Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“It’s certainly not poisonous, because my father ate it before he died,” I said, and immediately realized how ambiguous that sounded. “I mean, he didn’t die from the bread,” I hastened to add. “My mother has tasted bread too. She told me. It tastes disgusting, but it doesn’t kill you. And those village people eat it all the time.”

“But look at what they’re like,” remarked Ints. “Maybe it’s bread that drives them crazy.”

“We won’t eat much,” argued Pärtel. “We’ll just try a crumb. We have to find out what sort of marvelous thing it is!”

“Please, boys, don’t eat it!” implored Hiie, her eyes wide with terror. “I’m afraid for you! It’s dangerous!”

Hiie’s terror decided the matter. We had to show her that we weren’t afraid of any bread.

“We’ll try a little bit,” I said. My hand trembled a little as I broke the bread, and it really was a little horrifying to taste this forbidden food. Perhaps it would burn the tongue like nettles? Might it make you vomit? But Pärtel had already broken off his bit; we both held the bread between our fingers and looked at each other. Then we took a deep breath, put the crumbs in our mouths, and quickly started chewing.

At any rate, the bread didn’t burn the mouth or make us vomit. But it had no taste either. It was sort of dry and disgusting like tree bark, which you could gnaw at forever but would be troublesome to swallow.

Hiie and Ints followed us intently, Hiie with terror and Ints with disdain.

“Well, how is it?” piped Hiie.

“All right,” I said heroically. “It’s not doing anything to us.”

“Yes,” agreed Pärtel. “It’s edible.”

“Don’t have any more!” begged Hiie.

And actually we wouldn’t have wanted any more, but it seemed somehow embarrassing to confine ourselves to one tiny morsel of bread. So, despite Hiie’s entreaty, we broke off new pieces and started slowly chewing them.

It was actually a rather proud feeling, to eat bread. This secret and forbidden thing, which didn’t even taste good — gnawing it felt like a manly act of heroism. A child wouldn’t have done it; he would have spat out the tasteless mush. But we didn’t mind it, and finally we boldly swallowed the piece of bread. We now felt truly grown up — not boys, but full-grown men.

Egged on by each other’s strength, and wanting to test ourselves with more acts of bravery, we now started devouring big bites of the bread.

“You take some too,” Pärtel urged Hiie. “Just put a piece in your cheek.”

“I don’t want to,” protested Hiie.

“Take it, go on,” I joined in. “You’re not a little child any longer; you can try it. What will one little bit do? Daddy and Mummy won’t have to know. After we eat, we’ll rinse out our mouths with springwater, so there won’t be any smell afterward.”

“No, I don’t dare to,” squeaked Hiie. But she did have enough courage to touch the bread with a finger — at first delicately, then pressing more firmly. The bread was very soft. Hiie’s finger sank through the crust and stuck inside the bread. Hiie screeched, pulled her finger out, and hid her hand behind her back.

We laughed.

“So what are you fussing about?” I asked. “You’re afraid, as if the bread were alive. Come on, take a bite! You’re not a little kid!”

Hiie shook her head.

“Don’t be silly,” urged Pärtel. “It won’t do anything to you.”

I broke a piece off the side of the loaf and passed it to Hiie. “Now eat!”

“Why are you forcing her?” said Ints. “Why not just eat your own shit? See how repulsive that bread looks, as brown as deer droppings. Maybe it’s even made of shit? You humans are always having to try things. You’re better off eating lingonberries.”

“It’s not made of shit,” I said. “Mother told me that bread is made from some straws. It must have been a terrible effort. These straws have to be threshed and milled and I don’t know what else. Then finally it’s thrown into an oven, and there’s your bread.”

“What’s the difference — shit or straws,” replied Ints. “I didn’t know that you humans eat plants, just like goats do.”

“That’s interesting,” said Pärtel. “New things have to be tried. How do you know otherwise if something’s good if you don’t try it?”

“So it’s good then?”

“No, but—”

“But still you eat it. You’ve tried it already, now continue.”

“We want Hiie to try it too,” I said. “Take it, Hiie! It won’t do anything. It won’t stay in your tummy; it will come out later as poo.”

“Are you sure?” asked Hiie.

“Of course. Try! A little piece.”

Hiie gave me a troubled look, squeezed her eyes shut, and popped the piece of bread in her mouth. For a while she gnawed it, holding her breath, her face puckered with disgust.

“Well!” we said. “It wasn’t so bad after all! Went down, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Hiie. “It did.”

“Have some more!”

“No, no!” Hiie shook her head vigorously. “That’s enough! I won’t eat anymore. I’ve already got a funny feeling in my tummy. Haven’t you?”

We were silent for a moment as we tried to work out what feelings we had in our tummies. Yes, it was somehow strange. We imagined the bits of bread there in the middle of our bellies, lying like uninvited guests. It was unpleasant. In the end, what did we know about bread? That it didn’t make our mouths scream, our gums burn — but that didn’t mean that it behaved properly in the stomach. Might we get sick after all? Perhaps there was some trick to bread eating that we didn’t know. What if we were eating it the wrong way? “I think I’m going to be sick!” said Hiie suddenly and ran behind a tree, where retching could be heard.

This made the rest of us worried. Bread couldn’t be right for us if it made us puke. It was never like that with venison. Now we almost envied Hiie, for no doubt the girl was now getting rid of the dubious bit of bread, while we had to carry our burden with us, unable to guess what it would ultimately do to our bodies. Hiie stuck her sweaty, unhappy little head out from behind the tree.

“I’m going home now,” she said, and vanished.

“I’m going too,” said Pärtel and I in unison, and we each stumbled off to our own shack, clutching our stomachs, sensing the notorious bread, which our foolish heads had gobbled up, starting to rumble inside us.

In the end, nothing terrible happened. The bread kept quiet. And yet I wasn’t able to quite calm myself. I had a feeling that a stranger was sitting in my stomach. I got home, snuggled in a corner, and felt my belly. It seemed to me I could feel disgusting lumps of bread under my fingers. Would they stay there forever?

Meanwhile, Mother was in an inexpressibly good mood.

“I got busy today and cooked a whole goat,” she said. “It came out nicely, so crunchy that you’ll want to swallow your tongue. Come and eat, son. Salme has eaten already and liked it. Didn’t you, Salme?”

Salme cast a weary look at me from behind the table.

“Mother is fattening me up,” she said plaintively. “She keeps piling it up. Just look at that pile of meat! I told her long ago I can’t eat any more of that. Take the meat away, but she won’t.”

“Why would I take it away? You’ll eat it later,” explained Mother gaily. “Rest a little and then … It’s good meat, I spent the day roasting it.”

“It isn’t possible to stuff yourself that much,” moaned Salme. “I’m going to burst!”

“Oh, you’re joking. Nobody would burst after a little bit of meat like that,” Mother said with an airy gesture. “And I’m telling you, you don’t have to eat it all at once. Later!”