It Happen Around the Gulf of mexico - English version - Part Seven

PART SEVEN

     We descended from the pyramid temple, to the chambers below. Humidity and smell were impregnated in the stagnant air. We didn’t care about the enormous perspirations on our bodies, it was quite normal in this part of Mexico.

    We have been through an emotional day, when Maria and I descended earlier in the day to the chambers below, with the cameras following us.

    Now it was finally all for ourselves, to investigate the mysteries hidden there for so long.

    “Finally we had time to have a better view of our discoveries” I thought and at the same time I told Maria,

    “This funeral chamber is quite large with the sarcophagus in the centre of the room. The monument itself had been built from a large monolithic stone, and was quite heavy. It was impossible that they could have taken it down such a narrow stairway from the top of the pyramid. What you think Maria?”

    “You are right Charlie. It would have been ridiculous take the monument to the top of the pyramid and then down again such a narrow stairway, that barely has room for a person to walk down.”

     “They were sensible and ingenious people. They probably had built the pyramid up to this level, about one third of the total height. They then set in position the sarcophagus of Lord Pascal, and they built the funeral chamber with the other two communicating rooms, while at the same time they erected the walls of the pyramid.”

      “A masterpiece of engineering, considering they built it over a thousand years ago.”
      “You can see perfectly why it has been built in this way. They wanted Lord Pascal and the sarcophagus to remain inside the pyramid for ever.”

      “You are right again Charlie. The lid of the tomb itself it’s so bulky and heavy that it makes it impossible to go through the door of the chamber. Not even talking about all the rest.”

       “I believe it will take a long time to completely study what we have found. The lid itself is a masterpiece, and has so many details carved on it. I don’t want to say too much now, but it seems these pictures can offer different interpretations. The real meaning in that representation, most likely, is different from the first idea that it comes to the mind.”

    “I’m please you have touched on this point, Charlie. My first impression is of a cosmonaut in his capsule looking through a sort of periscope. But then the artistic mind could have seen that differently. They couldn’t possible have know the existence of extraterrestrial at that time. It would certainly take a lot of hard work. We will likely need to consult an expert of the Mayan mythology to properly study the representation carved in the stone.”

     “As usual Maria, your help is invaluable. What would I do without you?”

      “Do you want to know what you should do? You should really pay more attention to me and reward me for all that I’m doing. It’s not a complaint Charlie, at least not about the point of working together. We really are a good working team. I’m talking about our private lives. I thought that your invitation tonight to celebrate was something more sentimental. Since the good times when we had explored together the City of the Moon, over ten years ago, you have completely ignored me as a woman. Why Charlie?”

      “Sorry Maria, as usual you are right. Believe me I don’t do it on purpose. I have always liked you. It is only because I don’t want to create unnecessary talk here in the camp that can possibly discredit your woman’s reputation.”

      “Charlie, what you said is true, but this time in my life I don’t give a damn of what other people think about you and me. If this is the only problem, why don’t we marry? Remember you promised me in the past? Or have you forgotten all about?”

       “Well that was a long time ago, and we were still at the City of the Moon. But then things have changed. After I returned to Italy, during my holidays, I fell in love.

     “I was young and inexperience in love at that time. That bitch had married me only for my glory and my money, hoping for a good easy life. It didn’t take long and I found who she really was and the way she was running from one lover to the next. The same way she used to do before meeting me. I divorced her, but the humiliation is still with me. It was then that I took the decision not marry again.”

    “This is quite a story Charlie, why haven’t you told me all this before? I would have been sympathetic and understood you.”

     “I really should have, but this has always been such a hurdle in my conscience, and less I talked about it and the more at peace I was.”

      “Tell me Charlie, do you still love me and to what extent?”

       “Yes Maria, you have always been dear to me. At the same time I can honestly tell you I will never go back on my word and marry. It doesn’t matter how much I love another woman. This is the critical point that kept me away from you, my dear, and the reasons why I never approached you again as a lover. I didn’t want to disrupt the strict religious rules of your family and country. I never asked, and so I never been sure if you could accept my love without marriage.”

      “Yes for us Mexicans, matrimony is a great obligation. But if this was your only dilemma in loving me, why have you never asked me? First of all I am a woman Charlie. In the past ten years I have thought of you as my man, and patiently I have waited for you all this time. Now I want more from you, I cannot wait any longer Charlie. I want to spend my life with you, can’t you see that?”

     “Yes Maria.”

      “Come Charlie, Come to me now. I’m so warm inside. My body is craving for you. Come and love me once and forever. I cannot wait any longer. I want you now and here, Charlie. You will never be sorry to have and loved me. Damn, I don’t care if we don’t marry in a church and in front of a priest. God will understand me and will forgive my weakness.”

    Dawn was breaking when Maria and I returned, hand in hand, to the camp. The night had been long, and we had given way to the passions that had been repressed in us for so long. Maria, as always, was gentle and considerate to all my needs. Since the time we had made love in the cave of the City of the Moon, she had matured into a capable lover responding to all the desires of sexual abandonment and returned hers with deep felt enhanced moments of passion. Once more Maria was my lover. It was an intense sensation, sharing so much with her, in a complete cycle of communal life of work and love.

English Version Part seven

      Rick was extremely pleased to hear the news of the discovery of the tomb, but I withheld the importance of the find to him and the Mexican Government. I wanted to learn more of the secrets enclosed in the crypt of the pyramid.

     The discovery of Lord Pascal’s tomb accelerated the work we had asked for, so we could enjoy a more comfortable existence in the City of the Sun. The road construction was well under way connecting us to the Fisherman Island and two jeeps and one four-wheel drive truck, with a proper crane, for the heavy work been donated to us by other sponsors.

    We also had a generator capable to provide plenty of power for all our work and the air conditioning connected to the large working shed, the dormitory and two prefabricated cabins used by the occasional special guests. Even the hygienic facilities of the camp had been improved.

        At the pyramid we had built a system of ventilation to generate fresh air into the chambers below, where Maria and I spent many hours of delicate cleaning the magnificent wall murals in the funeral chamber to bring them back to their original splendor.

     The fresco was painted with the primitive pigmented colors, representing the daily life of Lord Pascal, in hunting scenes, the visits of dignitaries offering precious gifts, and other domestic representation of the ruler. All of them vividly illustrated how life was in the past. In the other chambers we found many treasures belonging to Lord Pascal, necessary things for his travel into a new life after death.

     Among the relicts was a valuable set of marble tiles, well polished and inscribed in the Mayan writing. It appeared to be a code of their ethics, which Maria was slowly translating. There was also a jade death mask of Lord Pascal, and several statuettes representing Mayan divinities with their faces adorned with masks of eagles and serpents.   

      Of great interest was a set of stone tablets detailing the two different calendars used by the Mayans, the usual one of three hundred and sixty-five days and the religious one of only two hundred and sixty days.

     To me, the most interesting and valuable piece of our discoveries, was Lord Pascal’s sarcophagus lid. It really was a puzzle, giving many possible interpretations depending of the ways we look at. It most likely represented their mythological credos.

      I needed to be more familiar with all the legends and the mythology of the Mayan people before I could reach some answers. I will have to ask someone’s help, to solve the riddles engraved in the various combinations of figures appearing on the lid.

   I enlarged the photos of the lid and with different highlighters I colored the possible combinations and grouped the figures in it, trying to read the mythological meanings. The real message written for posterity by the clever Mayan people in the past, continued to be hidden from me.

    I talk to Maria, about the dilemma.

    She said, “Only someone who knows all the prophecies and myths of the past can read the mind of the artist who conceived this masterpiece.  I’m sure this man is very close to us. He is not living oversea buried under tons of written paper. He is alive and close to us. He told us once, that he is the guardian of the City of the Sun and his legends. Have you forgotten about him?”

    “Of course, Maria, he is our Old Priest with supernatural powers. As usual I owe you for your ability to come up with the right answers to my problems.”

    “I know he is the right person to approach, he had become a friend to us. I will prepare some gifts for him and some offering to his Gods. When do you want to go and see him?”

   “I will get some notes ready and make a new set of prints of the sarcophagus lid for the Old Priest to examine. Anytime after tomorrow will be fine. We will stay a few days at the Fisherman Island, and in my spare time, while the Old Priest appeases his Gods, I will relax fishing. I would then like to take him back with us, for him to see the lid and give us his final thought.”

    We had to postpone our going to Fisherman Islands, because when we returned to camp an E-mail from Rick Sullivan was waiting for me,

   “Finally I can break away from my commitments for a full week. I know something important has happened in the City of the Sun, but as usual, you are saying so little. I’ll fly over next Wednesday. With me will be another important guest. Hope you will have some special gift ready for the new Texana museum which we are opening soon in Dallas. Your partner. Rick.”

   After a lot of red tape, the Texana oil, had received approval from the Mexican Government to set up a public gallery of Mayan art in Dallas. The pieces exposed in the gallery would come as a goodwill gift from the Mexican Government, to thank Texana for the enormous capital injected into the exploration and excavation of the City of the Sun.

   Both Rick Sullivan for Texana and the Mexican Government thought they had the best part of the deal. Rick, in receiving such invaluable works of art, to make possible a permanent exposition of Mayan art at the new Texana art gallery, and the Mexican Government to have such enormous heritage treasures, an entire new Mayan city, at nearly no cost.