Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“You don’t know anything,” snorted Salme. “An animal like that wouldn’t be afraid of anything. Only an ape could invent such a stupid thing. But just you wait — I’ll tell Mõmmi about this louse, and Mõmmi will break it to pieces.”

“Who’s Mõmmi?” asked Mother, her voice now becoming icy and wary, because it wasn’t hard to guess what sort of animal was hidden by that very ursine name. “It’s a bear,” replied Salme reluctantly. She realized that she’d said too much, but now it was too late to bite her lip.

“How do you know him?” demanded Mother, and to my dismay I understood that now the conversation was taking a whole different direction, and it would be very difficult for me to come out with my own worries. Bears were a sore point with Mother, and if she feared one thing in this world, it was that her daughter would follow her bad example.

“I saw him one day in the forest,” said Salme. “We don’t really know each other; we’ve just seen each other a couple of times. Mother, don’t go on about it! I know you don’t like any bear, but Mõmmi’s very friendly, and actually I’m not going out with him. We just say hello when we meet.”

“Salme, you’re too young to be carrying on with bears!” said Mother, and sat with a frightened look on her face, as if lightning had just struck the roof of her shack and set fire to the whole place.

“I’m not carrying on! Did you hear what I said, Mother? We just say hello!”

“You don’t need to say hello either.”

“Well, how else — It’s polite! You have to say hello to those you know.”

“You don’t need to know anyone like that.”

“Mother!”

“Salme, bears think about only one thing!”

“Interesting. What thing?”

“You know perfectly well! Salme, I don’t want you to meet that Mõmmi anymore. Bears are very handsome and strong, but they bring trouble.”

Salme snuffled crossly.

“Maybe they bring trouble to you, but not to me! Mõmmi brings me strawberries and lingonberries!”

“Strawberries and lingonberries!” shrieked Mother, and burst into tears. “That’s just it. Strawberries and lingonberries were what they brought me too! That’s how it starts. They’re great ones for bringing strawberries and lingonberries! No, I knew it! If you’ve got a daughter in the house, there’s no getting away from bears. They swarm around like lizards in the sunshine! So what am I supposed to do? Where should I hide you? A bear will get in anywhere, climb up a tree or scratch a hole in the ground. Oh, those dreadful animals!”

Mother’s face flushed and Salme was likewise as red as a rowanberry. They scowled at each other, Salme’s expression full of defiance, Mother’s marked by desperate anguish. She must have felt that she was seeing her daughter for the last time — that soon a big bear would come and take Salme away to his lair. From her own experiences with bears, she knew that once you get to know one, he will pounce on you. For a while they fell silent, and I felt that now was my last chance to talk about what happened by the lake.

Mother listened unmoved at first, still eyeing Salme and thinking about the bear, but by the time I got to the end of my tale, she looked at me in dismay and said, “Now wait, Leemet! Tell me one more time! That’s horrible!”

I told her again. Mother looked by turns at me and at Salme, as if having to decide which child’s tale was more appalling. In any case mine was more urgent, as midnight was fast approaching, whereas nothing could be done at the moment about Mõmmi the bear. But in the state she was in, Mother could not do anything about my situation. Two pieces of bad news following each other had the effect on her of sitting dumbstruck, her arms folded, looking despairingly at me.

Salme, on the other hand, became furious on hearing my story.

“You’re absolutely impossible!” she screamed. “Poor wolves, what are they guilty of? They gave good milk. You’ll ruin us! Have you no shame?”

“What should I do then, Mother?” I asked unhappily, ignoring Salme. Naturally I felt ashamed, so terrible that my guts ached. I would very gladly have curled up in a ball in a corner, but that wasn’t possible. Waiting by the lake was the angry sage, and I wanted my mother to take all the decisions; I didn’t want to undertake anything more myself. “Should I go to the lake or not?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Mother, utterly helpless. She was completely deflated. “All our wolves …”

“Why do you need to mess around with that disgusting louse?” yelled Salme. “Who’s going to give us milk now, you idiot?”

“And what about the cuddly bears?” I muttered, whereupon Salme almost exploded and hit me with a hunk of venison.

“Children, stop it!” begged Mother and started to cry. “All this news … all at once … I really don’t know what to do.”

“It will soon be midnight,” I insisted. “Should I go to the lakeside? Tell me!”

I tugged frantically at Mother’s sleeve.

“I don’t know,” repeated Mother. “It’s so horrible.”

She wept quietly, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

I started to cry too.

Salme had been crying a long time already, from her deep insult and anger.

Then Uncle Vootele arrived.

He always had the habit of stopping by in the evenings and listening to how the day had gone. This time he of course saw immediately that something was very wrong. He stood perplexed for a moment on the threshold, but I leapt up to meet him, pulled him inside, and started — prattling and sobbing — to relate the terrible misfortune that befell me by the lakeside. Uncle Vootele was my last hope, because Mother certainly couldn’t help me now. But Uncle was wise and clever. I told him everything — about the Primates, the louse, the sage, and the lake-sprite — and Salme studded my tale with some venomous interjections to show that she was much older and smarter, and would never have brought such a calamity on her own family. But I didn’t care about Salme; the important thing for me was the chance to speak. And when I finished, I looked appealingly at Uncle Vootele, with one single entreaty: please do something and save me from my responsibility!

“That’s a completely silly story!” said Uncle Vootele.

“I told you Leemet is completely silly!” Salme chimed in. “How can he let some disgusting thing swim in the lake?”

“The lake is a lake,” replied Uncle Vootele. “Anyone can swim there. I don’t understand why any wolves have to die for a lake. Ülgas has gone mad.”

“He’s a Sage of the Grove, though,” Mother interjected, wiping her tears, although it was evident that Uncle Vootele’s arrival had improved her mood. She blew her nose, got up, and started cutting meat for Uncle. “Might he be satisfied with just one wolf? I think that should be enough to satisfy the lake-sprite. There’s a lot of blood in one wolf.”

“What lake-sprite?” Uncle Vootele asked. “Have you ever seen a sprite in your life?”

“Well, it’s a sort of custom, you know, an old habit. Sacrifices are always being brought to the sprites. Otherwise why would there be a sage?”

“I’ve never really understood that exactly,” said Uncle Vootele. “But all right, there are habits and customs, which bring people together, and sometimes it’s pleasant to stand in the grove and watch Ülgas burning his stalks and singing something. But to kill a whole pack of wolves just like that, that’s plain stupidity. The blood will pollute the lake much more than one unfortunate louse. I’ll come with you myself, Leemet, and I’ll talk to Ülgas.”

“You could take one wolf with you, just in case,” suggested Mother.

“Not a single one,” said Uncle. “Let them rest in the barn. And let’s have something to eat now, and stop fretting. I see you even have owls’ eggs!”