social networks. People were more than a photo on Instagram, and she wasn't really buying into the whole idea of having followers and creating her own personal micro star system. Still, she needed to make a living, and having people around her as contacts, part of her own social cum professional network, could be handy at some point in her work; or if she wanted to change her line of work.
Clarity knew that she wasn't making a lot of money as teleoperator, and she agreed with Brock on the fact or idea that money was important, or at least relevant. Brock also offered a future for her, a future in Malibu, possibly as his wife, with a lesser need to make money, because Brock made good money. Clarity found this somewhat unsettling, reassuring that it was a future available and present for her in Malibu, that Brock was there for her, but stifling also in a sense. She wasn't ready to settle down and Brock was a mellow dude, with no interest in traveling outside Southern California. The thought of settling too soon and living a boring life, partly dependent on someone else's earnings unsettled her thinking. Money. All of the problems in life seemed to always hover around the issue of money. Clarity turned her attention to a decrepit closet kept half closed by Kish, holding broken pieces of wood that had belonged to the loom over time. Money was certainly a problem in Miradorcito.
Lanai and Flower kept Zephairi company all night, and watched as Duldu reassured the Egyptologist that the visions he was having, of long queues of tourists at Xuleiha were not real. Neither was an imaginary gambling debt of three million, five hundred sixty three thousand and twenty three dollars that Zephairi kept thinking he owed, after losing the game against Kish. Flower threw a look of worry at her boss every now and then, thinking that her pay as ethnographer was in jeopardy if the Egyptologist didn't recover from his trance.
The effect of the Turbina corymbosa mixture lasted several hours, and in the morning, when the effects of the trance had passed, Zephairi became angry that Kish had turned his ploy to lead the craftsman into a trance against him. He began cursing in Egyptian about pyramid stones being thrown to the top of the pyramids in Egypt even if the whole pyramid crumbled. Kish would not stand in the way of his pact with Fahibian to turn the ballcourt into a gambling amphitheater. Around mid morning, Duldu brought him worse news.
"There's an uproar in Mexican national newspapers, look, Parmerin spoke already."
Fahibian's henchman carried a number of popular Mexican newspapers, and pointed to several articles on La Cronica de Hoy, El Universal, El Financiero, Vanguardia, and El Debate that featured a profile of Ricardo Parmerin, denouncing irregularities in the Ethnoconservation and Ecology project being carried out by the governor of Campeche.
According to a testimony by a local woman from Miradorcito who had chosen to remain anonymous, said Parmerin in the interview, the community of Miradorcito has been savagely bullied into abandoning their poor homes in the area, being transferred like a herd of sheep by a ruthless Egyptologist named Akhris Zephairi to a merry-go-round of tourist attractions in Egypt, as if they were performers in a circus. In addition, construction work has begun to build a gambling resort in the area, going against our rec
ommendation to build an ecovillage, which will pave the ground for a sustainable economy. The conclusion of the environmental impact report states clearly that added sewage pollution, noise for the gambling facilities, and the precarious economic situation created by those who do not have enough education to gamble responsibly, make the gambling resort a poor decision. As a result, the inhabitants of Miradorcito should be the ones who decide the future of their community in a referendum that will take place after they are informed of the environmental impact report. The Mexican Ethnoconservation and Ecology Institute will use all of its means to stop this rural bullying and prevent foreigners like Mr. Zephairi and real estate developer Mr. Fahibian from preserving our heritage stemming from the great Mayan culture, which has unfortunately disappeared for unknown reasons still being sought and searched by archaeologists and groups like ours worldwide.
Clarity sensed that her initiative to seek publicity and defend the interests of the members of Miradorcito was creating a battle for ownership of the land, and that Zephairi was losing patience with all the unwanted visits his site was receiving. Over the next few days, journalists made their way to the site of Xuleiha hoping to find out more about the anonymous person that Parmerin had met with, in order to obtain interviews themselves. While Lanai was busy listening to Ms. Morales being interviewed by Parmerin for journalists from Reforma and El Norte, Clarity searched Lanai’s diary for clues about the codex found by Zephairi. In the diary, Lanai had written that the codex illustrated a staircase with hieroglyphics, belonging to a smaller pyramid facing the large pyramid in Xuleiha.
Seven days after Parmerin had reached Miradorcito, Flower came into her tent to wake her up with an article in the newspaper El Informador.
"Look, the National Institute for Anthropology and History is responding to Parmerin's article."
Clarity read the news, using the Spanish she had learned on her own in Los Angeles, watching Spanish-speaking television stations and practicing with the legal counsel of Stevenson Garden Products, Ms. Lareya Marquez. The article interviewed Mr. Cervera who wrote that the National Institute for Anthropology and History disagrees strongly with the opinion of the Institute for Ethnoconservation and Ecology concerning the future of the village of Miradorcito in Campeche. Our market studies indicate that the community of Miradorcito will benefit strongly from a gaming resort. That it will not only boost the local economy by providing jobs, but also increase the finances of the state of Campeche, through gambling tourism visits to Miradorcito and the Mayan remains found there of the ancient city of Xuleiha. In our view, these benefits far outweigh the costs and problems mentioned in the environmental impact report.
After reading the favorable news, Zephairi and Duldu got up and rallied several construction workers to throw Ms. Morales, Parmerin, Kish and Clarity out of the campground. Their reasoning was that the annoying inhabitants were dangerous for the future of Xuleiha as gaming and Mayan attraction resort. A group of twenty construction workers surrounded the tents. Parmerin was the first to surrender but Ms. Morales and Kish soon followed. Clarity stood by Ms. Morales, while Lanai decided to side with the gambling project and Flower stayed by the side of his boss, Zeph.
"Get rid of the home of the craftsman, Duldu,” said Zephairi, “use one of the small excavators."
"My loom," said Kish.
"His loom," said Clarity.
"My God," said Ms. Morales, "I mean my toucan." She reached for the toucan in Lanai's hand, but Duldu stood in the way.
"Your toucan is safe with me," said Lanai, seeing Duldu push her away from Ms. Morales, "it simply favors the gaming resort."
Clarity ran with Kish towards a haul truck nearby and turned the keys to turn on the engine. They drove the truck to Kish's hut, wrecking several electronic video lottery terminals that were being used by Clarity's friends; honking to warn tourists to get out of the way.
"Are you coming with us?" Clarity asked her friends. "An injustice is being carried out against the members of Miradorcito."
"No, we like it here," said Cynthia. Jenna and Taimi nodded, looking intriguingly at a Cleopatra slot machine screen showing three portraits of the Egyptian queen. Clarity glanced away from them and immediately noticed several construction workers running towards them.
"Pull the plugs of the video terminals and throw the machines at them."
Clarity's friends liked the idea of creating a scene with the gaming machines, which according to them, were not working properly, because they weren't giving payouts. They pulled on several plugs and pushed the slot machines against the construction workers. Clarity hauled Kish’s loom into the truck and drove backwards to where Ms. Morales was standing with Parmerin, picking them up.
"My loom is safe," said Kish.
"What do we do now?" said Ms. Morales.
"Pick up a few tents and leave Xuleiha, we'll camp outside," said Clarity. She stepped out of the truck and dismantled several tents, picking up the poles and giving them to Kish, who placed them in the haul area of the truck, with his loom. Zephairi was frantically giving orders to prevent the site rebels from reaching his own tent. He yelled to a group of construction workers to begin dismantling the large pyramid and place its stones on large haul trucks prepared to drive to Cancún, where an archaeological cargo plane from Egyptair awaited to carry the Mayan ruins to Egypt. Clarity had no intention to destroy or dismantle anything; she just wanted to leave before things got messy with the construction workers running towards them. She pressed the accelerator of their vehicle and the truck drove past the sentinel turret and continued for fifteen minutes before stopping in a forest clearing.
That night, Clarity and those who had escaped with her, all slept in the same tent. Clarity slept next to Ms. Morales, who kept reaching for her arm, thinking it was her toucan. The following day, Ms. Morales was stern, she missed her marble toucan and she complained about the savage attack that had befallen on her most prized possession. Everyone had an agenda for the day that differed from the others.
"But we have to recover the marble toucan!" said Ms. Morales.
"I want to do some archaeological research in Xuleiha, there's an important finding in the smaller pyramid I think," said Clarity.
"We need to get back inside Miradorcito," said Parmerin, "and fight for its ecovillage."
"I'll stay here and work,” said Kish, as he reached over to his loom and noticed one of the mechanical parts was broken. Without it, it was impossible to make any more huipiles. Kish waved his arms for several minutes, trying to repair the broken piece, but the loom refused to work properly. It was genuinely broken. He and the others spent all day trying to fix it, but after hours of work, the loom was not working.
As the sun dipped below the horizon and the evening settled in, Kish became restless. "My loom is broken, this changes things," said Kish, "I need to get back into the site, right now, into Miradorcito." Clarity noticed that the craftsman's level of courage, bolstered by his animosity, was unusually high.
"Right now?" asked Clarity.
"Right now," said Kish, "or right after dinner, with a full stomach."
After a frugal dinner, Clarity and Kish headed back towards Miradorcito. She pointed the flashlight in front of her, barely keeping pace with Kish, who was impatient to get back to his village. After walking two miles or so, they entered the archaeological site from the west side and Clarity stopped before they reached the tent area of Zephairi.
"What are you looking for?"
"Explosives, I know Duldu used explosives to break the dam, I want to use them as well."
"To blow up Duldu’s tent?"
"To blow up the large pyramid before it is dismantled tomorrow. No one touches my loom or the pyramid of my ancestors."
Clarity tried to change the craftsman’s mind, but Kish kept insisting that no foreign country would get hold of Mayan remains and no tourists would visit the pyramid while he was out of work. Clarity sighed and breathed out, thinking that the ruins did belong in
Mexico. She used a knife to rip through the back of the explosives tent and Kish brought back several blocks of Semtex H explosive and its blasting caps. They ran towards the large pyramid, which was unguarded, and Kish placed the plastic, stable explosive in place on the four corners of the pyramid.
"Can you wait for a few minutes before blowing the pyramid? I have to make a discovery in the pyramid across," said Clarity. Kish looked at his wrist but he had no watch, because he had no money to buy a watch. Still, it was professional to look at a watch before setting off explosives, and he liked the thought of impressing Clarity.
"All right, don't be too long," said the craftsman.
Clarity ran to the smaller pyramid and began climbing the steps. There were thirty steps and atop the last step was the symbol mentioned in the codex and in the notes of Lanai's diary. It was the symbol for zero that the Mayas used and had discovered. Zero, perfection, a cycle, the end of a cycle, what could possibly be meant by it, and why was it at the top of the pyramid? Clarity didn't know, but it was a good topic for a Mayan exhibit, and surely one that could create a job for Lanai at the Malibu library. If Ms. Morales wasn't confiding the secrets of the Mayan Mysteries to Clarity, there was no way that Lanai was getting any more of that knowledge. Clarity's thinking took a bold step forward. She wanted to go home, back to Malibu, and the librarian was going back to California with her, as long as she could convince Lanai and Mrs. Marples that a Mayan exhibit would be worthwhile for the library of Malibu. That would be the end of the feud with Lanai about the future of Miradorcito, and it would mean the recovery of their lost friendship, created by a divergence in opinion about the effects of gambling on people.
Clarity rubbed her fingers along the Mayan symbol for zero, a number also present in the game of roulette reserved for the bank in a betting resort. For the Mayas, the notion of zero may have been associated with perfection, a cycle, and wisdom, but probably not with throwing away money. It was clear to Clarity that many people who gambled were unprepared to play any games of chance, but were led to play away their savings by the glamour of a gambling resort and the lure of some imaginary wealth falling from the sky, or a roulette table. Not exactly a delusion like the ones Turbina corymbosa could create, but more like a misconception or misconstruction about the real nature of things. She began a careful descent down the steps of the pyramid, looking across the ballgame court at the large pyramid lined with explosives. Kish was right in defending his loom, he had the correct logic for Miradorcito, to protect it and lead it away from gambling. His particular view of community suddenly seemed reasonable; as did all the stubbornness the craftsman had shown in refusing to deal or compromise with Zephairi or Fahibian. It had turned him from a passive worker, disempowered by Zephairi, who wanted him to change his line of work and abandon his identity as craftsman, into an agent of change. Kish wanted to change things in order to remain a craftsman, quietly living his life with his loom, but empowered by the nature of his work, and sole owner of his own living and sustenance.