The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Sixteen

can’t say that I hadn’t thought about girls from time to time. There just weren’t any of them in the forest, apart from Hiie. Mother was dead certain that one day I would take Hiie as my wife. I wasn’t so sure. In fact if I hadn’t seen a single other girl I might have thought that all women are like Hiie and been resigned to my fate. But I had a sister, who might not have been a first-class beauty, but was still luscious and fluffy in every way. I remembered her girlfriends too, whom Pärtel and I used to go and peep at when they were whisking themselves stark naked in the trees. There were some real beauties among them. Now they had all moved away to the village, but the village wasn’t exactly seven seas away; in fact it was quite close to us, and there was nothing to stop me from roaming to the edge of the forest every once in a while.

Yes, I was no better than Mõmmi; I too went spying on the village girls. I’d seen them gathering hay and cutting grain with a scythe and — why hide it — even bathing in the lake. I knew very well what a girl should look like, and Hiie was nothing compared to the village maidens. She was sweet and nice, and we met and chatted often, but on no occasion did I feel a wish to caress her. She was a different sort. There are certain species of flower that seem to demand to be picked, with every color of their blossom radiating at you in a meadow, and you notice them even among the tallest grass. As a child I was very fond of picking flowers and presenting them to Mother. In the early spring when the first yellow coltsfoot appeared, I would pick them and take them home. Yet the coltsfoot is not really a flower; it withers indoors almost right away, but with its golden florets it stands out from the dead spring grass, asking to be picked. That’s to say nothing of the later globeflowers, chamomiles, bellflowers, and poppies. As a child I just couldn’t walk peacefully past them; even when I was in a hurry somewhere, my foot would falter when I saw their many-colored blooms and I felt a terrible desire to go and pick flowers.

But there are also a large number of plants that don’t excite you at all. There are all sorts of stalks and grasses that fill the forest. You never pick them. It would seem downright ridiculous to go home with a handful of ordinary grass. Why bring that hay indoors? Of course it’s nice that there are such plants, because the forest floor can’t be carpeted with flowers alone, but they don’t arrest your gaze. And unfortunately Hiie was that sort of plant. I had nothing against meeting her sometimes in the forest, but I didn’t want to take her home. I was interested in the flowers that grew in the village, especially when they swam naked in the lake like water lilies.

So it was quite annoying for me to listen at home to Mother’s discussions about where she would put me and Hiie to sleep when we started living together. Mother wanted to enlarge our shack, to move herself to an outhouse and leave the whole old hovel to us. I always tried delicately to contest this, reminding Mother that we weren’t married yet, but she just shrugged her shoulders: “You ought to think about the future! You’ll be taking a wife one day, won’t you, and who else but Hiie? There aren’t any other girls here in the forest.”

Fortunately Mother never pushed me into taking a wife, for in her opinion I was still a child — even if at the same time the only man — and my main task was to eat properly what Mother made for me, and to be a good boy. But even though it was still some time in the future, Mother was starting to yearn for Hiie to enjoy her roasts too.

“It would be so nice if Hiie came to eat with us sometimes,” she said, smiling and blowing at the fire. Mother was for some reason of the firm opinion that Hiie and I were already a couple, and thought that I was just too shy to invite my young lady to visit. She tried to embolden me, explaining that even though we weren’t living together, I was still allowed to invite Hiie to lunch, because the sooner she got to know her future daughter-in-law, the better.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll begin to love her like my own daughter!” she assured me, looking at me as if she could already see me and Hiie in her mind’s eye sitting side by side at the table, tucking into a haunch of venison. When she talked like this I always lost my appetite, but I didn’t say anything. In the end I consoled myself with the fact that Hiie’s father wouldn’t allow his daughter to be the wife of a village-born bastard anyway.

Tambet really would never have allowed it. His grudge against our family was as great as ever. I no longer fled into the bushes like a little boy when I caught sight of him — that would have been ridiculous, for I was now even taller than Tambet — but we never greeted each other.

It was in fact a pretty extraordinary situation that prevailed in the forest then; there were very few people left, but we had nothing to do with each other. Tambet and Mall would whizz past our family as proud hawks fly over nettles, without even turning their heads.

Ülgas the Sage was still alive too, and although very old and terribly shriveled, he did acknowledge us and even spoke to us, but only to make invocations and shout threats. Hanging around the empty sacred grove had obviously driven him crazy; he saw sprites everywhere, and could most often be found crouching at the foot of some tree bringing offerings to the spirit living in its trunk. He became a real nuisance to small animals, and his paths were steeped in a trail of blood. With the aid of Snakish words he forced squirrels, hares, and weasels to submit to him, and he would kill them by twisting their necks twice. Then he would crawl on his knees around some oak or linden tree and mark its roots with fresh blood. Finally he would lumber away, but would soon thereafter think he’d seen some new wood-sprite, which he absolutely had to placate, and the whole gruesome massacre would begin again. Foxes and polecats would follow behind him and gobble up the carcasses of the animals brought for sacrifice; that was kind of them, because otherwise the stink would have made it impossible to walk around in the forest.

Ülgas was always shouting curses at our family, and screamed that if we didn’t come to the sacred grove immediately, the dogs of the grove would come and kill us. I had lived in the forest all my life, but I had never seen such animals as the dogs of the grove, so I didn’t take Ülgas’s threats seriously. But he did have an annoying and repulsive way about him, and to tell the truth, I was impatiently anticipating the old man’s death. He looked ready to keel over at any moment: he had become as thin as a skeleton, his shaggy beard hung down to his navel, and his tangled hair bristled in every direction. He hardly ate anything, and only stayed on his feet thanks to his lunacy. But that was a strong stick to lean on. He was not dying anytime soon.

Apart from Tambet and Mall, who treated us with silent contempt, and Ülgas, who shouted his rage in our faces, the only one left alive was Meeme, who was sinking more and more under the sod. Moss grew on his clothes, dead insects, fallen leaves, and all sorts of mold were stuck on the beard that covered his whole face. From within that mess shone only the two eyes, whose lashes were tangled with cobwebs, and a mouth with fat red lips. To those lips Meeme raised his wineskin every little while. It was completely incomprehensible how he still managed to get himself anything to drink; from his appearance you would think that roots were growing out of his heels, which held him fixed to the ground. But evidently this human sod was still capable of getting up and killing, because apart from robbing the monks or the men of iron it wasn’t possible to get wine.

Meeme had little to do with other people. Sometimes when he saw me with Hiie he yelled a few obscenities and we went elsewhere. Once I happened to see how Ülgas evidently mistook Meeme for some Forest-Mother or moss-sprite, and tried to bring him a sacrifice — then Meeme spat into Ülgas’s eye with deadly accuracy and Ülgas fled, just as if his nose had been bitten.

Likewise the Primates Pirre and Rääk were still in the forest, though they no longer lived in their old cave, but had moved to a tree. That is, in their love of antiquity they had gone so far that even living in a cave seemed senselessly modern to them. In their opinion the villagers had already sunk over their heads into the bog; I was wading in it up to my chest — but sure ground was a tree branch under bare ground.

They claimed that now they felt a lot healthier, and that peace and happiness were only to be found in the way of life they inherited from their ancestors. I thought that climbing in the trees was an unnecessary discomfort, and felt bad watching Pirre crawling slowly and uncertainly along some spruce tree, his face wincing as the needles prodded his naked willy. Pirre and Rääk were Primates after all, not primeval apes, whose example they were following, and for them life in the trees was unfamiliar and difficult. Besides, they were no longer young; their fur was gray and it was very troublesome for them to keep their balance on the branches. In the name of their principles, however, they were prepared to undergo any trial.

I visited them quite often, for there was no one else to visit; besides, Pirre and Rääk were nice, despite their odd ideas. Their louse was still living too, perhaps by growing in size it had also increased its life span as well. It was certainly the oldest louse in the world. It had moved to the trees along with Pirre and Rääk, and squatted on a branch like a big white owl. Only when Hiie approached did it scrabble its way down the trunk and go and rub itself against her legs.

By now Hiie was too big to ride on the louse’s back, but the insect never seemed to understand that, and slouched invitingly every time. Hiie would stroke and pat it and held the louse by one leg like a child, and the insect hopped on its remaining legs happily beside her.

On that day, too, I was with Pirre and Rääk, who were telling me yet again about how right their forefathers were living their whole lives in the trees, and how great the view was from the top of a spruce. I had seen Pirre and Rääk swinging around up there, and was always afraid that they would come crashing down and kill themselves, seeing the tip of the spruce bending ominously under their weight. One time Rääk did start to fall, but luckily her tits stuck to the resinous trunk, and that saved her life. After this, of course, the Primates talked about how wise their ancestors were in setting up home in resinous trees, and how they couldn’t cease to wonder at the wisdom of the ancient apes.

Pirre and Rääk hardly ever came down from their tree anymore — they spent their whole adulthood there — and if the Primates wanted to get anything off the ground, such as strawberries or lingonberries, the lice went to pick them.

At that moment I was sitting under the tree listening to Pirre and Rääk talking, when suddenly I felt someone crawling over my toes. It was Ints. He was now a fully grown snake, a big strong snake-king, with a golden crown on his brow. He put his head on my shoulder and whispered that he wanted to tell me something.

I said good-bye to the Primates and went with Ints to a big stump where he liked to sun himself. Ints had somehow got fat. I assumed he had just eaten something and was now digesting his prey. Ints coiled himself around the stump, looked at me bashfully, and said, “Look, Leemet, I’ve got news for you. I’m having children.”

This really was news. I couldn’t have guessed that Ints had a wife. Of course I’d seen him crawling around with other snakes from time to time, but in the first place it’s terribly difficult to tell whether a snake is male or female, and in the second, I’d never noticed Ints fondling another snake. I was quite shocked and a little annoyed that Ints hadn’t ever introduced me to his wife, and I said, “So, congratulations! This is pretty unexpected. Why haven’t you ever shown me your wife?”

“Wife?” repeated Ints, amazed. “What wife?”

“Well, the one who’s making you a father,” I said.

“No, I’m not going to be a father!” replied Ints. “I’m going to be a mother. I’m having children. Leemet, did you think I’m male? I’m an adderess.”

I stared at her, as if she had said she wasn’t a snake but a lynx. Ints looked back at me, just as dismayed.

“I thought you knew!” she said. “Leemet, we’ve been friends for so long. How is it possible that you thought I was male all this time? Leemet, look me in the eye. You can see immediately that I’m female!”

I looked, but all I understood was that I was talking to an adder. I didn’t have the foggiest idea whether it was male or female.

“I understood immediately that you’re a boy!” said Ints, offended.

“With me, you can see that immediately. For example, I’m growing a beard. Women never have that. Ints, I really couldn’t have guessed! Anyway you said yourself I could call you Ints.”

“So?”

“Ints is a boy’s name.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought it was just a beautiful word that fitted with my adder name. I’m really deeply shocked by your ignorance.”

“I’m shocked too,” I replied. “I’m shocked by your sex.”

We were silent for a while.

“Well, anyway it doesn’t change anything,” said Ints eventually. “Now you know I’m female. And I’m having children. Soon I should be giving birth. I wanted to tell you, because you’re my friend, even if you’re too dumb to know the difference between male and female snakes.”

“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.