Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

This knowledge drove me to despair. I wanted to live in the forest, I wanted to be with Magdaleena, I wanted other people around me, I wanted them not to be fools, I wanted them to know Snakish, I wanted some meaning in my life, I didn’t want to decay. But all these wishes were incompatible and in opposition, and I knew that most of them weren’t destined to be fulfilled. Everything might have been different if my mother hadn’t ever moved out of the village, if she hadn’t started to be attracted to a bear, and if that bear hadn’t bitten my father’s head off. Then I would have grown up among the villagers, my tongue would have been thick from eating bread, and I wouldn’t have understood a single Snakish word. I would now be an ordinary villager and my life would be simple and clear. I was wandering in time, and entered a door to the past just before it closed over. It was no longer possible for me to leave. I was bound by the Snakish words.

In an inconsolable mood I trudged home and found my whole family there — Mother, Salme, and Mõmmi, plus a tableful of roast venison through which Mõmmi had managed to gnaw a wide swathe. At first I thought that the topic would again be the bear’s bad deeds, which I, as the only man in the family, would have to take a stand against. That I did not want to do. I was so tired and in the grip of such despondency that I couldn’t be bothered to start a fuss with a silly bear. But it emerged that this was not the current chapter in Salme’s and Mõmmi’s love story. The reality was much worse.

Mother was white in the face, and as soon as I stepped inside, she leapt upon me and yelled, “You have to do something! Hiie is your bride, after all!”

Especially on this evening, after my meeting with Magdaleena and the kiss I received from her, I didn’t care at all for a conversation on the subject of my relations with Hiie. But Mother was so upset that I understood: this was no tiny domestic issue. Something really bad must have happened.

“What’s this about Hiie?” I asked.

“They want to sacrifice her!” said Salme, with tearful eyes. “Where have you been all day, anyway? We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Mõmmi even climbed up a spruce tree to look, but you couldn’t be found anywhere, and he couldn’t see you. Where were you?”

“That’s not important now,” I said. “Rather you tell me what you mean. Who’s sacrificing her and to whom?”

“For heaven’s sake, Ülgas of course, that evil man!” replied Mother. “Who else? He’s taken it into his head that our life here in the forest won’t get better until the sprites get the sacrifice of a young virgin. The mad old man! What’s wrong with our life? There’s meat on the table, full stomachs. What more does a person want? But look, he has little to choose from, and since Hiie is the only young virgin here in the forest, she was picked out. Lucky for you, Salme, that you have a husband! Very good that you found dear little Mõmmi for yourself!”

“Thanks, Mummy,” said Mõmmi piously, without stopping from gnawing on a bone.

“What do Tambet and Mall say about it?” I asked, astonished. “Hiie is their daughter after all.”

“They don’t have a sound thought in their heads,” wept Mother. “Ülgas has driven them insane. He’s a half-wit himself and makes others like himself. I saw him this morning; the old man was collecting dried twigs and singing in a shrill voice. I asked him what was making him so happy, and he replied that tonight the forest will be saved, because young blood will wash away all the filth, and out of the sacrificial smoke the ancient world will arise before us again. He showed me those twigs he’d collected, and announced that on that sacred wood we would burn a young virgin. I got frightened — I’m the mother of a daughter too — and I asked, ‘What mad scheme are you planning, who are you going to burn?’ ‘Hiie.’ He said he would first let out the girl’s blood to please the sprites, and then burn the corpse on a pyre. The sprites are supposed to have told him that only the blood of a young virgin would make the world as it was. I felt sick, because I saw that Ülgas was serious. He’s completely mad. His eyes were shining, as if he were rabid! I lifted up my skirts and ran to Tambet and Mall’s place. Me, a fat old woman, my heart wanted to jump out of my mouth I was rushing so! Tambet and Mall were in front of their shack and I shouted even from far away: ‘Help, help, Ülgas has gone crazy. He wants to burn your daughter!’ And can you imagine: Tambet said that he knew. His face was completely gray as ash and he was hunched and stiff. Mall looked the same; her face was no longer human, and most horrible of all were their eyes: they didn’t seem to see anything; they stared out like dead fishes’ eyes. I screamed, ‘For pity’s sake, if you know it already, why don’t you do anything? Go and strike down that mad Ülgas or tie him up.’ But Tambet raised his hand and said that it had to be so. That they were ready to bring the biggest sacrifice of all, to save the ancient world and bring life back to the forest. I tell you it wasn’t a human voice that came out of his mouth; it was like a corpse talking. I don’t know what Ülgas had done to him. I screamed, ‘This is your own dear little daughter! Are you really going to let her have her throat cut like a hare?’ Then Mall bit her lips, so she wouldn’t burst into tears, but she didn’t say anything, and Tambet was quiet too, only staring into the distance.

“Then I screamed that Hiie is my son’s bride, but that drove Tambet into a rage; he came up to the fence and yelled at me that it was much better for Hiie to be sacrificed to the sprites and in that way save the old way of life than to start living with a traitor born in the village. ‘What life would she expect here?’ he screamed in my face. ‘I’d rather kill her with my own hands than give her to your son! Better for her a noble death, in the name of a better future for her people, than your son making her his own and moving to the village with that scoundrel, spitting on the bones of our forefathers!’ I saw that there was no talking to this man. He’s completely mad. I started crying and came home. Then we started looking for you, but you’d disappeared, and now it’s already evening and we have so little time. They’ll kill Hiie! They’ll kill your bride, Leemet! Tell me, what are you going to do?”

I really didn’t know what I should do. I only knew that I had to try to save Hiie. Of course she wasn’t my bride, but she was a sweet and dear girl and didn’t deserve such a gruesome end. Two mad old men wanted to bring her as a sacrifice for their own sick ramblings. It mustn’t be allowed to happen! No one could bring the olden times back to the forest, least of all the imaginary sprites. And even if these sprites really did exist, the death of one innocent girl was too high a price to pay for any miracle.

Hiie was my friend; we had grown up together. I had always felt sorry for her, because there is no greater misfortune than having a mother and father who don’t love you. They had always mauled and bullied her, but I would still never have believed they would want to kill her. Tambet and Ülgas were for me so evil that I felt an unexpected rush of rage; at that moment I could have torn their hearts out of their chests with my nails, beat their heads against a tree, ripped them to pieces. This terrible wave of hatred frightened me more than before, because usually I was such a bashful boy, the kind who would rather flee from his enemy into the bushes than seek a battle with him. But now I wanted war. I recalled how Uncle Vootele had, that time by the lake, gone on the attack against Ülgas, like an adder driven to rage. I yearned for my old grandfather’s fangs. I would have wanted to sink them into Ülgas’s and Tambet’s throats. I wanted to kill those bastards. Evidently the others also noticed that something strange was going on within me, for Mõmmi’s hackles were raised on his neck when he looked straight at me, and Mother and Salme shrieked in unison.