Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“Leave my daughter alone!” shouted Tambet.

“And you leave my son alone! You’re always chastising him for being born in the village! Is that his fault? A person can’t choose where he comes from. And as far as where you’re born is concerned, look, you were born in the forest, and look how you turned out!”

“How did I turn out then?”

“You’re a half-wit.”

“Shut your face, you old bear’s whore!” roared Tambet. This was the worst insult that could be leveled at my mother, and even I, hearing it, had a feeling that I’d fallen headfirst into a fire. Those words were scorching.

At first my mother caught her breath; then she started a strange sputtering, as if something had got up her nose. She gripped my hand.

“Let’s go, Leemet,” she said. “I like living in the forest very much, but maybe we ought to really move to the village like the others. Only the stupidest filthy sort is left in the forest.”

She spat at Tambet, who stood, his back erect, his head covered with long gray hair down to his neck, obviously convinced that he had worthily defended the forest and its ancient ways, and sent the disgusting traitors packing. And that time we really did flee, my mother and I, and I intended to leave anytime Tambet turned up somewhere on the horizon. That man aroused the same horror in me as Ülgas the Sage did.

So Pärtel and I slipped into the bushes, with Ints at our heels. Crouching in the shrubbery we saw Tambet passing, and we were ready to come out when Ints said, “Someone else is coming.”

It was Tambet’s daughter, Hiie. Evidently she was going somewhere with her father, but of course Tambet didn’t care if his daughter could keep up with him. He marched proudly ahead while Hiie scampered along far behind. We weren’t afraid of Hiie, so we came out of the bushes and greeted her.

Hiie was pleased to see us; she seldom had a chance to play with other children. She looked hesitantly in the direction where Tambet had vanished, but he was no longer visible. Of course she should have rushed after her father, but the temptation to stay awhile with us was too great.

We sat down in a clearing and chatted. Pärtel and Ints talked away while Hiie listened and watched, her face happy and lively, as if she were a just-hatched butterfly, emerging from its cocoon and looking excitedly at the colorful world. Though of course no one can see a butterfly’s face; it’s too tiny. Hiie was also small, very thin, and with a somehow pitiful bearing, and there was nothing we could really talk about with her. We had our own jokes that we laughed at, and our own plans that we discussed, but Hiie didn’t mind that there was a lot she didn’t understand. She was like a starving person who is offered unfamiliar food and gobbles it up gratefully. Hiie was simply delighted to hear someone else’s voice apart from her father and mother, and the wolves, whose howling she must have been really weary of.

Finally there was a pause in our chatting, and it occurred to me that we could after all ask Hiie something, if only to keep the talk going.

“Well, what’s new with you?” I ventured.

Hiie took my question very seriously. She even started frowning as she tried to recall what was actually new. The girl was obviously in trouble. So far it had been we who spoke; now it was her turn, and she didn’t want to be any worse than us, but simply nothing came into her head. Undoubtedly Hiie’s life was dreadfully monotonous. Her face turned white with the strain, and she must have been swallowing back tears, as children do when faced with shame at their own incompetence in front of others, but finally something did come to mind and she cried in a small voice: “Mummy and I are going twig-whisking in the moonlight tonight!”

This was an unexpectedly interesting piece of news. I hadn’t hoped for anything of the kind. Hiie smiled happily, because in her own estimation she had just learned the fine art of conversation.

Twig-whisking by moonlight was an old custom. Once a year all the women and older girls — toddlers were not included — went late at night into the forest, climbed as high up a tree as they could, and whisked themselves with oak-leaf switches by the light of the moon. The moon had to be full, and the whisking continued until the moon went down. It was believed that this whisking gave the women vigor, and in a sense that was right, because those old women who could no longer climb trees, and thereby missed the whisking, did not live on much longer.

Men did not go whisking, and didn’t even know when the night of the full moon would be. The women never told them; they slipped secretly out of their huts while the men were asleep. By the morning, when the men woke up, the women would already be at home, imbued with a kind of golden glow. How the women all knew exactly when it was the right night was something that not a single man knew.

Like any boys, Pärtel and I had dreamed of some day coming upon women whisking in the moonlight and seeing exactly how it was done. But we never managed to. I kept a watchful eye on Mother but it was no use. What is more, whisking by moonlight could take place in winter or summer, autumn or spring. In the evenings there was nothing to suggest that Mother had anything in mind, yet in the morning her face would be aglow as she roasted the haunch of venison, rejoicing at how fresh her body felt after a good sauna. In recent years Salme had joined Mother for the whisking, and yet I’d never woken at the right moment to follow them and see it for myself.

So it was clear why the news we heard from Hiie excited Pärtel and me. Tonight we had a chance to realize a long-held dream.

“Are you sure about it?” I asked Hiie.

“Yes!” replied the girl. “Mummy told me this morning.”

“Have you been twig-whisking before?” asked Pärtel.

“No,” answered Hiie, terribly excited that our conversation was going on so long.

She would have liked to answer dozens more questions and reveal all her secrets to us, if she had any. She was glad to sit with us and keep us company until winter if she could. But then her father’s voice resounded through the forest.

“Hiie!” shouted Tambet. “Where are you?”

“Daddy’s calling!” piped Hiie, and leapt up, a look of fear on her face. I felt so sorry for her at that moment! Life must always have been terrifying with the stern Tambet. I promised myself that I would call in on the girl more often. Looking at Hiie somehow called to mind a little insect caught in a spider’s web, struggling helplessly. I would have liked to save her, but sadly Hiie was not caught in a web but in her own home. You cannot save a child from her father, however terrifying he is. We waved to Hiie, who likewise timidly gestured to us, and we ran back into the bushes. Tambet was approaching with long strides.

“Where did you get to?” he demanded.

“You were walking so fast I couldn’t keep up,” stammered Hiie. “Then you disappeared out of sight and I didn’t know where to go.”

“Don’t you know the forest paths then? Oh, these children today! In the old days no one got lost in the forest, no one at all!”

He grabbed Hiie by the hand.

“Come on now!”

And he marched off at such a pace that Hiie had to practically run along beside him.

Quite naturally Pärtel and I planned to go that night to look at the women whisking. We invited Ints along, but to our surprise the adder said that he’d seen women whisking themselves several times already and he wasn’t interested.

“Why didn’t you mention that before?” we retorted.

“I didn’t think it would interest you,” said the adder. “There’s nothing special about it — just naked women sitting on treetops hitting themselves with oak switches. I was crawling past under the trees and I didn’t really bother to look up.”