“The Mysterious Treasure of Rome”
Written by Juan Moisés De la Serna
Translated by Eduardo Jiménez López
1st Edition: May 2020
© Juan Moisés De la Serna, 2020
© Tektime Editions, 2020
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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.
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.
