Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

On that day, too, I was with Pirre and Rääk, who were telling me yet again about how right their forefathers were living their whole lives in the trees, and how great the view was from the top of a spruce. I had seen Pirre and Rääk swinging around up there, and was always afraid that they would come crashing down and kill themselves, seeing the tip of the spruce bending ominously under their weight. One time Rääk did start to fall, but luckily her tits stuck to the resinous trunk, and that saved her life. After this, of course, the Primates talked about how wise their ancestors were in setting up home in resinous trees, and how they couldn’t cease to wonder at the wisdom of the ancient apes.

Pirre and Rääk hardly ever came down from their tree anymore — they spent their whole adulthood there — and if the Primates wanted to get anything off the ground, such as strawberries or lingonberries, the lice went to pick them.

At that moment I was sitting under the tree listening to Pirre and Rääk talking, when suddenly I felt someone crawling over my toes. It was Ints. He was now a fully grown snake, a big strong snake-king, with a golden crown on his brow. He put his head on my shoulder and whispered that he wanted to tell me something.

I said good-bye to the Primates and went with Ints to a big stump where he liked to sun himself. Ints had somehow got fat. I assumed he had just eaten something and was now digesting his prey. Ints coiled himself around the stump, looked at me bashfully, and said, “Look, Leemet, I’ve got news for you. I’m having children.”

This really was news. I couldn’t have guessed that Ints had a wife. Of course I’d seen him crawling around with other snakes from time to time, but in the first place it’s terribly difficult to tell whether a snake is male or female, and in the second, I’d never noticed Ints fondling another snake. I was quite shocked and a little annoyed that Ints hadn’t ever introduced me to his wife, and I said, “So, congratulations! This is pretty unexpected. Why haven’t you ever shown me your wife?”

“Wife?” repeated Ints, amazed. “What wife?”

“Well, the one who’s making you a father,” I said.

“No, I’m not going to be a father!” replied Ints. “I’m going to be a mother. I’m having children. Leemet, did you think I’m male? I’m an adderess.”

I stared at her, as if she had said she wasn’t a snake but a lynx. Ints looked back at me, just as dismayed.

“I thought you knew!” she said. “Leemet, we’ve been friends for so long. How is it possible that you thought I was male all this time? Leemet, look me in the eye. You can see immediately that I’m female!”

I looked, but all I understood was that I was talking to an adder. I didn’t have the foggiest idea whether it was male or female.

“I understood immediately that you’re a boy!” said Ints, offended.

“With me, you can see that immediately. For example, I’m growing a beard. Women never have that. Ints, I really couldn’t have guessed! Anyway you said yourself I could call you Ints.”

“So?”

“Ints is a boy’s name.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought it was just a beautiful word that fitted with my adder name. I’m really deeply shocked by your ignorance.”

“I’m shocked too,” I replied. “I’m shocked by your sex.”

We were silent for a while.

“Well, anyway it doesn’t change anything,” said Ints eventually. “Now you know I’m female. And I’m having children. Soon I should be giving birth. I wanted to tell you, because you’re my friend, even if you’re too dumb to know the difference between male and female snakes.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “But as you said, it really doesn’t change anything. We’ll still be friends and I’m very glad that you’re going to be a mother. Who’s the father then?”

“Oh, one of the adders. We got together one night, we were both in heat, and so it happened. We haven’t met again, and we don’t want to. He’s a fairly stupid snake; let him crawl around by himself.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, taken aback. “Isn’t the father going to bring up his own children? Aren’t you going to get married?”

“Oh, you’re so formal!” chuckled Ints. “That’s not the way with us.”

“Your father and mother are still living together today,” I said.

“Well yes, but that’s an exception. They were friends even before they had children. Mostly it’s just a matter of mating. You’re in heat, a suitable adder comes along, and that’s it,” explained Ints. “And if you don’t manage to get pregnant, you look for the next one and try it with him, until you finally succeed. So how is it with humans?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, blushing. “But surely it begins with falling in love …”

“Really?” exclaimed Ints. “Well yes, that’s why there are so few of you. Our aim is to multiply.”

I shrugged. To tell the truth I didn’t know exactly how humans arranged these things. I met with Hiie often in the forest, but obviously we weren’t “in heat,” to use Ints’s expression, and nothing happened. But how was it done in the village? There were plenty of people, the village boys and girls went around together everywhere, and often I would see the boys fondling the girls; a couple of times I’d seen them kissing too. Were they in heat? I fell into daydreams and imagined myself meeting somewhere on the edge of the forest some beautiful village girl who was looking for someone to mate with and had decided to try her luck with me. I didn’t know if I was in heat at that moment, but somehow I felt that I was.

“What are you thinking of?” asked Ints. “You’re not listening at all to what I’m saying. I said that I have to go to the nest now and we can’t meet for a while. I’m already very fat and it’s hard for me to crawl around. But come in about a week to see me; by then the kids should have been born. I feel it won’t be long now.”

She crawled off slowly and I went home. I told Mother that Ints was actually female and expecting babies. Mother got very agitated at this.

“How nice!” she enthused. “I’ll definitely come with you when you go to see Ints. Little adders, they can be cute, just like tiny maggots. Oh, I so want to have a grandchild! Leemet, don’t wait too long now. You’re still young. But look, Ints is your old playmate and she’s becoming a mother already. You’d better bring Hiie home soon; it’d be so lovely if you had a little boy!”

“Mother, please!” I sighed, but Mother didn’t stop, and talked all evening about how cute little children are. She seemed to entirely forget that it was not I who was expecting children but Ints, and when I reminded her, she said, “Yes, of course I know it’s Ints! But you mustn’t fall behind her. You must soon be expecting a little family of your own!”

“Mother, unlike Ints I am a male, and I can’t have a family!” I objected, but Mother just waved her hand. “Of course you can’t, but Hiie! I’m talking about Hiie!”

This was followed by the usual speech about where she was going to have us all sleep when Hiie moved in.

I rapidly came to regret that I’d told Mother at all about Ints and her pregnancy, because she would not calm down. It was almost as if she were already preparing for a wedding and the birth of grandchildren. She started sewing little goatskin shirts and dragging furniture from one place to another. I tried to make it clear to her that no child was going to be born in our shack, and there was no point in making little shirts for Ints’s young, because they wouldn’t have arms to poke into the sleeves. Mother paid no heed to me.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked angrily. “I’m not sewing shirts for baby adders, but for your children!”