The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Seventeen

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.”

“If you don’t know Snakish words, then neither stone nor iron are of any use,” I said. “I’ve seen my friend an adder biting a monk in the throat. The monk perished on the spot.”

“Lord have mercy!” yelled Johannes. “What a heinous crime! Cursed be that snake. Now you see that they are the servants of Satan, when they attack even holy fathers. Fortunately there’s no doubt that that monk is now in Paradise, in eternal bliss.”

“Actually, I think that foxes and wandering wolves ate his body,” I said. “If you don’t understand Snakish, you’re more wretched than a frog. Why should we be like those fools who don’t understand a single hiss of it? They’re not humans; they’re vermin!”

I immediately regretted what I’d said, because I recalled that Johannes himself was such a verminous creature, for whom Snakish words were a dark land. But Johannes didn’t get angry. He even laughed!

“Boy, you really have lived too long in the forest,” he said, with an unpleasant arrogance. “How can you think that you are clever, and that these strong foreign people who rule the whole world in the name of God are a stupid bunch? In that case the Holy Father, the Pope, would also be stupid, because he doesn’t know Snakish either! Is that what you mean? Better not to say so, it would be a terrible sin. It was actually a sin even for me to ask you that. I will certainly have to confess that.”

“Who is this Pope then?” I asked.

“The Pope is God’s deputy on the earth,” said Johannes in a quiet voice, and his face became as sweet as if he were licking honey. “He lives in the holy city of Rome and keeps his hand over us all like a loving father. I have visited him and kissed his feet, back when I was still a little boy. The iron men took me with them, so that I, a little forest lad as I was then, could see the might of the world, how wise and strong the Christians are. I was taken to Rome and led in front of the Pope, and the glory and splendor I saw there took my breath away. Gold, silver, and precious stones were glittering everywhere; the churches were made of stone and with such high towers that not a single spruce tree here in the forest could reach them. Then I understood that the God that is served by the foreigners is the most powerful, and if we want to achieve anything in life, then it is wise to turn to him and to forget all the silly superstitious customs that make us ridiculous before the whole world. I came back home and was ashamed that we still live like children, while other nations have grown into adults. We should hurry after them; we should learn all the necessary knowledge that has been an everyday thing elsewhere in the world. Fortunately more and more knights and pious brothers were coming to our land. They helped us in every way and showed us how to be like civilized people. Believe me one day we will be no worse than them.”

“That’s why we still shouldn’t forget the Snakish words,” I said.

Johannes leaned in very close to me.

“Dear boy, keep in mind what I tell you,” he whispered. “Actually there are no Snakish words.”

This was such a surprising claim that I didn’t even burst out laughing; I simply looked the village elder in the eye to see what other odd things he would say or do.

“Yes, they don’t exist!” he repeated. “How else could it be that the church knows nothing of them? Do you think that if God has made the Pope his deputy on the earth, he hasn’t made him all-powerful? The Pope is omnipotent. Every word he says is true, and with the help of God he can even make the rivers flow backward. If Snakish words did exist, the Pope would understand them too, and so would other holy men, but they don’t, for God hasn’t given snakes the power of speech. They shouldn’t be spoken to. They should be killed, or else be kept away by the power of prayer, and every holy man is able, with the help of the Word of God, to drive all the snakes back to Hell. So it is! The fact that you saved my child from a snake today is not your doing, but God’s! He looked down from Heaven and made the snake lick Magdaleena’s wound clean.”

“What’s this you’re saying now?” I asked. “I do happen to know that I spoke with him, exactly as I’m speaking with you now.”

“That isn’t possible!” declared Johannes, and his expression now turned severe. “Snakes don’t speak! It only seemed that way to you! You must leave the forest. The devil rules there, and he is leading you astray and making you hear and see things that don’t exist. Come to the village, be baptized, start going to church, and you’ll soon understand that Snakish words are a delusion!”

“That will never happen!” I said, getting up. “I would have to be completely mad! I do know those words! Listen!”

I gave a long hiss, spoke to Johannes in my best Snakish, but he only stared at me and said, “That’s just a hiss, which doesn’t mean anything! Forget this stupidity! That is what I meant when I said that our nation is still living like a child. It’s time to grow up! It’s time to live like the others! Snakish doesn’t exist!”

“It does exist, and if everyone understood it as they used to, there would be no foreigners living among us!” I said. “The Frog of the North would have gobbled them all up, and not even their bones would be lying by the seaside!”

“Childishness again!” said Johannes. “What Frog of the North? No one survives against the shining knights and their swords!”

I was furious. Johannes was talking complete nonsense, but it wasn’t possible for me to convince him. I had no way to produce the Frog of the North to swallow those knights with their swords. The Frog was sleeping somewhere in his secret burrow and I didn’t have the key to find him; and anyway I couldn’t wake him up. And I had no way of proving even the power of Snakish words, because I couldn’t invite an adder into Johannes’s home. Even if I were to chat with some snake, Johannes would only hear what to him was incomprehensible hissing. We lived in different worlds, like two snails who cannot look into each other’s shells. I could claim to him that Snakish and the Frog of the North are in my shell, and he wouldn’t believe it anyway, because in his shell he saw God and the Pope of Rome.

I wanted to go off home, for my mood was black and my nose smelt the stench of putrescence more and more, but then Magdaleena came up to me, touched me on the shoulder, and invited me to eat. I guessed what they would be eating. Just as I had stepped at Magdaleena’s invitation into her father’s cottage, now I went to their table too.