The Mysterious Treasure Of Rome. Juan Moisés De La Serna

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      CHAPTER 1. THE DESIRED JOURNEY

      If somebody had told me, I would not have believed it. Who could have told me that a last-minute trip could end up becoming my greatest adventure, and that thanks to that trip I would be able to save the life of the person who later on would be my wife for thirty happy years? Sometimes my memory plays tricks on me, and I find it difficult to remember places or dates. That is why I am going to tell the facts as accurately as possible, so that this text serves me as a diary.

      In my life, as I suppose in everybody’s, I have had many good and happy moments and also difficult and sad ones, but none as important as what happened to me that week, that shaped so much my way of thinking and my future.

      Long time ago a friend of mine convinced me to leave my memoirs in writing, but it is not until these last days that I have decided to do so. Maybe I had not done it before out of laziness, or maybe because I believed that I still had many years ahead of me, but now it is different…

      No one has told me how to do it and I am not sure everything will work out well. I may even fail to include many details. I could also confuse the names, but my mind is clear about the events that happened to me.

      Since I just turned eighty, I now realize that much of the emotions lived those days were probably and largely the result of my inexperience and ignorance, which is something I have gradually learned and understood after my subsequent explorations and travels.

      My room, full of photos and souvenirs such as statues and miniature monuments, and carpets embroidered with local themes, always brings me back to some of the many places where I have lived.

      If you were to ask me where I come from, I would not be able to answer precisely. Looking at my passport I see the place and day when I saw the light for the first time, but then… I have lived in so many cities and continents, sometimes staying for three months, sometimes for years. Everywhere I have done my best to team up and help, as much as I had been able to.

      That is why along all those years I have been found worthy of a couple of medals and some other recognitions, although for me the best thanks for my work is what I have seen day after day in the faces of my students, in the happiness in their faces that equally reflected illusion, desires and hope.

      My dear students…!, they have always been my great source of inspiration, although on several occasions, as I have told you, I think they have not totally believed what I was telling them, but from them I have learned more than what they may have been able to get out of me.

      Well, I am deviating, everything at its time, because I do not intend to tell my whole life, but only to record, almost as a manifesto, what undoubtedly was the most intense and important period of all the years that I have lived.

      It was early morning, on a summer day…no, perhaps it was spring!, now I remember that one of my fellow travelers was still affected, not to say intoxicated, after the recent celebration of what they now call the Spring Break, that gathered so many young people on campus.

      Although not all of us were students, we certainly knew how to party, with music and dances, sharing and partaking with friends a moment of recreation, away from the pressure of the studies and the restriction of the classes.

      There was even someone who had brought something to snack on, prepared by his mother, lucky him!, he could still enjoy the delicacies of the family kitchen and not like most of us who were forced to eat on campus those flavorless dishes, which tasted like hospital food.

      Campus food, despite being well cooked or stewed, was always tasteless and every day it tasted the same, even though they changed the menu to feed us well, with a proper nutritional balance suited for our constant physical and intellectual activity. However, no matter how much variety they tried, they cooked it without that shred of love and affection that our mothers added, which is the secret seasonings of any great cook.

      However, not everyone had the same fun. The crazier fellows downed their beers as if they were drinking water from the fountain, beer they had brought in those barrels, even knowing that was forbidden.

      The rest of us, a little more aware that we had classes in the afternoon, limited ourselves to enjoy the moment, without indulging in excesses.

      At the end, I had to take to his room one of our companions who had drank too much. All of them had a strong stench of beer. They would not have been able to make it to their rooms, since their legs could not even stand their own weight.

      Even more, when they tried to walk on their own, they would stagger for a few short steps until they suddenly fell down. Then, they sat on the floor, as babies learning to walk, without being able to advance more than a couple of feet.

      That while they repeatedly babbled, once and again, saying they had to return to their rooms. It was as if the guilt had taken hold of their minds, and they could not see that they could not walk any further. It was impossible to reason with them, to convince them to remain seated until the dizziness was over, and they could undertake the almost impossible mission to return by themselves to their rooms.

      A disgraceful view for some great athletes, which some of them were, to see how they now were unable to stand up for more than a few minutes.

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