Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“Easy to see that you’re from the forest!” he said. “Painful! Who cares if it’s painful! People cut balls off all over the world! Elder Johannes himself told me that in Rome, where the Pope lives, half the men don’t have balls and they sing so beautifully it’d knock you flat. It’s the fashion there. Johannes told me they actually wanted to cut his balls off too. Some bishop had suggested that. But unfortunately something got in the way and he had to leave, so the plan came to nothing. They don’t cut balls off hereabouts. We’re out in the sticks here!”

Mentally I was thanking fate that Elder Johannes had kept his balls, for otherwise there would be no Magdaleena, just an old man warbling like a lark. What a ghastly thought; it gives you gooseflesh! But Pärtel and his friends really looked sorrowful. They sat listening to the monks’ singing and scratching their crotches occasionally, and the scratching constantly reminded them of their own imperfection.

“You can sing with balls too,” I remarked.

“It’s not that,” replied Jaakop. “In every proper chorus there has to be a castrato. Of course, somewhere by the river or by the cooking stove any man can drone away, but you don’t get famous that way. Proper choirs work in monasteries.”

“So go into a monastery and become a monk,” I suggested. The boys shook their heads.

“You don’t get it,” said Pärtel. “They don’t take people like us into monasteries. Who would sow the fields and make hay, if everyone was singing in a chorale? There’s a division of labor, understand?”

“We’ve got nothing against sowing and cutting,” added Jaakop. “Toiling with a plow is just fine. Have you ever stood behind a plow?”

No was my honest answer.

The other three laughed.

“So you’re completely in the dark,” said Andreas. “The plow is a mighty thing. With it you can sow … It’s great. Sowing is good, but I want to do the choir thing to get women. Look how Magdaleena’s out of her mind about these chorales. Most of all I’d like it if I sowed in the morning and sung in the evening in the chorale and then got with the dames.”

“A monk’s haircut would be cool too,” added Pärtel dreamily. “The girls like it too, but we’re not allowed to cut our heads that way. The monks won’t allow it. Peasants aren’t allowed to look like monks.”

“Why do you listen to them?” I asked.

“How do you mean?” exclaimed Jaakop. “They’ve come from a foreign country; they know better how things are done in the world. We only came out of the forest recently. What do we have to teach them?”

“Snakish words,” I said. The trio stared at me scornfully.

“You know them, do you?” asked Andreas.

“Of course I do,” I replied. “And at least Pärtel — I mean Peetrus — used to know them. Didn’t you, Peetrus?”

Pärtel screwed up his face.

“I don’t remember,” he said somewhat reluctantly. “As a child I used to play all sorts of games and you can make up all kinds of nonsense. It was so long ago I can’t recall.”

“You have to remember,” I said excitedly. “You can’t claim that Snakish doesn’t exist. I’ve heard you hissing it yourself.”

“Well, maybe I did hiss something,” agreed Pärtel. “But I no longer remember a single Snakish word. And I’m not interested either. What would I do with those Snakish words? I’m not a snake! I’m a human being, I live in a human village, and I talk human language.”

“It would be a different matter if you knew Latin well,” said Andreas. “Then you’d sing hymns and you’d get all the women into bed.” He didn’t seem to be thinking of anything else.

“German is important too,” added Jaakop. “That’s what the knights speak. If you understand German, some knight might take you as his servant.”

“Do you want to be a servant then?” I asked, taken aback.

“Of course,” answered Jaakop. “That would be great. You could live in a castle and travel with the gentleman knight into foreign lands. It’s very hard to become a servant, because everyone wants to, but the knights take on very few former peasants. They prefer to bring their own servants from abroad, because our people are still too stupid and might embarrass the knights in fine society.”

“Elder Johannes was a servant to a bishop for a while,” said Pärtel, adding kindly for my benefit: “A bishop is about the same as a monk, but much richer and more important. It was when Johannes was still young, well, at the same time as when he visited the Pope in Rome. Johannes was allowed to live in the bishop’s castle and eat from his table. He even slept with the bishop in the same bed, because it’s the custom in foreign lands for important men to sleep with both women and boys.”

“What?” I was shocked.

“There you go — straight from the forest, straight from the forest!” sneered Andreas. “Shut your mouth and don’t make such a stupid face! Yes, that is the custom in the world! Only a man from the forest would be amazed at that. Johannes has said that in Rome sleeping with boys is a divine everyday thing. I’ve tried that sort of thing myself, with my own brother, but nothing much came of it. It just made you sweaty and ripped your trousers. Obviously you’d have to get trained by some knight or monk; otherwise you end up in a tangle like some amateur.”

“But it happens very rarely that some knight or monk lets peasants into his bed,” sighed Jaakop. “They don’t think we’re really worthy of them.”

I told them that even in the forest that custom wasn’t unknown; it happens quite often that a male fox in heat gets on the back of another male fox. This annoyed all of them.

“So you think I’m like some male fox?” asked Andreas angrily. “Who’s interested in what some animals do in your stupid forest? I’m talking about what goes on in the world. You don’t know anything about it. You don’t know any languages!”

“Only Snakish,” added Jaakop, grinning. “I guess snakes don’t get the latest news from Rome?”

“Don’t boast, Leemet,” said Pärtel, admonishing me. “You’ve only just come to the village; it would be best if you kept your eyes and ears open and tried to learn as much as possible about living as humans live, not like the animals in the forest. Where are you going to live anyway? You have to build a house, clear some land, get yourself all the tools you need. I can lend you a quern. I’ve got two.”

I wanted to tell him that he could shove his quern up his arse, but this was when the monks’ singing ended. Magdaleena slid her hand over her eyes, as if releasing herself from a spell, and came over to us.

“You boys are strange,” she said. “Why do you come to listen to hymns at all if you chatter among yourselves all the time? Today that castrato sounded so wonderful that my heart went to my throat. I worship that voice!”

“Didn’t I tell you that women melt before those monks?” droned Andreas. “I can sing too. Haven’t you heard me at haymaking time? I even sang a song in Latin.”

“Ah, Andreas, you do understand that you’re not a monk,” said Magdaleena. “I’ve got nothing against peasants singing by the bonfire, but that isn’t real music. Real music is only in the monastery.”

“Well now,” sighed Jaakop. “What do you want from us? We’ve just come out of the forest; our voices still have a bit of the wild animal’s growl about them. I do believe that one day great choir singers and castrati will come up out of our people and be famous all over the world. But for that to happen, our country will have to get so far ahead that they start cutting off balls here as well. It’s shameful; we’re like some backwoods! Your father mixes with those knights and other important men. Hasn’t he heard anything about when we’re going to start cutting balls off here?”