The Man Who Spoke Snakish (17 page)

“Forgive me,” I said. “But as you said, it really doesn’t change anything. We’ll still be friends and I’m very glad that you’re going to be a mother. Who’s the father then?”

“Oh, one of the adders. We got together one night, we were both in heat, and so it happened. We haven’t met again, and we don’t want to. He’s a fairly stupid snake; let him crawl around by himself.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, taken aback. “Isn’t the father going to bring up his own children? Aren’t you going to get married?”

“Oh, you’re so formal!” chuckled Ints. “That’s not the way with us.”

“Your father and mother are still living together today,” I said.

“Well yes, but that’s an exception. They were friends even before they had children. Mostly it’s just a matter of mating. You’re in heat, a suitable adder comes along, and that’s it,” explained Ints. “And if you don’t manage to get pregnant, you look for the next one and try it with him, until you finally succeed. So how is it with humans?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, blushing. “But surely it begins with falling in love …”

“Really?” exclaimed Ints. “Well yes, that’s why there are so few of you. Our aim is to multiply.”

I shrugged. To tell the truth I didn’t know exactly how humans arranged these things. I met with Hiie often in the forest, but obviously we weren’t “in heat,” to use Ints’s expression, and nothing happened. But how was it done in the village? There were plenty of people, the village boys and girls went around together everywhere, and often I would see the boys fondling the girls; a couple of times I’d seen them kissing too. Were they in heat? I fell into daydreams and imagined myself meeting somewhere on the edge of the forest some beautiful village girl who was looking for someone to mate with and had decided to try her luck with me. I didn’t know if I was in heat at that moment, but somehow I felt that I was.

“What are you thinking of?” asked Ints. “You’re not listening at all to what I’m saying. I said that I have to go to the nest now and we can’t meet for a while. I’m already very fat and it’s hard for me to crawl around. But come in about a week to see me; by then the kids should have been born. I feel it won’t be long now.”

She crawled off slowly and I went home. I told Mother that Ints was actually female and expecting babies. Mother got very agitated at this.

“How nice!” she enthused. “I’ll definitely come with you when you go to see Ints. Little adders, they can be cute, just like tiny maggots. Oh, I so want to have a grandchild! Leemet, don’t wait too long now. You’re still young. But look, Ints is your old playmate and she’s becoming a mother already. You’d better bring Hiie home soon; it’d be so lovely if you had a little boy!”

“Mother, please!” I sighed, but Mother didn’t stop, and talked all evening about how cute little children are. She seemed to entirely forget that it was not I who was expecting children but Ints, and when I reminded her, she said, “Yes, of course I
know it’s Ints! But you mustn’t fall behind her. You must soon be expecting a little family of your own!”

“Mother, unlike Ints I am a male, and I can’t have a family!” I objected, but Mother just waved her hand. “Of course
you
can’t, but Hiie! I’m talking about Hiie!”

This was followed by the usual speech about where she was going to have us all sleep when Hiie moved in.

I rapidly came to regret that I’d told Mother at all about Ints and her pregnancy, because she would not calm down. It was almost as if she were already preparing for a wedding and the birth of grandchildren. She started sewing little goatskin shirts and dragging furniture from one place to another. I tried to make it clear to her that no child was going to be born in our shack, and there was no point in making little shirts for Ints’s young, because they wouldn’t have arms to poke into the sleeves. Mother paid no heed to me.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked angrily. “I’m not sewing shirts for baby adders, but for your children!”

“I don’t have any children!” I shouted.

At this Mother conjured up a cunning expression, as if to say, “I know you, you rascal. You’ll soon have babies around you!” And she carried on sewing shirts, a happy smile on her face.

After a week we went to visit the adders. Ints’s father, the old king of the snakes, welcomed us at the entrance to the cave, nodding with satisfaction.

“Welcome!” he said. “We’ve been expecting you. We have a little family.”

Mother burst into tears. We squeezed into the burrow, and there lay Ints, surrounded by three baby adders, as tiny as tiger moths.

“Oh, how sweet!” squealed Mother and hissed tenderly at the young snakes, who crawled into her lap and wriggled around in it.

I stroked Ints and congratulated her, and Ints licked me with her forked tongue, supporting her head on my knees, as was always her habit.

“This is Uncle Leemet!” she said to her young. “Say hello to him!”

“Hello!” hissed the little snakes.

“How cuddly they are!” exclaimed Mother. “Ah, you can be happy, Ints! And you know Leemet will be having a child soon! I know. We’re making preparations at home already.”

“Really?” said Ints in surprise, looking me in the eye. “Is that true?”

“No,” I hissed quietly. “Mother’s telling fibs.”

“But you really could,” said Ints. “Aren’t you in heat yet? Or in love, as you call it?”

“No, I’m not!” I said, getting up. Mother was chatting to Ints’s father about where she would put me and Hiie and where she would move herself and the several goatskin shirts she had already sewn. It was depressing to listen to. I left the burrow, saying I wanted some water, but actually I just sat down on a tussock and stared out in front of me.

“Leemet!” shouted someone to me. It was Hiie, of course. Just at that moment I didn’t want to see her at all. I can’t have been in heat.

“Go away!” I said, troubled.

“Has something happened?” asked Hiie. She came and sat beside me. “I came to look at Ints’s children.”

On top of everything else! I didn’t want Hiie to go into the snake burrow for any price. I imagined how Mother would whoop at the sight of her and inform Ints’s father: “That’s my daughter-in-law! She’ll be having children soon!”

“Right now you shouldn’t go to see Ints,” I said, getting up. “She’s not at her best. She hasn’t recovered from giving birth.”

“Really!” exclaimed Hiie, wanting to rush into the burrow. I grasped her by the waist.

“You mustn’t go in there just now!” I repeated. “Please!”

Hiie stared at me, wide-eyed. The situation was odd: I’d never held her in my arms before. She was right up against me, uncomfortably close in fact. I would have liked to let go of her, but wasn’t sure whether Hiie would run off to see Ints. So I kept hold of her. We were both silent and at least I felt inexpressibly strange. I didn’t know what to do.

Finally I released my arms and pulled away. Hiie stayed put. She had lowered her gaze and didn’t say a word.

“Don’t go, all right?” I said.

“All right,” whispered Hiie.

We remained standing. I bit my lip and looked away to one side. Hiie didn’t move.

“Will you go home now?” I asked awkwardly.

“Yes, of course!” Hiie replied quickly, a feeling of relief in her voice. “See you!”

“See you!”

Then she left, quickly, almost at a run, as if fleeing from someone.

I stood in front of Ints’s burrow, feeling somehow very foolish.

understood very well that things were going slightly wrong with Hiie. What she might read into our hug was not hard to guess. Even though she was alarmed by my harsh words and my command to go home immediately, she had evidently felt pleasure in being held awkwardly in my arms. She became somehow relaxed and soft, despite being as bony as a hungry fox. I couldn’t sleep for half the night, feeling ill at ease. I decided to seek out Hiie the next morning and pretend nothing had happened in front of the snakes’ lair. I wanted her to forget both that unexpected embrace and my rude words. I wanted Hiie to be my friend, but I didn’t want her to start imagining things that didn’t exist, like my mother, who had been steamed up even more at the sight of Ints’s offspring.

So the next day I went to look for Hiie. She wasn’t at home; luckily there was no one there at all. Then I circled around the forest, visited the Primates, to find out whether Hiie had been to visit her dear louse, but Pirre and Rääk hadn’t seen Hiie that morning. I walked on and finally reached the edge of the forest and heard somebody shrieking.

It was a girl’s voice, and at once I thought I had found Hiie. Then I saw who was screaming, and it was a village girl. On closer inspection it turned out to be my old acquaintance Magdaleena, whom I’d visited twice with Pärtel.

I stayed behind a tree and peeped at the girl. I didn’t understand why she was crying like that, and at first I didn’t intend to go up to her, but since she didn’t stop her wailing I came hesitantly out of the forest and started walking toward her.

Magdaleena saw me but didn’t recognize me, and started screaming even more wildly, calling for help.

“Don’t yell like that,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Who are you?” cried Magdaleena, picking up a woven wicker basket to defend herself from me.

“Leemet,” I said. “Don’t you remember, I visited you a long time ago. You showed me a spinning wheel and your father wanted to beat my friend the snake to death.”

Now Magdaleena recognized me, but didn’t calm down at all, and flung her basket at me, sending the strawberries that she’d picked flying everywhere.

“And he should have killed that dirty beast!” she screamed. “I hate snakes! Look at what they do! One bit me! Look at my leg! I’m going to die!”

Her right leg really was as thick as a block of wood—red and swollen. Magdaleena tried to move her leg, but evidently it was very painful, as she fell to howling again.

“I’m dying, I’m dying! I can feel the poison affecting me already! That snake killed me! Disgusting, repulsive creature! Help! Father! Help!”

“Don’t bawl like that,” I said. I was in fact quite dumbfounded that one person could be so helpless and miserable like a little
chick, and let herself be bitten by an adder. Naturally I had seen with my own eyes how Ints had killed a monk, but in my opinion the monk and the iron men didn’t belong to humankind at all, because they didn’t understand the language of humans or of snakes, but babbled something completely incomprehensible. They were like insects, and you could kill and bite them as much as you liked. Magdaleena was human, though, and an adder had indeed bitten her. That seemed so humiliating that I was actually ashamed for Magdaleena. After all, why didn’t she understand Snakish? One simple hiss would have made it clear to the adder that this was his sister standing here, not a mouse or a frog to fasten on. But instead of learning Snakish as she should have, this girl was now writhing on the ground here, two red tooth marks on her calf. She had voluntarily lowered herself to the level of the animals, instead of rising to the level of adders, which is the rightful place for a human.

“Help, I’m dying!” Magdaleena kept on moaning. “Father, save me!”

“Does your father know Snakish?” I asked, somewhat scornfully, because I could guess the answer.

“Of course not!” said Magdaleena, irritated. “There is no such thing! Only the devil understands that!”

I didn’t know who the “devil” was, but I guessed from the girl’s tone that it wasn’t likely to be someone from the village. I sat down next to Magdaleena.

“Then your father will be no help to you now,” I said. “To get the poison out of your blood you have to invite the same adder that bit you. He’ll suck his poison out of your leg and you’ll be all right. It’s a small thing; I’ll hiss him up right away.”

Magdaleena looked at me incredulously, but I uttered a very simple hiss, taught to me as a small boy by Uncle Vootele, and after a little while a snake of a smaller kind crawled up to me. It wasn’t an adder belonging to the tribe of the king of snakes, but a common viper, though this viper was known to me; we had hibernated together in Ints’s burrow.

Magdaleena was startled at the sight of the snake and tried to crawl away in panic, as if afraid that the little snake was now going to swallow her whole. I held her fast and told her there was no need to flee and the snake wouldn’t bite her, because I wouldn’t allow it. Magdaleena stayed put and just stared at the little snake, which had coiled itself, waiting for me to say what I wanted of it. I greeted the snake politely and asked it to suck the poison out of Magdaleena’s leg.

“Why did you sting her at all?” I asked. “You can see she’s a human.”

“But she doesn’t know Snakish!” replied the viper. “And besides, she wanted to hit me with her basket. I asked her what was wrong with her that she leapt at me that way, but she didn’t answer me. Well, then I pecked at her. Don’t let her try it a second time!”

I sighed.

“You see, these humans are simply stupid,” I said apologetically. “Forgive them. Their minds aren’t quite right; that’s why they can’t learn Snakish words. But there’s no point in biting them, so next time just keep away.”

“I don’t want to bite them either, but this girl started it,” explained the viper. “All right, I don’t hate her. Make her stretch out her leg; then it’s better for me to suck.”

“You have to stretch your leg out,” I told Magdaleena, who of course understood nothing of our hissing. “And don’t beat snakes with your basket again. They haven’t done anything to you.”

“But they’re disgusting!” sobbed Magdaleena, but she did stretch out her leg as requested, and screwed her eyes tightly shut. The viper pressed itself against the wound and began sucking. The reduction in the swelling was visible: the thick red stump became a pretty slender leg. The viper raised its head and licked his mouth.

“This sucking tickles my tongue,” he said. “Finished! Not a drop of venom left in there.”

I thanked him and the little snake undulated away into the grass. Magdaleena got up and supported her healed leg, a doubtful expression on her face. But everything was all right. The poison had been sucked out.

Then she suddenly fell upon me and kissed me on the cheek.

“Thank you!” she cried, hugging me tightly. “You saved my life! You’re a wizard! You’re a sorcerer! You do good magic! Come with me; we’ll go to my father! I want to tell him what you did.”

In any other circumstances I would have certainly refused such a suggestion. I had no desire to meet Johannes. But in Magdaleena’s arms, my cheek a little damp from the passionate kiss, I didn’t see a way of declining. The previous day I had held Hiie in my embrace. Now Magdaleena was caressing me—but how different those hugs were! With Hiie I’d felt uncomfortable, but standing in Magdaleena’s grasp was very good. Now that she was no longer crying or complaining, but quite the opposite, glowing with happiness, I saw how beautiful she was. I can’t even begin to describe her appearance. Suffice to say that I thought she was perfect, much more beautiful than Hiie, more
beautiful than my sister, even more beautiful than her prettiest and bustiest girlfriend. To use Ints’s expression, just at that moment I felt that I was in heat.

So how could I refuse when Magdaleena invited me to her home? I went.

Johannes the village elder, who had turned gray in the intervening years, did not express any surprise at seeing me.

“Things are ordained in threes!” he said, and made a strange movement in front of his face. Later I found out that this was a peculiar spell that was called the sign of the cross, but I never observed that this incantation was of any use. Johannes squeezed my hand and added, “I’m sure that you won’t be running back to the forest a third time. A man of the cross does not belong where beasts of prey walk about and Satan rules. Come, step inside, my boy. We’ll have breakfast.”

“Father, you can’t imagine what happened to me today!” said Magdaleena, interrupting. She couldn’t wait to get inside, but told right there on the threshold how a snake had stung her, how her leg had swollen, and how she thought her last hour had come. And how I had then invited the snake back and healed her leg.

“Father, isn’t that a miracle?” she cried excitedly, and it was somehow embarrassing for me that these people got so excited about such a trifling thing. But at the same time Magdaleena’s enthusiasm gave me pleasure, because it was beautiful to see her eyes glistening with great rapture.

Johannes didn’t reply; he only crossed his hands on his breast and lowered his head.

“Father, say something!” begged Magdaleena. “I think it was miraculous. Or … do you think the devil is at work here?” Magdaleena paled and threw me an uneasy look. “Do you think it was some sort of witchcraft? That I shouldn’t have let the snake suck my leg? But Father, I would have died then! You don’t know how bad I was! Father, say something, please! Why are you silent?”

“I was praying,” replied Johannes the elder quietly, now looking straight at Magdaleena. “Don’t be afraid, my child. You haven’t strayed against God. Of course a snake is a foul creature, Satan’s own handiwork, but the power of God overcomes the power of the devil. He can use even the most abominable creature to a holy purpose. Satan moved the evil snake to sting you, but God in his infinite mercy led this boy to you who saved you. God forced the snake to suck its own poison and choke on it. May the heavenly ruler be praised!”

“Never in the world would the snake choke on its own poison!” I said. “It was simply a mistake that he stung Magdaleena, and I asked him to clean the wound. There’s no miracle about it; you only have to know Snakish words.”

“Nobody knows those!” claimed Magdaleena. “That’s just the miracle, that you understand them!”

“Any human can learn Snakish words,” I said quietly. “It’s not such a difficult art. In the olden days everyone knew them, and back then no snake would bite a human.”

I suddenly felt very sad, and noticed a faint smell of death, a scent that came back to me at these moments. I could not get free of that smell, as if, after the burning of Uncle’s body, the stink had been released to the skies and mixed with the blue above, and now, at any moment, the wind could carry it back to
me. That stench came like a rain cloud, and I never noticed its approach until the first drops assaulted my nose. It mostly came when I was sad, as I was now, because here they were admiring me for knowing Snakish words, which to me were as ordinary and natural for a human as being able to speak at all, or having legs to walk, and hands to do work. Suddenly I felt terribly alone, in the midst of alien people, with whom I had not the least thing in common. I had felt just as alone and abandoned that time in the cellar, where my only companion was the corpse of Uncle Vootele. I turned my head away to seek fresher air, but the stench would not leave me alone and the whole world seemed full of decay. Johannes the village elder invited me indoors. I went, but even there it stank.

Magdaleena got busy laying the table, but Johannes sat down next to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t think that you would have been able to learn Snakish words unless God had marked you out for that,” he said. “God doesn’t want an innocent child like my daughter to perish, and for that reason he opened your mind to the language of snakes, so that you could appear out of the woods and save Magdaleena’s life.”

“I don’t know anything about God, and I don’t want to,” I said. “I was taught those words by my uncle. Every human knows them, if he hasn’t forgotten them all by moving to the village.”

“Even if we have forgotten something, that is God’s will,” said Johannes, explaining further. “God doesn’t want us to talk to the snakes, for a snake is his enemy. And what have we to say to the enemies of God? Nowhere on earth do they talk to snakes. Believe me. I have wandered around and I know what I’m talking about. Why should we be the last miserable people to be on the
side of the snakes? I think we should listen to those who are wiser than us. The foreigners, who know how to build fortresses and monasteries of stone, whose ships are big and fast, and whose bodies are covered by armor that no arrow can penetrate. Have the snakes taught them all that wisdom? No, they uncovered these secrets thanks to God! He has enlightened them and made them strong, and he will help us too, if we listen to him.”