The Man Who Spoke Snakish

by Andrus Kivirähk

  When we were already sitting in the boat and rowing away from the shore, Grandfather waved to us and shouted, “Don’t go on the attack on your own, boy! Wait for me too! Then you can mash from below and I can hack from above, like two jaws. Ahoy!”

  He had almost faded from view. I rowed with swift strokes homeward and the water was again calm, almost without a single wave, as it had been all these days. It really seemed that on our visit to Grandfather we had gone back into the past, to some mysterious waters where time stood still and no wind blew. Or was it all a dream—starting from the evening when we were fleeing from the deaf wolves and jumped into the boat and drifted out to sea? Could it be that I simply dreamed up my fanged grandfather, the giant fish, the roped winds of Möigas, and even how I completely unexpectedly fell in love with Hiie? Maybe this was Dream-Hiie, who was quite different to the quiet and shy girl whom I’d known before I went to sleep?

  In that sense, anyway, the dream hadn’t come to an end, for Hiie was sitting right here beside me in the boat and her eyes were as radiant as before, so I simply put the oars aside to embrace her.

  “You’re my dream,” I said. “And I plan to sleep forever.”

  “Horrible sleepyhead,” said Hiie and pulled me down, but one skull with a sharp jaw lay beside me, and we sat up straight.

  “There are too many skulls here in the boat for lovemaking,” I said, and Hiie showed me her hip, into which the two eye sockets of a skull had pressed two rings.

  “He’s been peeping into you,” I said.

  “I won’t allow that, for some filthy iron man to stare at me like that,” declared Hiie, tossing the offending skull into the sea. “Let him look at the fishes for a change.”

  But there were still an enormous number of skulls in the boat, so it wasn’t possible to lie down, and we had no choice but to row on.

  The first thing we noticed on the home shore was the louse. It was scampering back and forth on the shoreline and gesturing with its legs excitedly.

  “What’s wrong with him?” wondered Hiie. “He doesn’t usually run away from Pirre and Rääk. But they’re always up in their tree. Maybe something has happened?”

  It was soon clear to us, though, that it had not left its masters at all, because the Primates were stumbling between the trees. Endlessly sitting in a tall tree had had some effect on their ability to walk; when walking on two legs they wobbled noticeably and from time to time they had to support themselves on their palms to keep their balance. I had not seen them come down from a tree in a long time, and such an unusual sight worried me.

  “What has happened?” I cried, trying to row even faster.

  “We saw you from the tree,” replied Pirre. “And the louse got so restless. We decided to come and meet you. Wonderful that you’ve come back alive and well.”

  “We were afraid for you,” added Rääk. “From our treetop we can see everything that goes on in the forest. We saw you being chased by the wolves and how you managed to escape in the boat. We sighed with relief. But the very next day Tambet went off in search of you and again we were worried, because even we can’t see over the sea from the tree, no matter how high we climb. This morning Pirre spotted your boat and we were so glad that we climbed down and came to welcome you.”

  “Even though walking on this flat ground isn’t easy at all,” said Pirre. “The old Primates were so wise to build their houses in the treetops. All illnesses and disasters come from walking on the ground.”

  He sat down with a sigh and rubbed his tired soles.

  By this time we had reached the shore and the louse was prancing around Hiie like mad. I took two skulls from the boat and handed them to the Primates.

  “These were made by my grandfather,” I added. “I’m giving them to you.”

  The Primates turned the beakers over in their hands.

  “Beautiful work,” they declared appreciatively. “Ancient work! These days no one knows how to make these tankards, and all skulls are left to rot. But don’t take it wrongly if we don’t accept them anyway. You understand we have our principles and these skulls are too modern for us.”

  “How so? You said yourselves that they’re ancient work,” I said.

  “In the sense of handicraft, they are,” replied Pirre with a smile. “But look at the material. Look at this cranium, its curves and angles. This is a human skull of today; obviously the owner of this skull must have been an iron man or a monk. Objects of this kind of material we don’t take into our homes on principle. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with the Primates. Moreover, I didn’t get the opportunity. At that same moment, Ülgas rushed onto the beach screaming, “Caught you! I knew that Tambet would find you and bring you home by the ears. The sprites never let one of their sacrifices go.”

  It was obvious that like the louse Ülgas had been impatiently expecting us, except that while the louse’s aim had been to rub itself against Hiie’s legs with great abandon, the sage wanted to kill us, and as quickly as possible. He looked repulsive: flaky skin clung around his bones, his long gray hair fluttered in the wind, and his eyes sat so deep in their sockets that from a distance they appeared to be empty.

  His head is a ready-made chalice, I thought. It only needs to be lopped off the neck. I showed Ülgas the mug I had wanted to give Pirre, and cried, “All that’s left of your friend Tambet is a mug! You want it? I can give it to you. But there’s probably no point. Soon I’ll be making one out of your head.”

  When I had said that, I leapt at Ülgas and struck him with my knife. Within me foamed up a colossal anger. I wanted to chop off Ülgas’s head and was enjoying the anticipation of the moment when a thick cascade of blood would burst forth from the stump of his neck. But I was too inexperienced in this sort of activity and, as it happened, I had missed, and didn’t hack off the sage’s head but only cut his right ear and cheek. Ülgas’s face streamed with blood, and on the sand lay, beside part of the cheek, a single ear, from which a gray wisp bristled.

  Ülgas began yelping and fled away, but I was disappointed that I had not managed to bump off the old man, and strove at him with my knife again.

  “Criminal!” screamed Ülgas as he ran toward the forest, his head like a flayed hare, giving off bubbles of blood. “You raised your hand against the Sage of the Grove! The sprites won’t forgive you! The dogs of the grove will come and bite you to death! They have no mercy! Remember that. The dogs of the grove!”

  “I’ve lived in the forest all my life and I’ve never yet seen a single dog of the grove!” I called after him. “Those dogs exist only in your skull, Ülgas. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to cut it in half. Then I might have seen those miraculous creatures at last. Go home, and if you don’t bleed to death, try to perish as quickly as possible, because you can count on this: the moment I see you, I’ll chop you to pieces. I’m back at home, I’m marrying Hiie, and it would be best for a bastard like you to hang yourself in your own sacred grove!”

  Ülgas was howling about the dogs of the grove and the sprites, but I couldn’t be bothered listening to this rubbish anymore. I piled the remains of the roast hare into a net bag with the skulls and said to Hiie: “Let’s go to my place now, home.”

  “Yes, darling,” replied Hiie. “Tell me, may I take Ülgas’s ear for myself? I’ll dry it in the sun like a dead frog and then it’ll be nice to wear around my neck on the end of a band. Would you like your wife to have an ornament like that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It would remind us of this day, and how I must learn to strike better. I would have liked it even more if you carried that bastard’s dried heart around your neck, with rowanberries inside it, so it would rattle like a child’s toy.”

  We laughed and kissed each other.

  “You weren’t away for long,” said Pirre in surprise. “Yet it seems as if I hadn’t seen you for years. There’s a feeling as if all those years had rolled backward. It seems to me that those times of long ago have
come back, the days when your forefathers were chopping up foreigners and you could see the Frog of the North flying over the sea, coming to gobble up the latest shipwreck victims.”

  Hiie and I burst out laughing again, and Hiie said, “By the way, it may happen that the Frog of the North really will come flying in.”

  “We wouldn’t be surprised,” replied Pirre and Rääk, nodding thoughtfully. “After all, it’s only the recent past, which isn’t really gone for good. This is the world our forefathers imagined on that cave wall you’ve seen. The really ancient pictures have crumbled away, and nothing will bring those days back.”

  Nor did Hiie and I have any need for those times of long ago; we were satisfied with the present. We motioned to the Primates, who remained on the shore massaging their unaccustomed limbs, and we set off. The louse, tired from hopping around Hiie, lay panting on the sand and licking Ülgas’s hacked-off cheek.

  Mother opened the door and squealed with joy.

  “Heavens, it’s you, Leemet! And you too, Hiie, alive and well! How wonderful! How worried I’ve been! Come straight to the table. I’ve got a goat on the fire!”

  We stepped inside. Salme ran toward me and hugged me firmly, bursting into tears. Mõmmi, lying in a corner, got up and motioned with his paw.

  “What’s happened to your bear?” I asked. “Why is he resting there under the skins?”

  “Mõmmi’s been injured,” replied Salme. “You don’t know what we’ve all had to live through. You can’t imagine it!”

  “Salme dearest. I’m sure that Leemet and Hiie have also had to live through many horrible things,” said Mother. “Although yes, what they did to our Mõmmi is dreadful. Just imagine: that same evening when you escaped from the grove, Ülgas and Tambet came here. They wanted to know where you had gone with the boat. I shouted back in their faces and swore all I could, called them murderers and miserable fleas and said they should get out of my shack right away, because I didn’t want to see such vile creatures in my house. Forgive me, Hiie, for yelling at your father like that, but once a pig, always a pig.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” replied Hiie. “He’s dead now anyway.”

  “Dead?” exclaimed Mother. “How did he die then? Tell me, but wait a little; I’ll finish my own story. Anyway I swore at them as much as I could. They were as cold as fish, just standing and staring. Well, I don’t know if they’d been eating fly agaric or drinking Meeme’s wine, or simply been hit over the head, but they looked very strange. Sort of grim and furious.”

  “They told Mother: ‘Be quiet, you old hag; we’ll find her anyway in the end and sacrifice her to the sprites,’ “ said Salme, interrupting.

  “Why do you remember them calling me an old hag now?” railed Mother. “Why are you telling Leemet and Hiie that?”

  “Well, that’s what they said!”

  “They did, the beasts! I’m not an old hag yet! I told them, too, I said, ‘You, Ülgas, you look like a corpse walking on two legs; you’re a fine one to be calling somebody old! And you, Tambet, you’re no longer young either and you don’t look too good, your hair all gray!’ Ah, but now he’s dead? You see, and there he was, calling me an old hag!”

  “Mother, that’s not important!” interrupted Salme. “Anyway, then they started to leave …”

  “Wait! Let me tell it!” said Mother. “They didn’t start leaving so quickly; they stood around for a while demanding to know: where did you go, where did you go? Let’s tell it as it actually was, Salme! You’d be better off going to see if the goat’s ready!”

  Salme went to the inglenook, offended, while Mother carried on with her story.

  “Well now, where was I? Yes, they stood asking questions. I said how would I know where you went? You didn’t say a word to me about a plan to go somewhere with Hiie; I guessed that you’d bring Hiie to us and make her your wife. Of course Tambet went blue in the face when he heard this, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I said straight out: ‘I see that my son did the right thing. That he’s a wise and good man, for if he’d brought Hiie home, he’d have had to fight you, and what kind of a life is it if you have murderers lurking around the house all the time, wanting to strike down your wife.’ And I went on: ‘Even if I knew where he and Hiie went, I wouldn’t say a word to you about it! And now get lost, because my son-in-law will be home soon, and if you upset me any more, he’ll bash you up!’ “

  “And then Mõmmi did come,” sighed Salme, who was now carrying the cooked goat to the table.

  “He did come, yes, and I said, ‘Look, if you please, here’s my son-in-law. Now clear off!’ And imagine the scene: Tambet pushed Mõmmi, so that Mõmmi fell on his backside into the fireplace and burned his bottom. Mõmmi, show Leemet and Hiie where you got hurt!”

  “No problem, I’m getting better,” muttered the bear from his bed and turned on his side, so that we could see the singed fur on his lower half.

  “Aren’t they cruel people!” sighed Mother. “Poor bear! Well, how can a person be so wicked as to push a living animal into the fire? I’d have quite happily stabbed them in the back with a knife, but there was no time. Mõmmi was yelling in the fireplace and I had to help. At that moment those scoundrels took off, and I haven’t seen any more of them. Isn’t it terrible what we’ve all had to go through? I tell you there are few people left in the forest, but half of them are crazy.”

  “Mõmmi, can you manage to come to the table?” Salme asked her husband, stroking the bear’s head tenderly.

  “I might be able to get to the table,” answered the bear. “But I couldn’t sit down. Leave it. You eat; I’ll just rest.”

  “I won’t hear of it!” said Mother. “You have to eat; otherwise you won’t get better. We’ll bring the meat to your bed and lift the table over beside you, so you won’t feel alone. Leemet and Salme, drag the table over to Mõmmi’s bed; today we’ll eat there.”

  It took a while before we got the table into the right position, and then we had to find a suitable piece of meat for the sick Mõmmi and get him into a position where he could eat comfortably. Only then could we sit down at the table, and Mother looked at us in amazement.

  “Why don’t you say anything? We’re waiting! We want to know where you’ve been all these days and how you got away from the disgusting sage!”

  “And how did your father die, Hiie?” added Salme.

  “Your grandfather killed him,” replied Hiie.

  “My grandfather?” Salme repeated. “I don’t have a grandfather.”

  I put one skull beaker on the table and shifted it in front of Mother.

  “This is from your father,” I said. “He sends his greetings and said he’ll come visiting soon.”

  “My father …” whispered Mother, looking at me with hazy eyes. “He’s dead. They threw him in the sea.”

  “Oh no, he’s very much alive,” said Hiie. “He doesn’t have legs, but he’s built wings for himself and soon he’ll be flying to us with them.”

  Mother stared at the skull chalice.

  “I remember I had one of these as a child,” she murmured. “Father made it for me. I drank warm milk from it. It was my favorite cup.”

  She kissed the beaker, pressed it against her cheek, and began crying quietly.

  “Children, you don’t know what this means,” she whispered through her sobs. “To find your own father, and at my age. I thought he was dead long ago … But you say he’s coming back home. I feel like a little girl again. I was quite small then … Children, this is a miracle. Don’t worry that I’m crying like this, but I really … I just can’t …”

  She kissed her beaker once more, and her tears dropped into it.

  “A shame that Vootele didn’t see this day,” she said. “He was always very proud of our father. He was older, and remembered him better. Children, this is the most wonderful day of my life.”

  “Mother, Grandfather hasn’t come home yet,” I said. “This is only a beaker made by him that you’re clutching. Wait until he arriv
es himself!”

  “No, no,” sobbed Mother. “This cup is just as dear to me. It reminds me of my childhood. But now tell me everything! How did you meet my father? Where does he live?”

  Hiie and I started competing with each other in retelling our adventures. Mother listened and interrupted only to occasionally shout, “Eat up! You’re not eating at all! But tell me what happened next?” So we had to gobble a piece of roast without chewing it and carry on talking. Salme sat beside Mõmmi on the bed, stroking her bear and continually passing him more bones, which he gnawed slowly but surely clean. His bottom was indeed singed, but his appetite was unchanged. Gradually the evening was rolling in. All the stories had been told. We had loaded onto the table all the remaining skull cups, and Mother’s rapture knew no bounds. She arranged the crania in a row and stroked them delicately.

  “Father is quite a master! Perhaps he’ll teach you, Leemet, this art of making drinking bowls. That would be nice.”

  “So what do you plan to do from now on?” asked Salme.

  “We’re thinking of getting married,” I replied, taking Hiie by the waist.

  “That’s so lovely to hear,” smiled Mother. “Let’s hope that Grandfather will get to your wedding.”

  “I think we won’t wait for him,” I said. Something within me told me that perhaps it would be wiser to hold the wedding before Grandfather’s arrival, since Grandfather would naturally say that women can wait, and would take me off to war. Although I had nothing against fighting together with Grandfather, I wanted at least to enjoy a few days of quiet peaceful family life before that.

  “We’ll get married as quickly as possible,” I announced.

  Mõmmi nodded from his bed.

  “If I had such a beautiful bride, I would do exactly the same,” he said, eyeing Hiie lovingly.

  “How’s your bottom?” shouted Salme, annoyed, shoving the bear painfully with her elbow.

  “Hurts,” sighed the bear, turning his amber-colored eyes obediently toward Salme.