Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“Tomorrow!”

“Why tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll be making a new lunch. Why not today, just in a little while?”

“In a little while I’m going to sleep.”

“Well, you’ll eat before you go to sleep. Leemet, you come here too now! I’ll get some up for you.”

Mother piled into my bowl such an amount of meat that I got the impression there was a whole goat lying there, like a large bird on its nest hatching eggs. I got up cautiously, so as not to jolt the piece of bread lurking in my belly out of place, and went to the table. It was quite clear that I wasn’t capable of eating anything; my stomach felt tender, as if someone were scratching with their nails from inside.

“Mother, I don’t want to eat,” I said gloomily.

“What’s this about?” exclaimed Mother.

“Eat, just eat,” said Salme venomously. “Why should I get fat on my own?”

“You won’t get fat,” said Mother, and started to shove the bowl of meat closer to me. “Take it now. Take all this goat and gnaw it clean! Just look at that nice clean brawn!”

“Mother, I’m not able to eat,” I said, suddenly feeling terribly sorry for her. The nasty bread was squatting in my stomach and hurting me, and I hadn’t the faintest idea when it intended to leave me. The meat cooked by Mother smelled delicious. I would have liked to taste it; I wanted to so much, but I simply didn’t dare to. I was on the point of crying from self-pity. I felt like a dying man.

“Mother, I ate some bread,” I moaned.

Mother glared at me, as if she’d been struck on the head.

“What did you eat?”

“You ate bread!” shrieked Salme and screwed up her nose. “How disgusting! Like some villager!”

“Mother, that bread is now in my stomach!” I said, looking pleadingly at her. Could she save me, help me?

Mother didn’t seem to be pitying me, but rather herself.

“You ate bread!” she said in an injured tone. “I see! I cook a goat for you all day. I want to make a tasty dinner for my son, so good that it will take your tongue away, but instead you eat bread somewhere. Don’t you like my meals? I try so hard! I want to offer you the very best. But you eat bread! You like that more than a goat I’ve roasted for you with care and love!”

Mother sat at the table and started to cry.

“Mother,” I mumbled in fright. “Mother, what’s this! I don’t like bread at all! It’s disgusting!”

“So why did you eat it? Why do you do this to me?”

“Mother, I only tasted it! I simply wanted to try it. Pärtel ate some too! And Hiie!”

I tried to share the blame, but Mother didn’t take account of that.

“I don’t care what Pärtel and Hiie do,” she said. “But why did you have to put that disgusting bread in your mouth? Didn’t you know your mother was waiting for you at home and lovingly cooking a roast for you?”

“Bread is repulsive!” said Salme. “Completely tasteless.”

“How do you know?” asked Mother, looking sternly at Salme. “Have you been secretly eating bread?”

“Once, with my girlfriends,” sputtered Salme. “I simply put it in my mouth and spat it out again.”

“I see,” said Mother, humiliated. “You don’t like my food either.”

“Mother, what do you mean?” said Salme. “I eat your roasts all the time!”

“But you don’t like them; you like bread!” persisted Mother, and wept again.

“Don’t like them! I simply wanted to try out what sort of thing it is. I’m not a child anymore. I can try bread for once in my life. Leemet is still a little boy. Of course, he shouldn’t have eaten it; that was very bad of him, but I—”

“No,” said Mother. “You can’t either! Your father ate bread, but I don’t want you to follow in your father’s footsteps. That bread brought him no happiness, and that’s why I don’t want my children to even taste it.”

She sat wiping her eyes and looked at us in a sort of terror.

“You’re still so young and sweet, but now you’re already trying bread! Don’t do it, please. I beg you!”

“Mother, you’ve eaten bread too,” argued Salme.

“I have,” sighed Mother. “But very little, not even a taste. And you mustn’t go trying out all these nasty things that your mother did when she was young. You are smarter!”

“Mother, I won’t ever eat bread again,” I promised, quite sincerely. “It was very bad. Your roast is much, much better, honestly!”

“Mother, don’t be angry,” Salme begged as well. “Look how much goat I ate today. You can cook it so very well.”

“I’m glad you like it,” smiled Mother through her tears. “Take no notice of me. I’m just afraid that you’ll start liking bread. You start eating it, you end up moving to the village. You see your friend Linda moved there yesterday with her family. I went past their hut today. The door was wide open and two wolves were lying on the threshold, their snouts between their paws. Poor abandoned animals.”

“I never would have believed that Linda would move away,” said Salme. “She promised she wouldn’t.”

“That’s what they all say, but in the end they leave. So many of them have gone! Even we left once, but I came back. I didn’t like that village life. Children, just remember this: I’m never leaving the forest. I’m going to die here.”

“No, Mother, you won’t have to go anywhere!” cried Salme. “We’re staying here with you.”

“If you suddenly get a taste for bread …” began Mother, but Salme cried to her not to start that again.

At that moment I felt inside me a tingle of excitement, a signal that it was time to run behind the hut and relieve myself. It was a wonderful feeling; I wanted to hug and kiss my own stomach. Finally, after all, my digestion was getting rid of that foul bread! I leapt up, ran behind the house, and — word of honor! — I have never felt such pleasure in shitting. In one moment I was free of the bread!

Somebody coughed and groaned in my vicinity. I leapt up, covering my bottom, and saw Meeme, lying facedown, looking at me from the bushes. He was even shaggier than before, one ear covered in cobwebs, and had in his hand his inseparable wineskin.

“Want some wine, boy?” he croaked.

“No thanks!” I replied, and I couldn’t resist showing off. “I ate some bread today. I don’t want any more of that village food.”

“Bread is hogwash,” said Meeme. “But wine is different. It makes you nicely sleepy, so you don’t know anymore whether you’re alive or dead. You simply lie like a corpse.”

I didn’t see anything nice in that sort of existence, but the sight of Meeme reminded me of Manivald’s ring.

“Meeme, do you remember that ring you gave me once? What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You’re supposed to put it on your finger and prance around the forest. What is any ring good for? Well, if you really press it, it might fit on the end of your toe too. If you think it’s prettier that way.”

“Can’t you do anything else with it?”

“Well, what else would you want to do with a ring? Eat it? It’s even nastier than bread, and as hard as stone.”

“Why did you give me that ring anyway?”

Meeme gurgled with laughter.

“I didn’t want anything else to do with it,” he grinned. “What would I have a ring for? It would rot away with me and that would be a shame. Pretty little thing, anyway!”

He took another drink, but a bit unsteadily, and the red wine ran all down Meeme’s face, as if blood were coming out of his mouth.

I turned my back on Meeme and went indoors, where Salme had started eating again, to please Mother.

“I want some meat too,” I announced, flopping down at the table. “My tummy’s completely empty!”