The Pyramid Read online

  “Two hundred-odd stones . . .” Cheops repeated. “But that means it’s almost finished!”

  The shout of joy that should have been uttered with these words turned into a shudder of fear. He tried to smile, but his lower lip would not budge.

  “Two hundred and a few stones,” he rearticulated in his mind. “How awful!”

  Dust whirled up into the sky with ever greater force.

  “A sandstorm is on the way,” said Cheops.

  Inside the palace the wind’s whistling could not be heard quite so clearly. It was more like a rumble or a man’s death-rattle. If someone had not thought to put away the papyri that Cheops had left on the balcony, they would surely have been blown far away.

  Actually, he thought, the scrolls could go to hell.

  Sand and rumblings, that’s Egypt for you, his father Seneferu had told him the day before he died. If you master them, you master the country. The rest is just fiction.

  It was especially when storms of this kind broke that these words came back to him. He listened absentmindedly to the roaring moan outside. It was as if Egypt in its wild-eyed, convulsed entirety, stirred up by the wind, was howling curses at him. He too wanted to yell: “To death with you! What demon has taken hold of you, O my mad kingdom?”

  VII

  Chronicle of Construction

  Chronicle of Construction: fifth step, from the one hundred and ninety-seventh to the one hundred and ninetieth stone. From the report of Controller-General Isesi.

  ONE HUNDRED and ninety-seventh stone, from the Aswan quarry. Nothing particular to report. Time taken to hoist to head of ramp: normal. Soldiers’ graffiti: no political significance, (Two vulgar words referring to female genitalia, one of an affectionate, the other of a repulsive nature,) No veining or other specific marks. One hundred and ninety-sixth stone. From the Karnak quarry. Difficulties in raising, SALS (seal authorizing laying of stone) in order. Ordinary graffiti: penis. Nothing else to report. Stonelayer Sebu’s impression of having heard a groan from inside the block was unfounded,, One hundred and ninety-fifth stone. From El Bersheh quarry. Hoisting delayed owing to suicide of head stonelayer Hapidjefa. Tricked his workers into letting him use the stone to end his days. (“Leave this side to me, PU take care of it while you have a break.”) Following the west-face magician’s instructions, the block was rotated so that the death-stained side faces outward. The sun’s rays will bleach the evil out of it—presuming it has indeed been contaminated by Hapidjefa’s soul. One hundred and ninety-fourth block. From El Bersheh quarry. Caused the death of four men in the desert. In very obscure circumstances. Despite this, hoisting was straightforward. Seal and other documentation in order. No problems in placing it, apart from last-minute loss of one of stonelayer Thep’s hands. His own fault. One hundred and ninety-third stone. From the Karnak quarry. Seal in order. But setting delayed by graffiti reckoned by some to be insignificant but by others to be politically inspired. Transcribed as per rules and sent on down (that is to say, to a higher place). Copy taken for the Security. Another copy to CBPP (Central Bureau—Pharaoh’s Palace). One hundred and ninety-second stone. From Aswan quarry. Despite having no special signs, proved difficult to hoist. Indirect cause of the crushing and subsequent death of carver Shehsh. (For reasons not known, he had spat on it as it passed step one hundred.) One hundred and ninety-first stone. From the quarry at Thebes. One face speckled black. Returned to quarry by special order. During its return to its place of extraction, it obstructed the ramp for half a day. But caused no deaths. The seal-bearer maintained that the speckling had appeared during hoisting. One hundred and ninety-first stone, substituted for the preceding. From the quarry at Illahun. Nicknamed “Ruddy” during hoisting because of its reddish stains and veins. Nothing special to report. Time taken for raising: normal, Graffiti of no interest. One hundred and ninetieth stone. From Abusir quarry. Nothing particular to report.

  Chronicle of Construction: third step, from the forty-seventh to the forty-fourth stone. From Security records. Marginal notes added by CBPP.

  Forty-seventh stone. From Aswan quarry. Double check carried out as per latest instructions. Swearing heard during haulage: “You should burst like my heart!” “You should be smashed to smithereens!” “You should fall into the abyss!” Blessings heard: “Thank fate to have placed, you on this peak!” “I wish you a long life of stone!” SALS in order. Magician’s authorization ditto. No problem in hoisting. No graffiti. Forty-sixth stone. From Karnak quarry. A reliable seam. Cursing and praising in roughly equal measure. One of the latter kind of expressions—I sacrificed my son to the pyramid with joy—alludes to an accident that occurred during unloading of the stone. No graffiti. They have disappeared as a result of improved surveillance., a very successful measure. Forty-fifth stone. From Karnak quarry. Same curses as for the others (“You should tip off the top,” “You should disappear into the void,” etc.); praise similarly standard. Some confusion during raising because of Setka, the idiot that the foreman had permitted to sit astride the stone, shouting “Giddy-up, old nag!” The hullabaloo was thought to be of no consequence. Everything else normal [Marginal note: the idiot’s ranting may have been of no con-sequence, but some of his utterances had a double meaning, For instance, some of the urgings he uttered as he whipped the flank of the block: “ Whoa, you filthy animal, get on with it!” “You’re in luck, you are, to be going up so high!” “Where lie your father and mother? Down there, right at the bottom!” “Get a move on, slowpoke, what’s holding you up, do you mean to say you don’t want to get hoisted right up to the top? Did you think you were going to be the pyra-midion? Poor old dimwit.. .” Subsequently, after the idiot had been made to come down, he blurted out these mysterious words: “This pyramid will grow a beard one day!” Despite a full day of the rack and a beating, he provided no further explanation,] Forty-fourth stone. From El Bersheh quarry. The only one of the four stones that fell into the Nile to have been recovered. Whence its nickname of Drownee. As for the rest, seals, second check, duration of hoist, laying—no problems.

  Chronicle of Construction: penultimate step, from the ninth to the fifth stone. Extract from the records of the CBPP.

  Ninth stone. Hewn at Abu Gurob, on the borders of Libya and Egypt. Seals in order but authority to lay held up by a denunciation. Suspicions that the stone had been switched during haulage. The stone was alleged to have been replaced by another taken not from the said quarry but from an old pyramid. Investigation demonstrated that the accusation was false. Eighth stone, from the same quarry. Of outstanding quality, like all stone cut at Abu Gurob. Which explains the jealousy that these stones arouse. First wind of denunciation at the quarry itself. Followed the stone to Medinet MahdL You might have thought that it would have faded away once the stone had been loaded onto the raft for the Nile crossing. But not a bit. It tracked it all along the river-bank and reattached itself to the stone when it was unloaded on shore. And it went on until investigation established that there was no foundation at all for the suspicion. Seventh stone. Also from Abu Gurob. Variously nicknamed Wild One, Blackstone, Bad’un. Also dozens of other nicknames after falling. Reasons for the slip not clarified. From the penultimate to the fifth step, it slid back down the ramp quite slowly, so it was first thought that it could be stopped. But once it reached the ninth step it began to accelerate. Crushed its first victims at the level of step eleven. Around step fourteen, it just went mad. Left the ramp, and, making an infernal racket, tumbled down along the pyramid face itself. The entire northern arris was badly shaken. At step nineteen panic broke out. At step one hundred and twenty-four, where the numbering reverses, it split in two. One half went off toward the right, the other carried on down. Ninety-two dead in all, not counting the injured. Other damage incalculable. Day of mourning for the pyramid. Sixth stone. From Saqqara quarry. Though it killed two men, it was an angel compared to its predecessor. Whence its nickname of Good Stone. Fifth stone. Also from Saqqara. Nothing in particular to report.
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  Appendix: re stone seven. From the Pharaoh’s Special Envoy marked “Top Secret” in red.

  Discovering the true causes of the fall of the seventh stone is of the utmost importance for the State. In the account of the actual facts there are contradictions that arouse suspicion. The team undertaking the investigation is paying particular attention to the following points; causes of the slip (were real attempts made to stop it while it was still possible to do so, or did people turn a blind eye?); precise description of the trajectory; reactions of men on site; acts of heroism and/or cries of fear (“The pyramid is collapsing!”); other suspect reflections (“The higher you go, the harder you fall,” etc.).

  Report of the Commission of Inquiry.

  There is no lead on this seventh stone, neither from the quarry, nor through the usual channels of denunciation, including those used, mostly anonymously, by land-based and waterborne hauler. The start of the slip was almost imperceptible, to the extent that the builders leaning on it did not even feel it beginning to move. Head stonelayer Sham was the first to remark-. “But what’s going on, this stone feels as though it’s shifting!” The others thought he was joking, and teased him back: “Hey, you must have pushed it”—”No, it was you,” etc. A moment later when they realized that the stone was indeed on the move they tried to stop it with their bare hands, but to no avail. Then head stonelayer Sham, realizing that he had no grappling iron to hand, hurried to get one to slip it under the block. The others set to as well, but too late. The stone sent all the hooks flying and, as if increasingly angry, rushed headlong. It began to zigzag on the ramp at the level of step ten and began its massacre at step eleven. At step thirteen foreman Thut put himself in its path and yelled: “Long live the Pharaoh!” But he was crushed to pulp. One of his hands was torn off and went flying through the air, which only exacerbated the panic. When it reached step fourteen the stone left the ramp and went into free fall It was at that point that stonelayer Debehen began to howl: “The pyramid is collapsing!” For reasons unknown he then hurled himself at the foreman and bit his throat. Others began rushing about in all directions as during an earth-quake, but they were in such a state of terror that some of them, far from evading the stone, found themselves in its path and got crushed. By step twenty the bloodstains on the masonry block could be seen from far away; lumps of flesh and hair rained down with it as it fell. In fact it was not at step one hundred and twenty but slightly before that it split in two, and the witnesses who adamantly insist that it split at the precise point where what is called celestial numbering begins are either the victims of pure chance or the tools of some dark political design. The investigation continues.

  VIII

  Hearing the Summit

  AS THE hot season set in, the view of the pyramid rapidly altered. The ramps were taken down one by one, laying bare the dizzyingly steep sides of the monument itself. Only one hoisting track was left in place, the one that would be used for the last four stones and for the king-piece itself, the pyramidion.

  In due course the area surrounding the base was cleared. The barracks that had served as the stonelayers’ sleeping quarters were dismantled, as were the redundant storerooms, messes, and stalls. Broken stones were gathered up and carted away every day together with reed-ropes, planks, broken winches, grappling tools, and all sorts of now useless rubbish.

  The dust cloud over the building site began to lighten. But the sense of relief that resulted was not caused by the color of the sky alone. A new brightness spread in stages to the surrounding area, reached the capital, and even pushed on farther, to those remote provinces that good news, unlike bad, never reaches very fast.

  Meanwhile the first taverns reopened, if rather hesitantly. Here and there, houses began to sport their numbers again. (It was rumored at the start that they had been removed to stop people finding their friends’ dwellings, and so to prevent the holding of dinner parties.) It became increasingly normal to see charcoal graffiti saying, ”We’ve built the pyramid! Now let’s have some fun!”

  Passersby nodded their heads. About time too, they said.

  The flame of joy flickered but would not crackle, as if the logs in the hearth were still too green.

  A single stone that had come adrift and tumbled down from the penultimate step had been enough to bring everything to a halt. Even without the investigation that the accident caused, those would have been very gloomy times. People felt that ancient, probably already dead afternoons had returned to cast their drab and guilt-laden light over them. Others imagined they were reliving a previous season. But even then they did not doubt that once the pyramid had been completed their field of vision would grow clearer and that things would find their right places again.

  All the same the order to hoist up the last four pieces had still not come. Nor was there any mention of setting the pyramidion. It was allegedly being covered in gold leaf in some secret temple.

  At dusk the ramp that would be used to push it up to the vertex looked like a fragile wire along which only spirits could travel.

  Around the hut where the last four pieces had been stored and which was now guarded by sentries, god knows why, people could barely hide their amusement. To be sure, these stones were more important than the others, since the pyramidion itself would stand directly on them, but all the same, they were only bits of stone, not ministers, to be guarded like that! Others thought quite the opposite, that ministers were only transitory things, whereas those blocks of stone would live on until the end of time.

  The four last stones and the pyramidion were referred to as if they were living people. The quarry of origin of one of them was even kept secret. On its delivery, so the story went, it was still bloodstained from the body of a man it had crushed on the way. So what, some people said, even if it has killed a man! We all know that the journey from a quarry to the pyramid is not an afternoon stroll!

  People with business in the capital came back full of news. New bars had opened, there was more and more writing on the walls. Today’s youngsters, they said, young lads born at about the time construction started, were almost fearless. They had still been kids when the first step had been laid, so they had no knowledge of the first and most terrible stage of the work, before the pyramid had become visible.

  Most people thought that that earliest phase was indeed the one that had been the most soul-destroying. Thereafter, as it came out of the depths, the pyramid had become less fearsome. It was even so obvious that when the youngsters reproached their parents for having been over-fearful, the older generation replied: “ You are only saying that because you have no idea of what a pyramid is like before it can be seen.” The young folk shook their heads in disbelief. They would have found the opposite more credible.

  The notion that the pyramid had become less frightening as it had become more visible was perhaps the source of a wave of nostalgia for the first phase of the building work that spread among the stalwarts of the State, and particularly among old pyramid hands. Young people enjoyed poking fun at the veterans’ hopes that the good old days would return, “So are you waiting for the pyramid to go invisible?” they would ask, with snorts of laughter.

  The old hands smiled back. But not without irony.

  The idea of building another pyramid at first seemed so crazy that it was attributed less to wistful veterans than to the ravings of Setka, the idiot who had bepn allowed to hang around the monument ever since the foreman had declared that there was no building site in the world that didn’t have a cretin attached to it. But later on people recalled old facts that had seemed puzzling at the time and whose significance was now becoming clear. For instance, that the Pharaoh Zoser, after completing his own pyramid, had had four giant stairways added, thereby extending the construction work by seven years. Or that Seneferu had had three pyramids built, without ever revealing which of the three contained his tomb. From this it could easily be inferred that the imminent completion of one pyramid automatically gave rise to the i
dea that another one was about to be started from scratch. But a firm speech by the architect-in-chief referring in particular to the rumor about the possible birth of a new pyramid made it absolutely clear that the Pharaoh would entertain no such notion.

  A fortnight later, the unbuilding of a part of the pyramid (there was talk in bars of reconstructing the topmost part, or even a whole slope, as a piece of cloth might be unpicked and resewn) was denounced with equal firmness, and it became quite clear that not a single stone of the pyramid would be touched.

  All that the disappointed veterans could do now was to dream of the pyramid returning to the dust and muddle of its youth, but that seemed as unlikely as their own rejuvenation At the same time, and to the great displeasure of the old-timers, the taverns where young folk gathered grew noisier; and, as if that was not enough, perfume sellers’ stalls that had long been closed were allowed to reopen one by one.

  One night a torch could be seen flickering for a long while on the northeastern slope of the pyramid. It swayed, grew brighter and dimmer by turns, like a ghost, but people watching it from afar would have been a good deal more scared had they known that it was the pyramid magician accompanied by a team of inquisitors who were wandering around up on high. They carried on until dawn, looking for something deeply hidden, to judge by the movement of the torchlight, something nightmarish buried inside at some unknown time, or even, and that would be far worse, some secret or crime that was tempted to come out into the light.

  Some of the gossip doing the rounds of the offices and bars got out of Egypt with amazing speed. Spies still dizzy from learning long dispatches by heart rushed off to their lands and returned a couple of weeks later bearing new instructions. By the end of their homeward journeys they had sometimes forgotten part of the report they were supposed to deliver, or else, like soured beer that has been left for too long in the gourd, the report had changed shape of its own accord inside their minds, causing a good deal of puzzlement at headquarters.