He would not force them to love the pyramid, though that would not have been very difficult. He would get his own back on them in another way. He would get them to spin out paeans of praise for the pyramid in exact proportion to their hatred of it. He would thus degrade them remorselessly, humiliate them in each other’s eyes, in the eyes of their wives and children as well, and in their own consciences. He would destroy them little by little and in the end turn them into nothing more than worms.
Cheops realized, he was going round in circles like a lunatic. He got a grip on himself, and though his knees had not stopped trembling with repressed rage, he managed to keep himself still. Since he had come back to the marble shelf, he naturally decided to calm down by reading the biography of his father’s afterlife. But to his amazement his hands failed to reach out for the sky-blue scroll but went instead once again toward the other. He had heard that drunks who wake up with a hangover ask for another cup of what had put them in that state, because oddly enough it was the drink most likely to clear their heads.
The word postpyramidal, which caught his eye in passing, gave him the same kind of fright as the sight of a snake in years gone by. He had expected it to return ever since he came across it in the report before last. It hadn’t been a chance occurrence… Another era… The postpyramidal period…
So he wasn’t the only person to be racking his brains about what would happen after the completion of the pyramid. Others had thought about it before him seriously enough to forge a whole new word for it.
All of a sudden Cheops saw the silver platter laden with excised tongues that the High Priest Hemiunu had brought to his father Seneferu one morning. At the time he was only thirteen, and his father explained to him that the tongues had belonged to people who had spoken ill of the State. “It made you go pale,” Seneferu remarked, “but you will do the same one day. If you don’t cut them off, in the end those tongues will have the better of you and your reign.”
But it was now probably too late for it. Wicked tongues had proliferated to such an extent that even a thousand platters would not suffice.
He raised his head, intending to bring his perusal of the reports to an end.
He could not take his eyes from the column of dust. He had hated its sinister dance to the heavens, not thinking that one day he would miss it. Even now, and in spite of his still undiminished revulsion for it, he was already horrified to imagine that one day it would not be there. Together he and his tomb had wielded power in concert, and now, after twenty years, the tomb was on the point of completion. Soon its infernal animation would cease. It would begin to cool day by day beneath its polished limestone facing panels before congealing forever. It would have begun by clearing out of the sky (Cheops felt almost at fault now for having sworn at all that dust) and then after taking leave of the sky it would take leave of life.
Cheops took in a sharp and painful breath. So the pyramid will leave me alone and abandoned in this vale of tears. . An ice-cold stiletto of anxiety churned his stomach.
He went up to the marble shelf and rang the bronze bell to summon the head magician.
Without looking at him or even turning around, Cheops asked the magician if he had heard the latest rumors.
“ Ah yes… Postpyramidal era… an ugly phrase, like so many you hear nowadays… I’ve spoken to the head of the security service about it.. ”
In Cheops’s mind the silver platter glinted lugubriously before running with blood.
“I know,” he said. “I also know what he thinks of the matter. . But, even if it dismays us, there will be a post-pyramidal era one day, won’t there?”
“Hm. I’m not sure what to say about that,” the magician replied.
Cheops was tempted to remind him that he had opened his heart to him once before, twenty years previously, and the magician had told him that the pyramid was the pillar of the State, light condensed into stone, and so on. But he also recalled simultaneously that all those who had witnessed the scene were now rotting in the ground. How time passes! he thought.
“Well, what will happen when it… I mean, when the postpyramidal era comes?”
“Hm. . Majesty, allow me to make one objection. . There will be no postpyramidal era, for the simple reason that the pyramid will always still be there.”
Cheops turned around abruptly.
“Djedi, don’t evade the question,” he said very quietly, though his words echoed in the magician’s ears as painfully as a scream. “You know perfectly well that the current weariness and, so to speak, the dissolution of Egypt are due to the fact that the pyramid is nearing completion.”
“A pyramid is never completed, Majesty,” the magician replied.
“What’s that?” This time Cheops really had screamed. “Am I going to have to build another one, as my father did? Or demolish half of this one so that it can be rebuilt?”
“No, Majesty! When I said that pyramids have no end, I was thinking of yours and none other. It has no need of a twin. Nor any need of rebuilding.”
“All the same it is nearly finished.”
He looked up to see if he could find the dust cloud on the horizon.
“Its body will be finished, but not its soul!” the magician continued.
He went on for a long while in such an even voice that Cheops very nearly dozed off.
“How many steps are there left to build before reaching the vertex?” he asked in a muffled whisper.
“Five, Majesty,” the master-magician answered. “But the Minister for the Pyramid was explaining to me yesterday that they get smaller as they go on. There are no more than two hundred and fifty stones left to lay, maybe even fewer.”
“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 yelclass="underline" “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.