The Man Who Spoke Snakish

by Andrus Kivirähk

  “Do you still have the spinning wheel?” I asked knowingly. “And that bread shovel? I’d like to look at them.”

  Johannes laughed.

  “We still have the spinning wheel, and the bread shovel too,” he said. “Step inside and admire them!”

  We were already stepping indoors and Hiie was shaking like a leaf. I felt sorry for her; I nudged her and whispered in her ear: “It’s nothing. We’ll take a little look and go back home.”

  But then suddenly something happened. Magdaleena screamed.

  “A snake!” she shrieked, her eyes full of blind fear, as she pointed at Ints. “Daddy, a snake!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll strike him dead!” shouted Johannes. “Out of the way, I’ll hit him!”

  I was so taken aback that I did step aside, and I saw Johannes grabbing a stick and trying to kill Ints. The adder deftly wriggled aside and hissed viciously. I knew he would bite the first chance he had and I leapt to intervene.

  “Why are you beating him?” I stammered. “He hasn’t done anything!”

  “The snake is the worst enemy of mankind!” cried Johannes. “The snake is the right hand of Satan, and it is the duty of the people of the cross to beat down these abominable creatures! Now where did he get to?”

  “He’s my friend!” I shouted, terrified, as if I were the one being threatened with death by thrashing. I was even starting to cry. “You mustn’t beat him!”

  “A snake can’t be a human’s friend!” declared Johannes. “You’ve gone astray, poor child, and you’re saying terrible things. You mustn’t go back to the forest. You must stay here, or otherwise your soul will be lost. You should all stay here. You should be quickly christened and saved! Come in here now, but that snake, that damned snake, I’m going to—”

  He squeezed the pole in his palm and looked around with a mad stare, seeking Ints.

  I felt horrible. I had once seen a deer between whose ribs the village people had driven a strange wooden stake. The villagers didn’t know Snakish, and therefore couldn’t summon the deer to them, so they hunted it across the country and fired little sticks into the air. This stick caused the deer outrageous pain, but didn’t kill it, and so the poor animal rushed with bloodshot eyes through the forest, shrieking and thumping everything in its path, until Uncle Vootele calmed it with Snakish words and cut the animal’s throat, to release it from its suffering. Johannes was now reminding me of that maddened deer; he too was screaming confused words, and wanted to strike the completely innocent Ints dead. Perhaps he too had been struck by some stake? He looked completely crazed, and in my terror I just stood there helplessly, and I would even have let Johannes haul me into the room if Hiie hadn’t tugged at my elbow.

  “Let’s run out of here!” she whispered. “Quick! Let’s just run away!”

  I heeded her words straight away, grabbed Hiie by the hand, and we ran off toward the forest without looking back. I saw Pärtel, white in the face, running beside me, with Ints crawling a little way ahead, and although I could hear Johannes’s shouting behind me, I realized that we’d all escaped alive.

  Eleven

  n reaching the forest, we sank down in the moss, panting for a while, not saying a word. Ints was the only one who didn’t seem shocked; he sought a sunny place and coiled up.

  “What came over him?” asked Pärtel at length.

  “Whatever did come over him, that’s how people are in the village. Father tells me that whenever they see a snake, they go on the attack. Like hedgehogs.”

  “Do they eat you?” asked Pärtel.

  “Just let them try,” hissed Ints. “I would have stuck my fangs into that creature if Leemet hadn’t jumped in front of me.”

  “Before you had time to bite him he would have broken your back,” I said. For the first time I understood how dangerous a human can be to an adder.

  Living in the forest, this had never occurred to me; humans and snakes lived like brothers, and never had a human raised a hand against an adder. To talk of whether a human could do harm to a snake seemed just as senseless as discussing whether an oak could attack a birch. There was eternal peace between adders and humans. But now I saw that nothing is eternal, and a human can kill an adder with one whack of a stick. I couldn’t help looking at Ints now with quite different eyes. How fragile he really was! You only needed to keep away from his poison fangs, for he couldn’t defend himself in any way against a creature who doesn’t understand Snakish and uses a long stick. I felt sick; in my mind’s eye I could already see Ints’s back broken in two. I looked away.

  Only then did I notice that I was still clutching the hunk of bread. My first thought was to bury this gift from Johannes in the swamp, and I let the bread fall with a sense of revulsion.

  “What’s this?” asked Pärtel. “You took the bread with you?”

  “It simply stayed in my hand,” I explained.

  Pärtel shifted closer, and with his finger cautiously stroked the knobbly brown crust of the piece of bread.

  “Shall we have a taste?” he suggested.

  “No!” shrieked Hiie. “Let’s not taste it! You mustn’t eat bread! Daddy won’t allow it! Mummy said it’s poisonous!”

  “It’s certainly not poisonous, because my father ate it before he died,” I said, and immediately realized how ambiguous that sounded. “I mean, he didn’t die from the bread,” I hastened to add. “My mother has tasted bread too. She told me. It tastes disgusting, but it doesn’t kill you. And those village people eat it all the time.”

  “But look at what they’re like,” remarked Ints. “Maybe it’s bread that drives them crazy.”

  “We won’t eat much,” argued Pärtel. “We’ll just try a crumb. We have to find out what sort of marvelous thing it is!”

  “Please, boys, don’t eat it!” implored Hiie, her eyes wide with terror. “I’m afraid for you! It’s dangerous!”

  Hiie’s terror decided the matter. We had to show her that we weren’t afraid of any bread.

  “We’ll try a little bit,” I said. My hand trembled a little as I broke the bread, and it really was a little horrifying to taste this forbidden food. Perhaps it would burn the tongue like nettles? Might it make you vomit? But Pärtel had already broken off his bit; we both held the bread between our fingers and looked at each other. Then we took a deep breath, put the crumbs in our mouths, and quickly started chewing.

  At any rate, the bread didn’t burn the mouth or make us vomit. But it had no taste either. It was sort of dry and disgusting like tree bark, which you could gnaw at forever but would be troublesome to swallow.

  Hiie and Ints followed us intently, Hiie with terror and Ints with disdain.

  “Well, how is it?” piped Hiie.

  “All right,” I said heroically. “It’s not doing anything to us.”

  “Yes,” agreed Pärtel. “It’s edible.”

  “Don’t have any more!” begged Hiie.

  And actually we wouldn’t have wanted any more, but it seemed somehow embarrassing to confine ourselves to one tiny morsel of bread. So, despite Hiie’s entreaty, we broke off new pieces and started slowly chewing them.

  It was actually a rather proud feeling, to eat bread. This secret and forbidden thing, which didn’t even taste good—gnawing it felt like a manly act of heroism. A child wouldn’t have done it; he would have spat out the tasteless mush. But we didn’t mind it, and finally we boldly swallowed the piece of bread. We now felt truly grown up—not boys, but full-grown men.

  Egged on by each other’s strength, and wanting to test ourselves with more acts of bravery, we now started devouring big bites of the bread.

  “You take some too,” Pärtel urged Hiie. “Just put a piece in your cheek.”

  “I don’t want to,” protested Hiie.

  “Take it, go on,” I joined in. “You’re not a little child any longer; you can try it. What will one little bit do? Daddy and Mummy won’t have to know. After we eat, we’ll rinse out our mouths with springwater, so the
re won’t be any smell afterward.”

  “No, I don’t dare to,” squeaked Hiie. But she did have enough courage to touch the bread with a finger—at first delicately, then pressing more firmly. The bread was very soft. Hiie’s finger sank through the crust and stuck inside the bread. Hiie screeched, pulled her finger out, and hid her hand behind her back.

  We laughed.

  “So what are you fussing about?” I asked. “You’re afraid, as if the bread were alive. Come on, take a bite! You’re not a little kid!”

  Hiie shook her head.

  “Don’t be silly,” urged Pärtel. “It won’t do anything to you.”

  I broke a piece off the side of the loaf and passed it to Hiie. “Now eat!”

  “Why are you forcing her?” said Ints. “Why not just eat your own shit? See how repulsive that bread looks, as brown as deer droppings. Maybe it’s even made of shit? You humans are always having to try things. You’re better off eating lingonberries.”

  “It’s not made of shit,” I said. “Mother told me that bread is made from some straws. It must have been a terrible effort. These straws have to be threshed and milled and I don’t know what else. Then finally it’s thrown into an oven, and there’s your bread.”

  “What’s the difference—shit or straws,” replied Ints. “I didn’t know that you humans eat plants, just like goats do.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Pärtel. “New things have to be tried. How do you know otherwise if something’s good if you don’t try it?”

  “So it’s good then?”

  “No, but—”

  “But still you eat it. You’ve tried it already, now continue.”

  “We want Hiie to try it too,” I said. “Take it, Hiie! It won’t do anything. It won’t stay in your tummy; it will come out later as poo.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Hiie.

  “Of course. Try! A little piece.”

  Hiie gave me a troubled look, squeezed her eyes shut, and popped the piece of bread in her mouth. For a while she gnawed it, holding her breath, her face puckered with disgust.

  “Well!” we said. “It wasn’t so bad after all! Went down, didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Hiie. “It did.”

  “Have some more!”

  “No, no!” Hiie shook her head vigorously. “That’s enough! I won’t eat anymore. I’ve already got a funny feeling in my tummy. Haven’t you?”

  We were silent for a moment as we tried to work out what feelings we had in our tummies. Yes, it was somehow strange. We imagined the bits of bread there in the middle of our bellies, lying like uninvited guests. It was unpleasant. In the end, what did we know about bread? That it didn’t make our mouths scream, our gums burn—but that didn’t mean that it behaved properly in the stomach. Might we get sick after all? Perhaps there was some trick to bread eating that we didn’t know. What if we were eating it the wrong way? “I think I’m going to be sick!” said Hiie suddenly and ran behind a tree, where retching could be heard.

  This made the rest of us worried. Bread couldn’t be right for us if it made us puke. It was never like that with venison. Now we almost envied Hiie, for no doubt the girl was now getting rid of the dubious bit of bread, while we had to carry our burden with us, unable to guess what it would ultimately do to our bodies. Hiie stuck her sweaty, unhappy little head out from behind the tree.

  “I’m going home now,” she said, and vanished.

  “I’m going too,” said Pärtel and I in unison, and we each stumbled off to our own shack, clutching our stomachs, sensing the notorious bread, which our foolish heads had gobbled up, starting to rumble inside us.

  In the end, nothing terrible happened. The bread kept quiet. And yet I wasn’t able to quite calm myself. I had a feeling that a stranger was sitting in my stomach. I got home, snuggled in a corner, and felt my belly. It seemed to me I could feel disgusting lumps of bread under my fingers. Would they stay there forever?

  Meanwhile, Mother was in an inexpressibly good mood.

  “I got busy today and cooked a whole goat,” she said. “It came out nicely, so crunchy that you’ll want to swallow your tongue. Come and eat, son. Salme has eaten already and liked it. Didn’t you, Salme?”

  Salme cast a weary look at me from behind the table.

  “Mother is fattening me up,” she said plaintively. “She keeps piling it up. Just look at that pile of meat! I told her long ago I can’t eat any more of that. Take the meat away, but she won’t.”

  “Why would I take it away? You’ll eat it later,” explained Mother gaily. “Rest a little and then … It’s good meat, I spent the day roasting it.”

  “It isn’t possible to stuff yourself that much,” moaned Salme. “I’m going to burst!”

  “Oh, you’re joking. Nobody would burst after a little bit of meat like that,” Mother said with an airy gesture. “And I’m telling you, you don’t have to eat it all at once. Later!”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “Why tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll be making a new lunch. Why not today, just in a little while?”

  “In a little while I’m going to sleep.”

  “Well, you’ll eat before you go to sleep. Leemet, you come here too now! I’ll get some up for you.”

  Mother piled into my bowl such an amount of meat that I got the impression there was a whole goat lying there, like a large bird on its nest hatching eggs. I got up cautiously, so as not to jolt the piece of bread lurking in my belly out of place, and went to the table. It was quite clear that I wasn’t capable of eating anything; my stomach felt tender, as if someone were scratching with their nails from inside.

  “Mother, I don’t want to eat,” I said gloomily.

  “What’s this about?” exclaimed Mother.

  “Eat, just eat,” said Salme venomously. “Why should I get fat on my own?”

  “You won’t get fat,” said Mother, and started to shove the bowl of meat closer to me. “Take it now. Take all this goat and gnaw it clean! Just look at that nice clean brawn!”

  “Mother, I’m not able to eat,” I said, suddenly feeling terribly sorry for her. The nasty bread was squatting in my stomach and hurting me, and I hadn’t the faintest idea when it intended to leave me. The meat cooked by Mother smelled delicious. I would have liked to taste it; I wanted to so much, but I simply didn’t dare to. I was on the point of crying from self-pity. I felt like a dying man.

  “Mother, I ate some bread,” I moaned.

  Mother glared at me, as if she’d been struck on the head.

  “What did you eat?”

  “You ate bread!” shrieked Salme and screwed up her nose. “How disgusting! Like some villager!”

  “Mother, that bread is now in my stomach!” I said, looking pleadingly at her. Could she save me, help me?

  Mother didn’t seem to be pitying me, but rather herself.

  “You ate bread!” she said in an injured tone. “I see! I cook a goat for you all day. I want to make a tasty dinner for my son, so good that it will take your tongue away, but instead you eat bread somewhere. Don’t you like my meals? I try so hard! I want to offer you the very best. But you eat bread! You like that more than a goat I’ve roasted for you with care and love!”

  Mother sat at the table and started to cry.

  “Mother,” I mumbled in fright. “Mother, what’s this! I don’t like bread at all! It’s disgusting!”

  “So why did you eat it? Why do you do this to me?”

  “Mother, I only tasted it! I simply wanted to try it. Pärtel ate some too! And Hiie!”

  I tried to share the blame, but Mother didn’t take account of that.

  “I don’t care what Pärtel and Hiie do,” she said. “But why did you have to put that disgusting bread in your mouth? Didn’t you know your mother was waiting for you at home and lovingly cooking a roast for you?”

  “Bread is repulsive!” said Salme. “Completely tasteless.”

  “How do you know?” asked Mother, looking sternly at Salme. “H
ave you been secretly eating bread?”

  “Once, with my girlfriends,” sputtered Salme. “I simply put it in my mouth and spat it out again.”

  “I see,” said Mother, humiliated. “You don’t like my food either.”

  “Mother, what do you mean?” said Salme. “I eat your roasts all the time!”

  “But you don’t like them; you like bread!” persisted Mother, and wept again.

  “Don’t like them! I simply wanted to try out what sort of thing it is. I’m not a child anymore. I can try bread for once in my life. Leemet is still a little boy. Of course, he shouldn’t have eaten it; that was very bad of him, but I—”

  “No,” said Mother. “You can’t either! Your father ate bread, but I don’t want you to follow in your father’s footsteps. That bread brought him no happiness, and that’s why I don’t want my children to even taste it.”

  She sat wiping her eyes and looked at us in a sort of terror.

  “You’re still so young and sweet, but now you’re already trying bread! Don’t do it, please. I beg you!”

  “Mother, you’ve eaten bread too,” argued Salme.

  “I have,” sighed Mother. “But very little, not even a taste. And you mustn’t go trying out all these nasty things that your mother did when she was young. You are smarter!”

  “Mother, I won’t ever eat bread again,” I promised, quite sincerely. “It was very bad. Your roast is much, much better, honestly!”

  “Mother, don’t be angry,” Salme begged as well. “Look how much goat I ate today. You can cook it so very well.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” smiled Mother through her tears. “Take no notice of me. I’m just afraid that you’ll start liking bread. You start eating it, you end up moving to the village. You see your friend Linda moved there yesterday with her family. I went past their hut today. The door was wide open and two wolves were lying on the threshold, their snouts between their paws. Poor abandoned animals.”

  “I never would have believed that Linda would move away,” said Salme. “She promised she wouldn’t.”

  “That’s what they all say, but in the end they leave. So many of them have gone! Even we left once, but I came back. I didn’t like that village life. Children, just remember this: I’m never leaving the forest. I’m going to die here.”