Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“I don’t have any children!” I shouted.

At this Mother conjured up a cunning expression, as if to say, “I know you, you rascal. You’ll soon have babies around you!” And she carried on sewing shirts, a happy smile on her face.

After a week we went to visit the adders. Ints’s father, the old king of the snakes, welcomed us at the entrance to the cave, nodding with satisfaction.

“Welcome!” he said. “We’ve been expecting you. We have a little family.”

Mother burst into tears. We squeezed into the burrow, and there lay Ints, surrounded by three baby adders, as tiny as tiger moths.

“Oh, how sweet!” squealed Mother and hissed tenderly at the young snakes, who crawled into her lap and wriggled around in it.

I stroked Ints and congratulated her, and Ints licked me with her forked tongue, supporting her head on my knees, as was always her habit.

“This is Uncle Leemet!” she said to her young. “Say hello to him!”

“Hello!” hissed the little snakes.

“How cuddly they are!” exclaimed Mother. “Ah, you can be happy, Ints! And you know Leemet will be having a child soon! I know. We’re making preparations at home already.”

“Really?” said Ints in surprise, looking me in the eye. “Is that true?”

“No,” I hissed quietly. “Mother’s telling fibs.”

“But you really could,” said Ints. “Aren’t you in heat yet? Or in love, as you call it?”

“No, I’m not!” I said, getting up. Mother was chatting to Ints’s father about where she would put me and Hiie and where she would move herself and the several goatskin shirts she had already sewn. It was depressing to listen to. I left the burrow, saying I wanted some water, but actually I just sat down on a tussock and stared out in front of me.

“Leemet!” shouted someone to me. It was Hiie, of course. Just at that moment I didn’t want to see her at all. I can’t have been in heat.

“Go away!” I said, troubled.

“Has something happened?” asked Hiie. She came and sat beside me. “I came to look at Ints’s children.”

On top of everything else! I didn’t want Hiie to go into the snake burrow for any price. I imagined how Mother would whoop at the sight of her and inform Ints’s father: “That’s my daughter-in-law! She’ll be having children soon!”

“Right now you shouldn’t go to see Ints,” I said, getting up. “She’s not at her best. She hasn’t recovered from giving birth.”

“Really!” exclaimed Hiie, wanting to rush into the burrow. I grasped her by the waist.

“You mustn’t go in there just now!” I repeated. “Please!”

Hiie stared at me, wide-eyed. The situation was odd: I’d never held her in my arms before. She was right up against me, uncomfortably close in fact. I would have liked to let go of her, but wasn’t sure whether Hiie would run off to see Ints. So I kept hold of her. We were both silent and at least I felt inexpressibly strange. I didn’t know what to do.

Finally I released my arms and pulled away. Hiie stayed put. She had lowered her gaze and didn’t say a word.

“Don’t go, all right?” I said.

“All right,” whispered Hiie.

We remained standing. I bit my lip and looked away to one side. Hiie didn’t move.

“Will you go home now?” I asked awkwardly.

“Yes, of course!” Hiie replied quickly, a feeling of relief in her voice. “See you!”

“See you!”

Then she left, quickly, almost at a run, as if fleeing from someone.

I stood in front of Ints’s burrow, feeling somehow very foolish.

understood very well that things were going slightly wrong with Hiie. What she might read into our hug was not hard to guess. Even though she was alarmed by my harsh words and my command to go home immediately, she had evidently felt pleasure in being held awkwardly in my arms. She became somehow relaxed and soft, despite being as bony as a hungry fox. I couldn’t sleep for half the night, feeling ill at ease. I decided to seek out Hiie the next morning and pretend nothing had happened in front of the snakes’ lair. I wanted her to forget both that unexpected embrace and my rude words. I wanted Hiie to be my friend, but I didn’t want her to start imagining things that didn’t exist, like my mother, who had been steamed up even more at the sight of Ints’s offspring.

So the next day I went to look for Hiie. She wasn’t at home; luckily there was no one there at all. Then I circled around the forest, visited the Primates, to find out whether Hiie had been to visit her dear louse, but Pirre and Rääk hadn’t seen Hiie that morning. I walked on and finally reached the edge of the forest and heard somebody shrieking.

It was a girl’s voice, and at once I thought I had found Hiie. Then I saw who was screaming, and it was a village girl. On closer inspection it turned out to be my old acquaintance Magdaleena, whom I’d visited twice with Pärtel.

I stayed behind a tree and peeped at the girl. I didn’t understand why she was crying like that, and at first I didn’t intend to go up to her, but since she didn’t stop her wailing I came hesitantly out of the forest and started walking toward her.

Magdaleena saw me but didn’t recognize me, and started screaming even more wildly, calling for help.

“Don’t yell like that,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Who are you?” cried Magdaleena, picking up a woven wicker basket to defend herself from me.

“Leemet,” I said. “Don’t you remember, I visited you a long time ago. You showed me a spinning wheel and your father wanted to beat my friend the snake to death.”

Now Magdaleena recognized me, but didn’t calm down at all, and flung her basket at me, sending the strawberries that she’d picked flying everywhere.

“And he should have killed that dirty beast!” she screamed. “I hate snakes! Look at what they do! One bit me! Look at my leg! I’m going to die!”

Her right leg really was as thick as a block of wood — red and swollen. Magdaleena tried to move her leg, but evidently it was very painful, as she fell to howling again.

“I’m dying, I’m dying! I can feel the poison affecting me already! That snake killed me! Disgusting, repulsive creature! Help! Father! Help!”

“Don’t bawl like that,” I said. I was in fact quite dumbfounded that one person could be so helpless and miserable like a little chick, and let herself be bitten by an adder. Naturally I had seen with my own eyes how Ints had killed a monk, but in my opinion the monk and the iron men didn’t belong to humankind at all, because they didn’t understand the language of humans or of snakes, but babbled something completely incomprehensible. They were like insects, and you could kill and bite them as much as you liked. Magdaleena was human, though, and an adder had indeed bitten her. That seemed so humiliating that I was actually ashamed for Magdaleena. After all, why didn’t she understand Snakish? One simple hiss would have made it clear to the adder that this was his sister standing here, not a mouse or a frog to fasten on. But instead of learning Snakish as she should have, this girl was now writhing on the ground here, two red tooth marks on her calf. She had voluntarily lowered herself to the level of the animals, instead of rising to the level of adders, which is the rightful place for a human.

“Help, I’m dying!” Magdaleena kept on moaning. “Father, save me!”

“Does your father know Snakish?” I asked, somewhat scornfully, because I could guess the answer.

“Of course not!” said Magdaleena, irritated. “There is no such thing! Only the devil understands that!”