Soon he slowed again. We trotted for a few minutes. The pounding on my spine stopped. The pain subsided. I was so thankful. I took in as much air as I could.
“Yes?” Hesham said.
I nodded.
And he struck my horse again and we galloped.
The pain resumed, with more volume, subtleties, tendrils reaching into new and unknown places — shooting through to my clavicles, armpits, neck. I was intrigued by the newness of the torment and would have studied it, enjoyed it in a way, but its sudden stabbing prevented me from drawing the necessary distance from it.
I needed to prove to this Egyptian lunatic that I could ride with him. That we were equal out here, that I could keep up and devour it, the agony. That I could be punished, that I expected the punishment and could withstand it, however long he wanted to give it to me. We could ride together across the Sahara even though we hated each other for a hundred good and untenable reasons. I was part of a continuum that went back thousands of years, nothing having changed. It almost made me laugh, so I rode as anyone might have ridden at any point in history, meaning that it was only him and me and the sand and a horse and saddle — I had nothing with me at all, was wearing a white button-down shirt and shorts and sandals — and Jesus, however disgusting we were, however wrong was the space between us, we were really soaring.
And I was watching. As the horse’s hooves scratched the sand and the horse breathed and I breathed, as the mane whipped over my hands and the sand sprayed over my legs, spitting on my bare ankles, I was watching how the man moved with the horse. Somewhere, after twenty minutes more of continuous pounding, with the horse at full gallop, I learned. I had been letting the horse strike me, was trying to sit above the saddle, hoping my distance from it would diminish the impact each time, but there were ways to eliminate the pain altogether.
I learned. I moved with the horse and when I finally started moving with that damned horse, nodding forward, in agreement, in collusion, the pain was gone. I was riding that stupid and divine horse, attached to it, low, my head immersed in its mane, and I—
Hesham noticed I no longer struggled and we rode faster. We rode with the sun overhead. There was a wind in our faces, and I felt a part of every army the world had ever burdened. I loved the man I followed in the way you love only those you’ve wanted to kill. And when I was most full of love the pyramid emerged from the sand, a less perfect peak among the dunes.
At the Red Pyramid we went up its side, lifting ourselves onto each step, each great square stone almost five feet tall. At the entrance, fifty feet up, the man gestured me into a small black entranceway into the chamber at the pyramid’s center. I followed him down and in, the passage steep, narrow, dark, dank, too small for anyone larger than ourselves. There was a rope that could be used to guide us to the bottom. I held it and descended; there were no steps. The smell was chalky and the air thick and difficult to draw. Ahead of me the man held a torch which carved a jagged light from the darkness.
At the bottom of the decline, we stood, turned into another hallway, now level, and soon ducked through a doorway and were inside a stone box. It was a completely unadorned room, with high ceilings and perfect geometry. Hesham waved his arms around the room with great proud flourishes. “Home of king,” Hesham said, bringing his torch to one side of the room and revealing a long stone box, the tomb. The chamber was otherwise empty, devoid of any markings or jewels or masonry. Chambers like these had been raided endlessly over the centuries, and now all that remained was bare walls, smooth, with no sign of—
The air inside was heaving with dust and I felt we would die if we stayed long. Would he try to kill me? Rob me? We were alone. For no reason at all I was without worry. We stared at each other in the room, neither of us truly impressed by the box we were in, though we both momentarily pretended at awe. I was disappointed, though I knew not to expect much inside these rooms. I didn’t know how elaborate the space once was, but there was no evidence that it was ever anything but this, this sandy cube, and the fact of it saddened me. The exterior so magnificent, the core so crude. Hesham held the torch near his face and looked at me, though in the weak light I’m not sure he saw me at all.
He sighed loudly. His face moved through emotions: arrogance, boredom, annoyance. He was obligated to stay as long as I wanted to stay. I didn’t want to stay at all, but I liked seeing him suffer, if even a small amount.
We climbed the steps again toward the crooked window of light where the pyramid drank the sky. It was dusk. Once outside and on the ground again, the man said, “There is another.” I asked him its name. He said it was called the Bent Pyramid.
We were on our horses again.
“Yes?” he asked.
I nodded and he struck my horse with his open hand. I followed him though he was soon only a black wraith against a silver sky. Our horses were angry and breathed in hydraulic bursts. I realized now that Hesham was not doing this for whatever money I would give him. He hadn’t bothered to negotiate for any of the trips after the Red Pyramid. What we were doing was something else, and each of us knew it. I was now sure he wouldn’t kill me, and knew he had no plan, none more than I had.
An hour later we were at the Bent Pyramid, this one larger but less secure, and the light was gone. We climbed to its entrance and descended and once again found ourselves inside a sacred chamber, a room that had held a queen or pharaoh, though again the room was bare. The man and I stared at each other, breathing in the hard thick air, without any compassion for each other or anything.
What did you expect? his eyes asked me.
I wanted to know that I wouldn’t die like a bug, I said.
Sorry, he said. These men died, were embalmed, and have been stolen. People sold them again and again. Their every effect, their bones, were traded for gold. You’ll be no better off.
There’s no reason to go inside these pyramids, I said.
No, not really, he said.
We learn nothing inside, I said.
Nothing, he said.
If these kings believed, why would they hide themselves in these plain boxes under these heavy stones?
Ah, but they didn’t believe, he said.
That explains it, I said.
We left again and stood on the ground beneath the pyramid. It was dark as we mounted our horses. I swung my hand around, to encompass all the air.
“Good outside now,” I said.
He smiled.
“There is another,” the man said.
“I want to go,” I said.
“Yes?”
I nodded and he struck my horse and we flew.
WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A CROWD IN A FARAWAY NATION TAKES A SOLDIER REPRESENTING YOUR OWN NATION, SHOOTS HIM, DRAGS HIM FROM HIS VEHICLE AND THEN MUTILATES HIM IN THE DUST
THERE IS A MAN who felt great trepidation. He felt anxiety and unease. These were feelings foreign to the man. He’d never felt this kind of untouchable ennui, but he had been feeling it for a year. He sometimes was simply walking around the house, unable to place exactly why he was tense. The day would be clear, sun above, everything good, but he would be pacing. He would sit down to read a book and then quickly get up, thinking there was a phone call he needed to make. Once at the phone, he would realize there was no phone call he needed to make, but there was something outside the window he needed to inspect. There was something in the yard that needed fixing. He needed to drive somewhere, he needed to take a quick run. The man had seen the picture that morning, in the newspaper. He saw the picture of the soldier’s body, now on the ground under the truck. His uniform was tan, the soldier’s was, and he lay on his back, his boots almost white in the midday sun, pointing up. Meanwhile, the man was sitting in his home, comfortable, wearing warm socks and drinking orange juice from a smooth heavy glass, and was seeing the dead man in the color photograph. The picture caused him to gasp, alone in his home. He studied the photo, looking, he realized, for blood — where was the soldier shot? There was no blood visible. He turned the page, tried to move on, but soon returned to the picture and looked to see if any of the citizens of this faraway country were in the frame. They were not. The man stood up. He watched smoke billow rightward from a factory on the horizon. Why did he feel violated? He felt punched, robbed, raped. If a soldier was killed and mutilated in his own country, the man would not feel this kind of revulsion. He doesn’t feel this way when he hears about trains colliding, or a family, in Missouri, drowning in their minivan in a December lake. But this, in another part of the world, this soldier dragged from his car, this soldier alone, this dead unbloody body in the dust under the truck — why does it set the man on edge, why does it feel so personal? The man at home feels this way too often now. He feels tunneled, wrapped, dessicated. His eyes feel the strain of trying for too long to see in the dark. The man is watching the smoke from the factory, and though there are many things he could do that day, he will do none of them.