‘More than four hundred and fifty feet,’ Jomard agreed. ‘Now imagine a line from the centre of the pyramid to its outside edge.’
‘That would be half the width of its base,’ I ventured, feeling the same two steps behind that I’d always felt with Benjamin Franklin.
‘Precisely!’ Jomard cried. ‘You have an instinct for mathematics, Gage! Now, imagine a line running from that outside edge up the slope of the pyramid to where we are here, completing a right triangle. My theory is that if our line at the pyramid’s base is set as one, such a line up to the peak here would be 1.618 – the same harmonious proportion as shown by the squares I’ve drawn!’ He looked triumphant.
We looked blank.
‘Don’t you see? This pyramid was built to conform to the Fibonacci numbers, the Fibonacci squares, the golden number that artists have always found harmonious. It doesn’t just feel right to us, it is right!’
Talma looked across to the other two large pyramids that were our neighbours. ‘So are they all like that?’
Jomard shook his head. ‘No. This one is special, I suspect. It is a book, trying to tell us something. It is unique for a reason I don’t yet understand.’
‘I’m sorry, Jomard,’ the journalist said. ‘I’m happy for you that you are excited, but the fact that imaginary lines equal 1.6, or whatever you said, seems an even sillier reason to build a pyramid than calling something pointed a hemisphere or building a tomb you won’t be buried in. It seems perfectly possible to me that if any of this is true, your ancient Egyptians were at least as crazy as they were clever.’
‘Ah, but that is where you are wrong, my friend,’ the savant happily replied. ‘I don’t blame your scepticism, however, because I didn’t see what has been staring us in the face all day until sharp-eyed Gage here helped me find the fossil nautilus. You see, the Fibonacci sequence, translated into Fibonacci geometry, yields one of the most beautiful designs in all nature. Let’s draw an arc through these squares, from one corner to another, and then connect the arcs.’ He flipped his drawing. ‘Then we get a picture like this:’
‘There! What does that look like?’
‘The nautilus,’ I ventured. The man was damned clever, even though I still didn’t get where he was heading.
‘Precisely! Imagine if I expanded this picture by adding additional squares: 21, 34, and so on. This spiral would continue to grow, round and round, bigger and bigger, looking ever more like our nautilus. And this spiral pattern is something we see again and again. When you take the Fibonacci sequence and apply it to geometry, and then apply that geometry to nature, you see this sublime number pattern, this perfect spiral, being used by God himself. You will find the spiral in the seed head of a flower or the seeds of a pinecone. The petals on many flowers are Fibonacci numbers. A lily has 3, a buttercup 5, a delphinium 8, corn marigolds 13, some asters have 21, and some daisies 34. Not all plants follow the pattern, but many do because it is the most efficient way to push growing seeds or petals out from a common centre. It is also very beautiful. So, now we see just how marvellous this pyramid is!’ He nodded to himself, satisfied with his own explanation.
‘It’s a flower?’ Talma ventured, relieving me of the burden of being dense.
‘No.’ He looked solemn. ‘What we have climbed is not just a map of the world, Monsieur Journalist. It’s not even just a portrait of God. It is in fact a symbol for all creation, the life force itself, a mathematical representation of how the universe works. This mass of stone incorporates not just the divine, but the very secret of existence. It has encoded, within its dimensions, the fundamental truths of our world. The Fibonacci numbers are nature at its most efficient and beautiful, a peek at divine intelligence. And this pyramid embodies them, and by doing so embodies the mind of God himself.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘Here it was, all life’s truth in the dimensions of this first great building, and everything since has been a long forgetting.’
Talma gaped as if our companion had gone mad. I sat back, not knowing what to think. Could the pyramid really exist to enshrine numbers? It seemed alien to our way of thinking, but perhaps the ancient Egyptians looked at the world differently. So was my medallion some kind of mathematical clue or symbol as well? Was it in any way connected to Jomard’s strange theories? Or was the savant reading something into this heap of stone that its builders never intended?
Somewhere in that direction was L’Orient, with a calendar that might hold more keys to the puzzle, and that seemed the next thing I could examine. I went to touch the medallion hidden against my breast and suddenly felt disquiet that it wasn’t there. Maybe Talma was right: I was too naive. Was I right to trust Enoch? And with Jomard’s right triangle in mind I imagined the medallion’s arms as dowsing rods, pointing to something far below my feet.
I looked back down the dizzying way we’d come. Ashraf was walking to follow the line of the pyramid’s shadow, his gaze toward the sand instead of up to the sky.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Napoleon was in a good mood when I asked for permission to return to the flagship, displaying the jocular confidence of a man who felt his schemes of Oriental glory were falling into place. While he’d been just one of many striving generals in the cockpit of Europe, here he was omnipotent, a new pharaoh. He delighted in the spoils of war, confiscating Mameluke treasure to add to his personal fortune. He even tried on the robes of an Ottoman potentate, but only once – his generals laughed at him.
While the black cloud that had enveloped Napoleon upon learning of Josephine’s infidelities had not entirely lifted, he assuaged his pain by taking a concubine himself. Conforming to local custom, the French had reviewed a parade of Egyptian courtesans offered by the city’s beys, but when the officers dismissed most of these alleged beauties as overweight and shopworn – Europeans liked their women young and skinny – Bonaparte consoled himself with the lissome sixteen-year-old daughter of Sheikh el-Bekri, a girl named Zenab. Her father offered her services in return for the general’s help in a dispute with another noble over a young boy that both sheikhs had taken a fancy to. The father was granted the boy and Napoleon got Zenab.
This damsel, who submitted docilely to the arrangement, soon became known as the ‘General’s Egyptian’. Bonaparte was eager to cheat on his wife as she was cheating on him, and Zenab seemed flattered that the ‘Sultan Kebir’ had chosen her over more experienced women. Within months the general became bored with the girl and started an affair with the French beauty Pauline Foures, cuckolding her unfortunate husband by ordering the lieutenant on a dispatch mission to France. The British, who had heard gossip of the affair from captured letters, seized the lieutenant’s ship and with a malicious sense of humour deposited him back in Egypt to complicate Napoleon’s love life. So went a war in which gossip was a political weapon. We were in an age where passion was politics, and Bonaparte’s all too human mix of global dreams and petty lusts fascinated all of us. He was Prometheus and Everyman, a tyrant and a republican, an idealist and a cynic.
At the same time, Bonaparte began to remake Egypt. Despite the jealousies of his fellow generals, it was clear to us savants that he was brighter than any of them. I for one judge intelligence not so much by what you know as by how much you want to know, and Napoleon wanted to know about everything. He devoured information the way a glutton devours food, and he had broader interests than any officer in the army, even Jomard. At the same time, he could lock his curiosity away, as if in a cabinet to be taken out later, while he concentrated furiously on the military task at hand. This combination is rare. Bonaparte dreamt of remaking Egypt as Alexander had remade the Persian Empire, and fired off memorandums to France requesting everything from seeds to surgeons. If the Macedonian had founded Alexandria, Napoleon was determined to found the richest French colony in history. Local beys were mustered into a divan council to help with administration and taxation, while the scientists and engineers were bombarded with queries about well digging, windmill construction, road improvements, and mineral prospecting. Cairo would be reformed. Superstition was to be succeeded by science. The Revolution had come to the Middle East!
So when I approached him for leave to return to the flagship, it was with an affable tone that he asked, ‘This ancient calendar will tell you what, exactly?’
‘It may help make sense of my medallion and mission by telling us a key year or date. Just how is uncertain, but the calendar does no good in the hold of a ship.’
‘The hold does prevent it from being stolen.’
