Ismail Kadare - The Pyramid

CONSTRUCTION was taking longer than expected, A monstrous cloud of dust hung over the huge plateau where, day after day, several hundred thousand men scurried about like ants. It could be seen tens of miles away. In far-lung villages people who turned their heads unthinkingly toward it every morning would not have been at all surprised if they had been told that the site was partly situated in the sky.

Pyramids had been built in the past, but there was no memory of any having created such stupor and weariness. Exhaustion, the terror of execution and the fear of being sent to the quarries were not the sole causes of despair, An ill wind blew over the whole land. Everything was awry, and good could no longer be told from evil. Some people said that Egypt was under a curse. What was more, the pyramid that was supposed to ennoble mankind had made Egyptians worse than they had ever been before.

A very few held the pyramid responsible for its own ills, A tomb of such outlandish proportions in the very middle of the country was bound to attract misfortune, they whispered, Furthermore it was an insane burial place, the grave was not at the bottom, like in any other tomb, but in the air — in a word, it was an upside-down tomb. No use at all To be sure. Re had put up with the mastabas and the previous pyramids as much as he could, in the hope that the Egyptians would eventually put a halt to their lunatic habit and bury their dead in the ground, like all other folk, but he had finally come to the conclusion that, far from giving up their tradition, they were forever increasing the height of their graves, and so had decided to intervene.

This last feature, the height of the funerary monument, was precisely what was considered to be the root of all misfortunes by some of those who still wished the building of the pyramid to continue.

Its height was truly fearsome: three times greater than the average pyramid. Even when it was only halfway up it made people dizzy just to look at it. Imagine what they felt later on! Some people insisted that when it got to three hundred cubits, and even more, when it reached its final height of four hundred and fifty, you might well wonder what would happen!

In the temples priests tried to calm people’s spirits. Their imposing voices boomed through the smoke rising from the sacrifices: “Do not heed foolish and mischievous chatter! The pyramid will make us stronger and happier! It will help heaven and earth to reach a better understanding!”

Foreign missions headed by ambassadors took turns to visit the site. They were all struck dumb as they got out of their carriages; some knelt on the ground. The whole world’s eyes were on Egypt, for what that country was achieving was the greatest wonder on earth. That was more or less the gist of the comments they made.

A delegation of Greeks from Crete, backward as they were, were the only ones who could make no sense of the building’s proportions. At first sight they took the unfinished construction for a labyrinth, since their brains were unable to encompass a tomb so tall and so convoluted. It was later said that an Egyptian delegation summoned by them had paid them back in like coin, declaring that their labyrinth was no more than a disoriented pyramid.

Meanwhile some of the foreigners who were particularly well known for their devotion to Egypt were taken to temples to make speeches. They spoke of the glory of the country and of the balancing role of the pyramids, Egyptians would do well to visit their neighbors, so as to appreciate the peace and harmony that reigned at home. In these other lands it was cold, people were sad, and it never stopped raining. Moreover, earth and heaven never stopped arguing with each other. The weather was always bad, and a heavy vapor that was called fog seeped in from the other world, making you think that each dawn was the last of your life.

People came out of the temples feeling relieved. How lucky we are, they said, to have our pyramid! Otherwise the devil only knows what might become of us. The sky might suddenly get angry and flick its fire-whip at us. Not to mention that other most terrible calamity whose very name spreads panic, when the firmament plunges into deepest misery and flock, like clumps of beggar’s hair, falls continuously from it, covering the land in white and making it as cold as a corpse.

This flood of flattery from foreigners did not stop diplomats from expressing rather different views in their secret reports. It had been suspected for a long time, of course, but it became quite transparent when the Sumerian ambassador’s report was finally intercepted. His prolix style — for which he had been reproached more than once by his superiors, moreover — served indirectly to set the trap he fell into, While the two overloaded wagons of the diplomatic courier were conveying his message (it weighed about the same as the side of a house — despite the diplomat’s efforts to have thinner tablets made, he had been unable to reduce their weight any further), the Egyptian secret service had had a hidden trench dug across the highway, and so easily got the carts to tip over. In the ensuing confusion and while the injured couriers were receiving first aid, purloining a few of the tablets scattered over the road was hardly a problem, The fragments were quite enough to prove how bitter Sumer’s venom was.

It was at an official dinner over a week after deciphering had been completed that Cheops made his celebrated pronouncement: “Our enemies are exasperated at the idea of our pyramid, but the more they speak ill of it, the higher we shall raise it toward heaven!”

Those present found it difficult to hide their trembling hands. The Pharaoh grew more sullen by the day. People mentioned that a new plot had been uncovered, but nothing precise was known about it yet.

The whole week long people expected the main team of architects to be arrested. They were visited in the end, not by the police, but by a palace messenger bringing an order to appear before Cheops, bringing the model with them, Rahotep, the architect-in-chief, was as white as a sheet and had to make an effort to stand up straight in front of Cheops, whose eyes ran over every detail of the object before sinking beneath it, as if he were looking for something underground. The rod he held in his hand was twitching. “I am buried too deeply, there,” he blurted out at last, pointing his rod to an invisible point beneath the miniature pyramid.

The terrified architects were at first unable to make out what he was referring to, but understood in the end all the same. He meant the funeral chamber. They had often thought about it. They knew full well that Cheops had reservations about the builders’ idea of placing his body underground. In fact he seemed principally concerned not to be laid to rest outside of the actual substance of the pyramid. Maybe he feared solitude. But the old archives and even the personal notes of the genius Imhotep offered no other solution.

“Don’t give me any nonsense about technical problems,” Cheops said. “I don’t want to know about the weight of the masonry. A lot of rubbish! I want to be raised higher up inside the pyramid itself. Got that?”

“Very well, your Majesty,” Imhotep replied in a voice that seemed to come from beyond the grave.

The architects departed silently with their model. Back in their studio they held their tongues for a long moment. Their minds were alternately paralyzed and convulsively agitated. Apparently that is how you begin to go mad.

They had conceived the funeral chamber as a kind of gateway through which the pyramid would communicate with the lower depths. It was the pyramid’s root, the anchor that moored it to the earth.