The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Thirty-Eight

he prank with Johannes’s arse put me in a good mood. I strolled along homeward, humming an old Primate song, but the events of that night had not ended yet.

Somebody was calling me in Snakish. At first I thought it was some adder that had escaped incineration. I hissed back, looking for snakes, but instead I saw Meeme, who, as always, loomed out from among the tussocks.

His existence had completely slipped my mind. So, my sister and I were not the last humans! There was also Meeme, although calling him human seemed a bit of an exaggeration. He had lost his last outlines, and when I stepped closer, I couldn’t tell exactly where his body ended and the moss began. The darkness that prevailed in the forest was partly to blame for this, but Meeme really did appear to have dissolved into nature. He was like a melted snowdrift. The same moss that grew under and alongside him also grew on him. Besides, he seemed not to have moved from the spot for a long time, because he was covered by a thick layer of autumn leaves. His face was as dark as the soil and cracked in places, and his eyes glistened at me from that carapace like dewdrops.

“You’re still alive,” said Meeme, and his voice sounded muffled, as if from underground, and it was hard to understand his words; they seemed to have collapsed in his mouth. “I didn’t dare to hope that I’d see you again.”

“So you wanted to see me?” I asked, anticipating when Meeme would raise his inseparable wineskin to his lips, take a sip, and choke a cough. I thought that might clear his throat a little, so it would be easier for me to understand what he said. But Meeme didn’t drink, and to tell the truth I couldn’t have said whether he even had hands or whether they’d rotted away so he’d have nothing to hold his wine vessel with.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I thought you should still be alive after all, and you’d turn up before I finally disintegrate, so I want to tell you something. Not that it’s important; no, it’s all senseless. But that’s the way.”

“What did you want to tell me?” I asked.

“About the Frog of the North,” said Meeme.

This was unexpected. I crouched down by Meeme and immediately sensed traces of that rotting stench that emanated from his decomposing body. I shrank away in disgust and Meeme grinned, noticing this, with his moldy mouth.

“Stinks, eh?” he asked. “Stinks! I myself don’t notice anything anymore, but I know I don’t actually exist. I have rotted away. For a few months I haven’t moved from here; I haven’t eaten or drunk. I don’t even remember the taste of wine anymore, and if anyone poured it into my mouth, it would soak into the ground like rain, because I don’t have a back any longer. I can feel plants sprouting inside me; in the spring they’ll grow right through me like shrubs, and the goats will eat them without noticing a dead human lying under their hooves. I can’t feel my arms or legs anymore. My head has still held out, because it’s as hard as rock, but if you’d come a few days later, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. I wouldn’t have been sad, because what I have to say isn’t that important. You see I was a watchman. And before dying the watchmen have to choose a successor. As you understand, that isn’t hard for me to do; apart from you, there’s no one. You don’t have to go to the trouble if you don’t want to. The Frog of the North can get by without you. I haven’t been to see him for years. But still I thought that if I should happen to meet you again, I’d tell you, and see what you’re doing. It’s all the same to me.”

“How will I find the Frog of the North?” I asked, excited.

“You remember that ring I once gave you?” asked Meeme. “Yes, of course you remember. You came to ask me about it, but then I didn’t have a reason to give you an answer. The watchman is only allowed to reveal his secret before his death. Actually I shouldn’t have given you that key either, because you were still a child and you might have lost it, but that didn’t concern me. All this was senseless anyway. Everything had come to an end long ago and it made no difference whether I was the last watchman or if anyone else came after me. This is only the death rattle and after that comes silence anyway, and the Frog of the North will sleep his own eternal sleep in complete isolation. Maybe I even hoped that you would lose the key; then this foolishness would end sooner. Tell me, have you lost your key?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t seen that ring for a long time, but it must still be in Mother’s shack. I’m sure I’ll find it. How is it used?”

“It’s not to do with the ring. That is only a useless trinket, pulled off the finger of some foreigner who was killed. But around the ring was a pouch — thin and so light that the slightest wind could carry it away. The ring was put in that bag as a weight, to keep the bag in place. Do you still have that pouch?”

“Yes, definitely,” I assured him. “What is it about the pouch?”

“It was made from the skin of the Frog of the North,” replied Meeme. “Once every ten thousand years the Frog of the North sheds his skin; he has already done it countless times and will go on doing it. From that skin the watchman must cut out a tiny piece, which he presents to his successor. That is the key. It will lead you to the Frog of the North.”

“How?”

“You have to eat that skin. After that everything happens by itself.”

“I’ll search for that pouch this very night,” I promised. “More than anything in this world I’ve wanted to see the Frog of the North and now it will be possible.”

“Don’t forget that he will never see you. He’s asleep and there’s nothing that would wake him. It’s a useless, silly task that you’re taking on, and I’d recommend you rather to throw that bit of skin in the fire and give up the whole thing. I had to tell you, but you don’t have to obey me.”

“But I want to see him!”

“Then off you go. Be happy, and give my greetings to that being. You’ll have the happiness of dying with his help.”

He closed his eyes. That was the last time I saw him alive, because I rushed straight to my mother’s hovel to look for the ring and the pouch, and when several days later I happened upon that place again, Meeme was no longer speaking. His face had crumbled away, and there was nothing left of him but a soggy substance, a puddle among the bushes that you could hop over if you didn’t want to get your feet wet.

I hurried homeward and found my own dwelling, silent and cool. It was long since anyone had lit a fire in the inglenook, and the smell of roast meat, which had never left the walls of our home, and that always made your mouth water as soon as you stepped over the threshold, had now vanished. Although I had thought that seeing my home again could not move me, I felt something catching in my throat as I looked at that dark and empty room. But for the moment I was still too occupied by my wish to find the Frog of the North, so there was no time for giving in to sad memories. I started rummaging in chests and drawers, and after a few moments the ring and its pouch were in my hands.

Impatiently I shook the ring out of its precious skin and it rolled with a clink onto the floor like useless rubbish. I studied the pouch, stroked it with my fingers, and came to the threshold to inspect the skin of the Frog of the North better in the moonlight. The little strip of skin was really thin; if you raised it to your eyes, the moon shone clearly through it. I was so excited that it was hard to breathe. I folded the piece of skin into a tiny square and put it in my mouth. I didn’t even have to swallow it; the skin of the Frog of the North seemed to dissolve on my tongue. I held my breath and waited to see what would happen to me next. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my body had suddenly caught fire, or if I had grown all at once to the height of the highest trees in the forest. But nothing happened to me. I was still standing on the threshold of my old home with the moon shining on me, but I knew where the Frog of the North was sleeping.

That knowledge did not come to me as an unexpected blow and did not invade my brain as a flash of lightning. It simply seemed to occur to me — like something you have long ago forgotten and quite by chance comes back to your mind. It was roughly: Oh yes, how could I have forgotten such a simple thing in the meantime? I had been seeking the Frog of the North throughout the forest, but his hiding place was so easy to discover! It almost wasn’t a hiding place at all; after eating the piece of skin it appeared to me that anyone could easily stumble on the Frog of the North; he was right here. Throughout my life I had been walking past the mouth of the cave beyond which he was sleeping his eternal sleep, and I had never thought to step inside.

I closed the door of my own home behind me and stepped in from the opening that yawned right opposite my old shack — which I had nevertheless never paid heed to before. A wide passage led me straight ahead, slowly descending into the depths of the earth. A light glimmered ahead of me. It was warm and gentle and didn’t become too bright or dazzling even as I approached it. The Frog of the North was glowing like a smoldering fire.

Now I saw him. He really did exist, this famous Frog of the North of whom I’d heard so much and whom I’d longed to meet ever since I was a child. He was even bigger and more splendid than I had ever been able to imagine, majestic and awe-inspiring. I made a circuit around him, excited and happy. I was finally here! I hadn’t dared to hope that I would after all one day see the Frog of the North: even Uncle Vootele had said he had disappeared forever and would never rise again. No human being was supposed to ever get to see him again, yet I had seen him all the same.

The Frog of the North was lying on his stomach, the great wings on his back neatly folded together, his eyes closed. His enormous claws had sunk into the soft sand. The Frog of the North was asleep, and his sleep was peaceful and deep. This was not an aged creature, dozing through its last days toward death, too feeble and tired to move its heavy eyelids. No, the Frog of the North was large and strong; he still had plenty of life force in him, and one could only imagine what he might still be capable of, if any power could wake him up.

But there was no such power. Thousands of Snakish words uttered in unison might have driven him to mysterious dreams, but only I, his last watchman, his last guardian, still existed. Everyone else had found some more interesting activity; they were already living in a new world, where the Frog of the North was only a figure of ancient legends that grandmothers told in the evenings by their spinning wheels.

I crouched beside the Frog of the North and stroked him, patted his strong yet so smooth skin. He was very warm, and when I pressed my back against him, I felt pleasure. I had a good and certain feeling when I leaned against this sleeping giant. I knew that I could even climb up on his back; it wouldn’t disturb the sleep of the Frog of the North. Nothing in this world could disturb or kill him. He was eternal — he was and he remained — yet at the same time he was separated from final dissolution by an extremely fragile thread, and that thread was myself. The world had turned away from him, betrayed and forgotten him, left the powerful Frog of the North in a vacuum. I was his only companion. After me he would have to disappear, because that of which no one knows anything, and which no one has ever seen, actually no longer exists. He was the living dead.

Yet how differently everything could have gone! I didn’t feel anger but helpless sadness when I thought of how simple it would have been for us to fight and win, if we had not in a wave of madness abandoned Snakish. For centuries that power had served us, hovering as a menacing yet protective storm cloud over our heads. This had been our secret weapon, which no one else was able to use or knew how to. Now we too were among the others, and the Frog of the North simply slept and slept and no one called on him.

But the world changes, some things fall into oblivion, some rise to the surface. The time for Snakish has passed; one day this new world with its gods and iron men will be forgotten, and something new will be invented.

I leaned against the Frog of the North and closed my eyes. I felt good here; I didn’t intend to ever leave here again.

Of course I did go outside the cave from time to time, if only to take care of the Frog of the North. I got the habit of washing him, so that his skin would glisten more beautifully. I wanted him to be as beautiful as possible, even though no one else apart from me was going to see him. I went to fetch food for myself, and sometimes I just went walking in the forest, to see the sun after a long time in the cave and breathe some fresh air. Incidentally, the cave of the Frog of the North had a strange quality: on leaving the cave you could emerge in any place in the forest, just where you wanted to go. Now I understood how Meeme had moved so unobtrusively. He was coming from the Frog of the North; he would leave the cave that no one apart from him noticed, and then crawl back there afterward. So now I finally had the key to that mystery as well.

Occasionally I went to visit my sister and her Mõmmi, but not too often, for the atmosphere in their cave was too depressing and the stink almost intolerable. Mõmmi was now so obese that the fat had gone to his brain and he no longer remembered Snakish, so he and Salme communicated only in mumbles. The last time I saw them they were lying in each other’s embrace; the cave was very dim, but I still remember their sad eyes peering at me out of the darkness. I don’t know whether they’re still alive or not, but I’m inclined to think that Mõmmi choked on his own fat and Salme faded away quietly beside his carcass. At any rate Mõmmi was the last bear who spoke Snakish; those creatures that nowadays come my way do carry out my orders with a growl of dismay, but are unable to reply. They have become ordinary wild animals. Everything is degenerating.

A few days after I found the Frog of the North, I went to visit Pirre and Rääk. I saw the Primates’ gaunt old forms resting in the highest branches and I called to them, but nobody replied, and I understood that they had either died or become too tired and feeble to open their mouths, which was the same thing. In the end they had held out well; their world, their story, had come to an end long ago. There they stayed, in the highest branches of their tree, all winter, like two little white furry snowdrifts. In the spring the tree went into leaf, and I didn’t see them again. And when winter came anew, the branches were once again empty and bare, as if no Primate had ever lived in the world.

So I was left alone — with the Frog of the North. I have been his guardian for forty years now, and I’ve grown quite old. Lately I’ve been going out more and more rarely. I sleep a lot and I dream. Most often that I am a child again, sitting in Uncle Vootele’s cellar, and Uncle Vootele is teaching me Snakish. Then suddenly his face turns white, he falls spread-eagled, and dies, but I’m not dismayed. I crawl in under his flanks and I’m nice and warm. I don’t care about the rotting stench emanating from my uncle. It doesn’t upset me; it actually feels so familiar and secure. Then I wake up and I find myself beside the Frog of the North, but that same stink is still in my nostrils. I know that smell doesn’t come from the Frog of the North, for he is eternal; it comes from me, an old man.

I hiss a few Snakish words into the void, the same ones once taught to me by Uncle Vootele, and those words clear the air. Everything else in me may decay, but the Snakish words always remain fresh. The Snakish words and the peacefully dozing Frog of the North.

And I am not concerned about anything; I too can quite peacefully close my eyes on it all again. No one disturbs my sleep. We can rest undisturbed — the Frog of the North and the last man who spoke Snakish.