The Man Who Spoke Snakish

by Andrus Kivirähk

  One day the three of us—Ints, Pärtel, and I—were together in the forest, when the adder suddenly stopped and listened, saying, “Someone’s coming.”

  “Ülgas?” I asked, getting quickly to my feet to walk away.

  “No, Tambet.”

  That didn’t change things. Tambet was just as unwelcome as the sage. He had never liked me, but after the incident with the louse Tambet actually hated me. Ülgas must have told him the whole story, and quite naturally he did not have a good word to say about either me or Uncle Vootele. I had met Tambet once since then, and it was horrible. I was with my mother, and when Tambet saw me, his whole body trembled; he gesticulated and screamed, “You wretched brat! I knew it—everyone born in the village is rotten inside!”

  “Don’t scream at my son!” bawled Mother. She was not at all afraid of Tambet and liked to tell the story about how Tambet had once made a pass at her many years ago. The young Tambet had wanted to make an impression on my young mother, so had climbed up a spruce tree and brought down several combs of wild bees’ honey. Then he called on my mother, but was ashamed to be carrying the honey in front of everyone, so he popped the combs inside his jacket, against his stomach. Having reached my mother’s place he wanted to proudly hand over the delicacy, but oh dear—the honey had become warm and started to melt, it had stuck to the hairs of the young man’s stomach and dripped down, so it wasn’t possible to take it out from under his coat. Young Tambet’s face went red and he tried to sit in such a way that no one would notice how uncomfortable he was, but my fanged grandfather noticed him squirming and bawled out: “What have you got there? Show me!” And when Tambet stammered something in response, Grandfather grabbed him by the collar and ripped the jacket open, revealing Tambet’s tummy and his willy all covered in honey. It was hilarious, said Mother, when Tambet tried to clean off the honey clinging to his lower body, puffing and panting, driven mad with shame. Finally they invited a bear in to lick Tambet clean, but when he saw what part of his body he actually had to lick, he refused, saying that he was a male. At this point in the story she usually stopped, laughing so much that she fell to the floor, and when I asked her later what became of Tambet and his honey-flavored willy, Mother just waved her hand and replied, “Well, he must have got it off himself somehow; he can’t still have honey on it. But then, I haven’t had the opportunity to look.”

  Obviously, with memories like that, Mother didn’t regard Tambet with any reverence. She got angry when anyone shouted at her son, and she responded just as loudly: “Go and kill your own wolves if you want to! You have too many of them anyway. Do you swim in their milk, or what? Go and donate them to Ülgas. Then you both can chop them up, if you like. And by the way, you’re wearing your daughter out, having to look after your beasts like some little slave! You should be ashamed. Look at how small and weak she is!”

  “Leave my daughter alone!” shouted Tambet.

  “And you leave my son alone! You’re always chastising him for being born in the village! Is that his fault? A person can’t choose where he comes from. And as far as where you’re born is concerned, look, you were born in the forest, and look how you turned out!”

  “How did I turn out then?”

  “You’re a half-wit.”

  “Shut your face, you old bear’s whore!” roared Tambet. This was the worst insult that could be leveled at my mother, and even I, hearing it, had a feeling that I’d fallen headfirst into a fire. Those words were scorching.

  At first my mother caught her breath; then she started a strange sputtering, as if something had got up her nose. She gripped my hand.

  “Let’s go, Leemet,” she said. “I like living in the forest very much, but maybe we ought to really move to the village like the others. Only the stupidest filthy sort is left in the forest.”

  She spat at Tambet, who stood, his back erect, his head covered with long gray hair down to his neck, obviously convinced that he had worthily defended the forest and its ancient ways, and sent the disgusting traitors packing. And that time we really did flee, my mother and I, and I intended to leave anytime Tambet turned up somewhere on the horizon. That man aroused the same horror in me as Ülgas the Sage did.

  So Pärtel and I slipped into the bushes, with Ints at our heels. Crouching in the shrubbery we saw Tambet passing, and we were ready to come out when Ints said, “Someone else is coming.”

  It was Tambet’s daughter, Hiie. Evidently she was going somewhere with her father, but of course Tambet didn’t care if his daughter could keep up with him. He marched proudly ahead while Hiie scampered along far behind. We weren’t afraid of Hiie, so we came out of the bushes and greeted her.

  Hiie was pleased to see us; she seldom had a chance to play with other children. She looked hesitantly in the direction where Tambet had vanished, but he was no longer visible. Of course she should have rushed after her father, but the temptation to stay awhile with us was too great.

  We sat down in a clearing and chatted. Pärtel and Ints talked away while Hiie listened and watched, her face happy and lively, as if she were a just-hatched butterfly, emerging from its cocoon and looking excitedly at the colorful world. Though of course no one can see a butterfly’s face; it’s too tiny. Hiie was also small, very thin, and with a somehow pitiful bearing, and there was nothing we could really talk about with her. We had our own jokes that we laughed at, and our own plans that we discussed, but Hiie didn’t mind that there was a lot she didn’t understand. She was like a starving person who is offered unfamiliar food and gobbles it up gratefully. Hiie was simply delighted to hear someone else’s voice apart from her father and mother, and the wolves, whose howling she must have been really weary of.

  Finally there was a pause in our chatting, and it occurred to me that we could after all ask Hiie something, if only to keep the talk going.

  “Well, what’s new with you?” I ventured.

  Hiie took my question very seriously. She even started frowning as she tried to recall what was actually new. The girl was obviously in trouble. So far it had been we who spoke; now it was her turn, and she didn’t want to be any worse than us, but simply nothing came into her head. Undoubtedly Hiie’s life was dreadfully monotonous. Her face turned white with the strain, and she must have been swallowing back tears, as children do when faced with shame at their own incompetence in front of others, but finally something did come to mind and she cried in a small voice: “Mummy and I are going twig-whisking in the moonlight tonight!”

  This was an unexpectedly interesting piece of news. I hadn’t hoped for anything of the kind. Hiie smiled happily, because in her own estimation she had just learned the fine art of conversation.

  Twig-whisking by moonlight was an old custom. Once a year all the women and older girls—toddlers were not included—went late at night into the forest, climbed as high up a tree as they could, and whisked themselves with oak-leaf switches by the light of the moon. The moon had to be full, and the whisking continued until the moon went down. It was believed that this whisking gave the women vigor, and in a sense that was right, because those old women who could no longer climb trees, and thereby missed the whisking, did not live on much longer.

  Men did not go whisking, and didn’t even know when the night of the full moon would be. The women never told them; they slipped secretly out of their huts while the men were asleep. By the morning, when the men woke up, the women would already be at home, imbued with a kind of golden glow. How the women all knew exactly when it was the right night was something that not a single man knew.

  Like any boys, Pärtel and I had dreamed of some day coming upon women whisking in the moonlight and seeing exactly how it was done. But we never managed to. I kept a watchful eye on Mother but it was no use. What is more, whisking by moonlight could take place in winter or summer, autumn or spring. In the evenings there was nothing to suggest that Mother had anything in mind, yet in the morning her face would be aglow as she roasted the haunch of venison, rejoicing at ho
w fresh her body felt after a good sauna. In recent years Salme had joined Mother for the whisking, and yet I’d never woken at the right moment to follow them and see it for myself.

  So it was clear why the news we heard from Hiie excited Pärtel and me. Tonight we had a chance to realize a long-held dream.

  “Are you sure about it?” I asked Hiie.

  “Yes!” replied the girl. “Mummy told me this morning.”

  “Have you been twig-whisking before?” asked Pärtel.

  “No,” answered Hiie, terribly excited that our conversation was going on so long.

  She would have liked to answer dozens more questions and reveal all her secrets to us, if she had any. She was glad to sit with us and keep us company until winter if she could. But then her father’s voice resounded through the forest.

  “Hiie!” shouted Tambet. “Where are you?”

  “Daddy’s calling!” piped Hiie, and leapt up, a look of fear on her face. I felt so sorry for her at that moment! Life must always have been terrifying with the stern Tambet. I promised myself that I would call in on the girl more often. Looking at Hiie somehow called to mind a little insect caught in a spider’s web, struggling helplessly. I would have liked to save her, but sadly Hiie was not caught in a web but in her own home. You cannot save a child from her father, however terrifying he is. We waved to Hiie, who likewise timidly gestured to us, and we ran back into the bushes. Tambet was approaching with long strides.

  “Where did you get to?” he demanded.

  “You were walking so fast I couldn’t keep up,” stammered Hiie. “Then you disappeared out of sight and I didn’t know where to go.”

  “Don’t you know the forest paths then? Oh, these children today! In the old days no one got lost in the forest, no one at all!”

  He grabbed Hiie by the hand.

  “Come on now!”

  And he marched off at such a pace that Hiie had to practically run along beside him.

  Quite naturally Pärtel and I planned to go that night to look at the women whisking. We invited Ints along, but to our surprise the adder said that he’d seen women whisking themselves several times already and he wasn’t interested.

  “Why didn’t you mention that before?” we retorted.

  “I didn’t think it would interest you,” said the adder. “There’s nothing special about it—just naked women sitting on treetops hitting themselves with oak switches. I was crawling past under the trees and I didn’t really bother to look up.”

  “You could have invited us, or warned us when the day was coming around again!”

  “I didn’t even know you then. And even I can’t be sure exactly what day the women will climb the tree to whisk themselves. I saw them quite by accident. Adders see everything that goes on in the forest, but we don’t keep account of it. I don’t understand. Is this whisking really so thrilling?”

  “Oh, it’s totally thrilling!” Pärtel and I assured him. We were excited by the opportunity of uncovering this jealously guarded secret. Might we be the first men to see women whisking on treetops? We knew of no one who could boast that. But aside from that it was a thrill to think about coming upon a big group of naked women. We were old enough to feel an interest in such things. For example, there was Salme with her friends. And Hiie—poor little thing—it obviously hadn’t occurred to her, in betraying the great secret to us, that she was giving us a chance to look at her naked. But maybe she wouldn’t have cared; she was just excited to be able to say something interesting to us.

  Pärtel and I agreed to meet under the whisking-trees, which we would find by following our mothers and sisters.

  It wasn’t difficult. Evidently it didn’t occur to Mother that I might suspect something, and I played my part well. I ate my fill properly in the evening as always, and scrambled to my sleeping place. Salme did the same, and a little while later Mother also got under her big deerskin, where all three of us had snuggled down in my childhood.

  For a while it was silent and dark; although at first I’d been afraid that I wouldn’t hold out and would sleep through it, I was no longer afraid of that. I was as excited and alert as a swallow, and my only concern was to stay in one position, when actually I wanted to toss and scratch all over all the time. It’s terrible how the urge to scratch takes over your mind. But I forced myself to stay still, until at last I heard Mother getting up from her position and tugging at Salme.

  “Let’s go now!” she whispered.

  They sneaked quietly out the door. I lay a few moments more in the same position, in case they might have forgotten something and come back. But they didn’t, so I leapt out of bed and followed them.

  I saw them walking in front of me and I crawled on the damp grass like my friend Ints, trying to make as little noise as possible. Mother and Salme didn’t notice anything. After a little while they met one of Salme’s friends, who was also on her way with her mother to the moonlit sauna, and the four of them continued on their way. I stayed at their heels.

  Finally we arrived at a small clearing. This was undoubtedly their destination, because there I saw other women who were already taking off their clothes and starting to climb the trees, an oak switch between their teeth. There was a rustling in the bushes somewhere and Pärtel crawled up beside me.

  “Mine is already up the tree!” he whispered and pointed with a finger toward a tall spruce tree, at the top of which sat his naked mother, her white body shining in the moonlight, slowly and with visible pleasure whisking herself.

  It was undoubtedly a beautiful, magical scene, but I was much more interested in Salme’s friends than in Pärtel’s mother. I let my gaze rove around, and saw the women climbing ever higher up the tree trunks against the night sky, until they found a suitable branch and settled on it, bathed in the bright moonlight, stroking their naked bodies with an oak switch, as if the moon’s golden glow were spread all over them. It was an exciting scene, and Pärtel and I stared at the naked girls in fascination. We also saw Hiie, sitting beside her mother and swishing the little branch on her bony legs, but she was obviously not our favorite; she was scrawny, with the body of a child. One of Salme’s friends, on the other hand, had breasts like wasp’s nests! We both gulped when we saw her starting to beat herself as her tits bounced merrily up and down.

  You can only imagine what a scene would have been offered by the women whisking in the moonlight centuries ago, when the forest was still full of people. The branches must have sagged under the weight of all the women. Now there were only a few whiskers, scarcely a score, including a few old women who offered no pleasure to the eyes. But they were all whisking heartily, and from the rhythm of the fall of the switches emerged a fine moonlight dust, which glowed like a living fire.

  “Beautiful!” sighed Pärtel, ogling one woman who had put down her whisk for a moment and stretched out with great pleasure, thus heaving her powerful bosom farther out.

  We heard an enthusiastic sigh come from someone nearby, and we flinched in fear. Who else could be lurking here? We turned rapidly around and quite near us saw a large bear, who was watching the whiskers, his head cocked, gnawing his long claws with great pleasure.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked angrily, because the man within me was awakening, and no man will tolerate bears looking at women.

  “I’m watching,” replied the bear. “Oh, they’re so sweet!”

  “Don’t she-bears go switch-whisking?” I asked. “Why don’t you peep at them?”

  “No, they don’t,” sighed the bear, who of course didn’t understand that I was making fun of him. Bears never understand that; they are terribly simpleminded and gullible. “She-bears are not so pretty anyway. They wear a thick coat, and you can’t take it off. But these ones here are all so beautiful and sweet! As if they’d been flayed!”

  “Go flay yourself!” I snorted angrily. “Go on, scram! Or go flay some goat; then it will be beautiful and sweet too!”

  “I’ve tried that, and it’s not the same
,” sighed the bear, who, like all bears, was not capable of taking offense. But he did toddle off a little way, raising his snout toward the treetops.

  We must have been whispering too loudly with the bear, and my sister, Salme, came down from the treetop. I suddenly heard my mother’s voice ask, “Where are you going?” and I turned around. To my astonishment I saw Salme standing naked under the tree, not far away from us.

  “I heard some noise,” said Salme, with a suspicious expression. “I think there’s someone here.”

  She peered between the trees, and Pärtel and I pressed ourselves as deep into the moss as we could. We couldn’t crawl out anymore; Salme would have spotted us immediately. But staying put was not without dangers either. Thanks to the full moon, it was very light in the forest. Salme would only have to go forward a few steps and she would discover us straight away, and right now she was about to take those steps.

  I felt a cold sweat in the back of my neck, for I couldn’t even guess what punishment might await little boys who invade a secret whisking party. The women would certainly be horribly angry that we had spied on them. My mother would of course hardly be likely to do me much harm, but I would feel so ashamed.

  We wanted to dig into the ground like moles, but humans have sadly not been given that gift, and not even Snakish would help here.

  Salme stepped forward two paces, and would certainly have found us the next moment, when suddenly a delicate little voice called, “Salme!”

  It would have been reasonable for Salme to scream now, and even run for help. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead she muttered with a kind of shameful satisfaction: “It’s you, Mõmmi! What are you doing here—you’re not supposed to be here.”