The Man Who Spoke Snakish

by Andrus Kivirähk

  Then it was my turn. The men came and untied me from the tree. I was still very weak and started reeling, but they wouldn’t let me fall and dragged me quickly from the tree to the torture rack. One of the men slipped on the large puddle of blood covering it and my wounded head collided with his shoulder. I could not hold back a scream.

  The men laughed and said something in their own language, which I didn’t understand, but I assumed they were saying something like: “That was nothing, just a joke. The real pain is still coming!”

  I didn’t doubt that, because quite clearly it was going to be horrifically unpleasant to have your back cut open and your ribs bent out. But there was nothing to be done; Snakish would not help here.

  They bound me up exactly as they had done with Grandfather and one of the men took up a knife. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lips, anticipating the first flash of pain on the back of the neck and everything that must follow it.

  But the jab didn’t come. Nobody touched me, and the strange noises coming from the iron men enticed me to open my eyes again.

  They were all still standing just as before—on a wide stretch of the shore, where they could best follow the bloody scene being played out. They were no longer laughing or craning their necks at the murder rack. Their heads were cocked toward the sea, and their necks seemed to have become unexpectedly heavy. There was something uncertain in their stance, giving the impression that their heads threatened to roll off their shoulders, and to prevent that and preserve their balance, they had to take a step toward the sea. And then another. But that didn’t help. Their necks would not straighten up; their heads drew them willy-nilly toward the sea, and though the iron men even tried with their hands to point their own heads in a different direction, they did not succeed and they were forced on the path their heads had chosen.

  I looked at them from behind. Even those men whose task was to torture me to death no longer stood on the killing floor, but staggered like the other iron men step by step toward the sea, for that was where their imperious heads were tugging them. Their faces reflected extreme alarm and fear; they didn’t understand what was going on here with their willful skulls and where they were being drawn to. They squealed and clutched their own throats, but an unknown force that at this moment controlled their heads was stronger than they were.

  I was still bound up, and couldn’t pull my hands and feet free of my fetters, although I tried with all my might. Here was an excellent opportunity to escape. I could not know how long such a miracle would last, and I struggled for all I was worth. But the fetters were strong, and there was nothing for me to do but lie and hope that this bizarre event would take the iron men as far as possible from me.

  Their heads led them farther and farther toward the sea; the first iron men were already standing with their feet in the water and kept having to step ever farther. Now they were screaming in mortal fear. Ever farther into the sea their heads directed them, and they stumbled on like tethered sheep. They struggled to resist, but kept walking, for they had no strength to resist. One iron man of short build had now got so far into the sea that the water was up to his neck: he screamed like a madman but couldn’t stop, and the next moment the water rushed into his mouth. He disappeared into the waves.

  Now the iron men all fully understood what kind of end awaited them; they howled and yelped, and one man took a knife from his belt and slit his own throat with it, to rid himself of his own murderous head. Thus he was saved from drowning, but not from death, and his body collapsed into the sea and colored the water red.

  The other iron men were not so resolute. They screamed and yelled, waved their arms to heaven, and begged for help from their God, whom they obviously imagined to be lounging up there beyond the clouds, wondering at this peculiar scene. Nothing helped them. One by one they vanished into the sea, and when the waves had taken the last iron man’s head, an unexpected silence fell on the shore.

  I took a deep breath. I was alive. I had been saved, though I didn’t understand how. What force had driven these men into the water, to voluntarily drown themselves? I didn’t know, and for the moment that wasn’t my greatest problem. I had to get free of my fetters and get out of this pool of blood into which the iron men had forced me, facedown. I wriggled like a snake, but the fetters would not give way.

  “Wait, we’ll help you!” came a voice. I turned my head and saw two snow-white forms lumbering ahead with difficulty. It was Pirre and Rääk! For the first moment it was even difficult to recognize them, so old had they become. Their long white fur fluttered in the sea breeze and turned the Primates into great downy chicks. They were walking heavily, swaying and stumbling, but finally they reached me and with their long yellow paws unpicked the knots.

  I sat up straight and groaned, for my wounded head was again hurting and my now-free limbs were throbbing. But that was nothing compared to the happiness that my back was still intact and my ribs still hidden within my body. I embraced the Primates and declared, “I thank you. How did you know to come here just at the right moment?”

  “Everything can be seen from our tree,” said Pirre. “It’s only that we haven’t been walking for ages; that’s why it took a lot of time. If we’d been a little quicker, we would have had time to save your grandfather too.”

  “Yes, it’s our fault that he had to die,” said Rääk. “We’re too old and terribly slow.”

  “What happened to those iron men?” I asked. “What drove them to drown in the sea?”

  “Lice,” replied the Primates proudly. “Our dear lice, which we’ve been studying and training all our lives. We sent them into the iron men’s hair and gave the command to move toward the sea. The lice started moving, and drew the men with them. It isn’t possible to stay in one place when a thousand lice want to go somewhere in your hair, not if they are given the power by the right Snakish words, the kind that humans no longer remember, not even you, my boy. Special old Primates’ Snakish words, which have power even over insects. They saved you and led the iron men into the water, sadly together with the poor lice, who sacrificed themselves for you, Leemet.”

  “I’m very grateful to them,” I said. “But who will you study and teach now that all the lice perished in the sea?”

  “Oh, there’ll be new ones born,” opined Pirre. “But we’re hardly likely to train them any longer. We really are too old. Besides, there would be no point, because after us no one will be able to talk to the lice anyway. Those lice that led the great throng into the sea today were the last ones that could be directed with Snakish words; the lice of the future will live their own lives and won’t obey anyone any longer.”

  “So it is,” I replied. “All things come to an end. Today the last human with fangs died, the last human who could fly. In the future they’ll think that such things were possible only in fairy tales.”

  I lit a big bonfire by the seashore, on which I burned my grandfather’s corpse. Then I said good-bye to the Primates, promising to come and see them soon, and went into the forest, to look for my sister and think about how to go on living.

  Thirty-Seven

  ccording to Pirre and Rääk, Salme should still be living in her old cave, and that is where I bent my steps. Although some trees had grown taller and others been broken by autumn storms, it was easy for me to find my sister’s dwelling. I pushed aside the deerskin hung in front of the cave entrance and stepped inside.

  “Hello!” I said in a loud voice. “Still recognize me, sister?”

  “You, Leemet!”

  Salme got up in astonishment. The cave was dim, but still you could clearly see that in the meanwhile my sister had grown very old. Her hair hung untidily, faded and tangled like last year’s grass stalks under melted snow. Her leather cape was torn in places and sooty, as was her face. I must have looked quite taken aback at my sister. At any rate she seemed to feel a slight embarrassment at her appearance; she pushed away the wisps of hair in front of her face.

  “I wasn’t ex
pecting you,” she mumbled in confusion. “Such a long time … Where have you been? I really didn’t know … Nobody ever visits us anymore. Mõmmi, look who’s come!”

  Mõmmi looked at me and I looked at him, and I saw the fattest bear I had ever chanced to meet. He took up half of the cave. Fat had swallowed up his snout, so that his face was flat and round, as if he were no longer a bear but an eagle owl. Thick folds of flab hung everywhere on him. It seemed that the old fur couldn’t manage to cover the gigantically expanded body, and so there were yawning hairless gaps on his skin in several places, like stains or large scabs. Mõmmi’s feet weren’t visible at all; a rampant paunch covered them like soft brown moss.

  “Hello, Leemet,” mumbled this mountain of lard, peering at me with his tiny eyes, which hardly peeped out over the fat cheeks. “Haven’t seen you in a long time. Nice that you dropped by! Salme, offer your brother something to eat.”

  “No, thanks!” I said rapidly. In the presence of such a fat animal I couldn’t force a mouthful down my throat. Besides, I could smell a strong stink, which filled the whole cave and nauseated me. I presumed that Mõmmi had grown so obese that he couldn’t go outside the cave to do his business, and therefore would shit right there. I imagined what might be hidden in that fat furry belly, which covered the bear’s feet like flayed skin, and it made me feel bilious. What’s more, I saw gnawed bones lying everywhere along with rotting bits of meat; for some reason Salme had not bothered to throw them out, and they stank as well. Great black flies were strutting all over and rubbing their front legs together, as if expressing pleasure at such a grand feast. Mother would never have tolerated such slovenliness and filth in her own shack. Apart from being disgusting, it was shameful. What would the neighbors say about such squalor!

  But at the same time I understood that neighbors were what Salme and Mõmmi no longer had. They lived all alone in the forest. Nobody stepped over their threshold; nobody had anything to do with them. They were the only people left in the forest—and actually Mõmmi was a bear. No wonder, then, that their residence had gone wild and was now more like an animal’s lair than a human dwelling.

  “You really don’t want to eat?” asked Salme. “We’ve got venison. But it’s not cooked right through like Mother’s roasts. You see, Mõmmi likes it a bit less well done, and so nowadays I don’t cook the meat so long. It’s juicier that way. Want to try?”

  From somewhere behind the inglenook she brought out an enormous dish of cold venison, which to my mind was practically raw. No force on earth could have made me taste it.

  “No, Salme, I’ve just eaten,” I lied. “Let’s just chat. Mõmmi’s grown quite a bit, I see.”

  “Yes, he has; he can’t get outside. You don’t know what a calamity he had. The iron men wanted to kill him! They hunted after him, and one of them got him with a spear, which wounded his hip. He was able to escape from them into a thicket and limp back to me, but the wound was horrible. I doctored him as best I could, but Mõmmi’s leg started festering and he couldn’t move at all anymore. He still can’t. He just sits. I’m so sorry for him, but I can’t help him at all, because I’ve tried all the medicinal herbs and the other tricks. I feed him well and take care that he wants for nothing. Yes, he’s got a bit fatter, but so what. At least he has a full belly. Haven’t you, darling?”

  “Yes, I have a full belly,” concurred Mõmmi, who, to pass the time, had started devouring the venison she had brought to the table. “You’re a dear and good woman.”

  “That’s how we live, the two of us,” said Salme. “Quite happily, although Mõmmi would of course like to go out in the forest sometimes. We’re not bored. We eat several times a day, and when our bellies are full, we sleep in each other’s arms. I hope the iron men won’t find us in this cave; they don’t usually come so deep into the forest. They are so horrible! How could they hunt a bear? A bear is such a good animal. Oh, Mõmmi, have you eaten all that venison already? Want some more?”

  “Give me some more,” mumbled the bear, flinging the gnawed bones carelessly on the floor, so that a cloud of flies took to flight in excitement, delighted with a new greasy bone to scurry along.

  I felt bad, and it was now that a feeling of great dejection descended on me. Now, not when Grandfather’s ribs were ripped out of his backbone, and not even when I had placed his remains on the pyre. Grandfather had got what he wanted: he had fought proudly, killed many iron men, and now been killed himself. He had known he would die beforehand. Sooner or later he would be worn out by his own age; one day even his fangs would become blunt. That a bowman’s arrow had struck Grandfather at just that time was chance, but there was nothing shameful in it. A warrior had been doing battle; now, bested in combat, he had to take his punishment. Nobody was to blame; Grandfather’s life had ended just as he wished for himself, and in our lousy times his fate was beautiful and uplifting.

  What had happened to my sister was quite different. It was terrible; it was shameful. It sometimes happened, even in our home, that Mother forgot a little bit of haunch of hare or some other food in some corner, which when fresh would have been tasty and juicy, but when left to oblivion rotted and became covered in mold. Now my sister was like that haunch of hare fallen into oblivion, as sad as it was for me to acknowledge it. The forest was empty. Only she was left—a forgotten piece of carrion that had not been noticed at the right time, and was now inedible. She had gone bad! Her time had passed; she was no longer human. She wasn’t a bear either, but was moving in that direction. She was now happy to eat raw meat, and her hair now resembled shaggy fur. And I couldn’t help her at all, because I myself was just the same, a piece of moldy meat, trying spasmodically to preserve its freshness and imagine that it was still good for something. For what? My sister had understood this correctly; she could now just eat and sleep in her bear’s embrace. Nothing else. I didn’t even have a bear: I had to sleep alone.

  So this is my future in the forest, I thought with horror. Wouldn’t it have been better if the Primates had been delayed even more, so that bold wings had grown out of my bloodied back and I had flown away with Grandfather—to where all my dear ones had gone, all my predecessors, all my people. “Why don’t you eat?” asked Salme again, gnawing hungrily on some half-raw venison so that some reddish substance trickled out of the corner of her mouth. “Are you afraid it isn’t cooked enough? If you like I can cook a piece right through for you!”

  “No, Salme, don’t go to the trouble,” I replied. “I’m really not hungry.”

  I didn’t stay with my sister long. I got used to the stink, but we had nothing to talk about. Since our last meeting a lot had happened, but I didn’t have the strength or the wish to talk about it.

  Therefore I didn’t say a word about Grandfather; I didn’t talk about my own life in the village, or the battles that followed. I felt that Salme wouldn’t understand those things anyway. What for me were precious or painful memories would be for her just some incomprehensible news of an unknown, distant world—an alien, strange smell that would just disturb her dozing in the warm old domestic stench. For them to understand, I suspected that I would have to explain every detail, and even that would be no help.

  Therefore I only said that in the interval I had been wandering around. That was enough for Salme. She didn’t inquire any further, and Mõmmi nodded his chubby head with satisfaction. Then Salme recalled the death of our mother, the reason for which was quite unclear to her: that is she thought that the snakes’ nest where Mother was living had simply caught fire for some reason—and I didn’t bother to tell her that it was not so simple. I let her go on complaining and grumbling for a while, and I noticed that meanwhile Mõmmi was falling asleep, a half-chewed bone hanging out of his mouth, as if he were vomiting his own skeleton.

  Salme ended her tale with a long sigh and then yawned. I understood that she wanted to go to sleep right then, in the embrace of her gigantically bloated bear, and I said I would get going.

  “Where will you l
ive?” asked Salme. “In Mother’s old shack?”

  “We’ll see,” I replied. “I haven’t thought about it yet. Maybe I will, or maybe I’ll build myself a new house.”

  “In the meantime you can come and sleep at our place. We’ve got room.”

  “No, I want a place to myself,” I explained. Salme nodded sleepily.

  “Keep on coming, then; you can always come for a meal with us. Sadly we can’t come visiting; poor Mõmmi is completely crippled.”

  She looked pityingly at her mountainous bear and added in a whisper: “Of course it’s good in a way that he can’t go fornicating in the forest anymore. Well, peeping at those village girls. Now he’s only my bear and I don’t have to worry about where he is and what he’s doing. I have my eye nicely on him all the time.”

  “Yes, that’s good,” I agreed and started setting off. Fresh air blew in my face as if I’d been sprayed with cold water. It felt downright delicious after the stuffy cave, so that I wanted to bite down into it. I walked for a while, simply feeling the pleasure of breathing. Then I sat down, ate some lingonberries, for my stomach was quite empty, and gave some thought to what to do next.

  I didn’t want to go back to war without Grandfather. I must have been worn out with rampaging. Instead of the crazed anger and desire for revenge that had foamed in my veins so recently, I was overcome with a complete indifference. Really I couldn’t be bothered doing anything anymore. What I wanted most to do was to stay right there among the bushes basking in the sunshine like an adder curled up. The lingonberries were within reach and there were plenty of them. What more could I need? I fell into a pleasant torpor, and recovered from it only when the sun had sunk beyond the treetops and I started to feel chilly.

  I got up, stretched, and moved my arms to get warm. I had to seek some shelter, since the autumnal forest was not warm enough for me to lie under the open sky. I didn’t want to go to my sister’s; it would be silly in the darkness of the night to start building a new dwelling, so all that was left was my old home. For a long time I had been reluctant to visit it, but now suddenly I felt its absence. Why not go there and sleep a little? In the end it was only a shack; so what if for me it was full of sad memories? I thought of my mother and Hiie, but I could find no emotion in myself. The past seemed just like a distant legend, which might be sadder or happier but had no connection with the present moment. Mother and Hiie were just figures in a story that had been told to the end; now there was just the dark, cool forest, which aroused repugnance in me, and an empty shack somewhere on the other side of the forest, where it would be so pleasant to lie down and stretch out. Nothing else was important.