Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“So you saved me,” she said. “I knew it.”

“How could you know it?” I asked. “I got there at the last moment and the escape wasn’t easy at all. They almost caught us.”

I told Hiie quickly about the events of the past night — how we had ridden on wolfback and how Ülgas had poured wax into the ears of the other wolves. Hiie giggled, as if I were telling her something terribly funny. Only when I mentioned the part played by her mother in our plan of escape did she grow serious for once.

“Poor Mum!” she said, but then burst out laughing again. “And poor Dad!” she giggled. “He must he furious with us. He had arranged everything so nicely and spectacularly; just a little more and the forest would have been saved. But now we broke it all up and the ancient life won’t ever come back again. Oh, how disappointed he must be!”

Laughter fairly burst from her mouth. I had never seen Hiie like this before. Her eyes blazed, mischievous dimples had appeared on her cheeks, and when she tried to suppress her laughter even a little, and pressed her little white front teeth on her lips, she looked like a tiny mouse. That night she had changed beyond recognition; on the open sea, in the bright light of the first rays of the sun, she was strangely beautiful. By leaving the forest she seemed to have pulled herself free from some invisible threads that had oppressed and bound her until then. She seemed to have emerged from a cocoon. I must have been gazing at her in such amazement that Hiie started laughing again, stretched out her arm, and splashed me with water.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked. “You saved me, you sent the forest to destruction, and you struck down the ancient way of life — what next? What else can you do?”

She laughed, rested her head on her knees, and gave me a sly look. At that moment I was madly fond of her. She was so sweet and glowing, and in her eyes was a naughty glint that charmed me. Suddenly I felt that maybe Mother was right and that it might really pay me to take Hiie …

This is what I was thinking at that moment, though only the previous day I’d fallen in love with Magdaleena. That love had not faded away, but Magdaleena and Hiie were simply such different girls that I could calmly admire them both. Magdaleena was primevally female, luxuriant, with long blond hair — a real beauty. But Hiie — at least at this moment in the boat — was still slender and boyish. Her hair was dark and not long at all, but she gazed at me with a special, fresh, newly budded charm.

You could almost claim that during her long sleep Hiie had been reborn. This thought terrified me: I was afraid that the new and radiant Hiie might vanish just as suddenly and change back into the pallid and timid girl who used to melt into the bushes. That fear alone would have held me back from returning homeward, because I didn’t want the miracle that happened at sea to fade away when Hiie got back to her old familiar surroundings. In any case, it wasn’t possible to return home. No doubt there was waiting for us on the shore a whole pack of deafened wolves, which Ülgas and Tambet would set upon us to leap on our necks. We had to choose some other route.

“We could go there,” said Hiie, pointing to a distant dimly blackish strip of land, which must have been some island. “It must be quite far away. Can you manage to row there?”

“If I get tired, I can have a rest. We’re not in a hurry,” I answered. “But what will we do there on the island?”

“What will we do here either?” asked Hiie. “Or do you want to spend the rest of your life in a boat?”

She chuckled again.

“It’s quite nice here, in a way,” she said. “It’s easy to wash and you don’t have to go far for a swim. As for eating, that’s a more difficult matter, and if the weather gets cooler, we’re going to get cold, won’t we?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It would be awful to spend the winter here. So by the time snow arrives, we have to get to that island. It’s so important, because in winter the sea freezes over and I won’t be able to row anymore.”

“Yes,” agreed Hiie. “So don’t have too long a rest, a couple of months at most, then you have to start rowing again.”

“I’ll try to manage that,” I promised.

“Let’s try to make the best possible use of these few days,” said Hiie. “Such a beautiful morning — how about going for a swim?”

“Swim …” I only had time to say in reply before Hiie had pulled off her wolfskin jerkin and jumped naked into the water. I stared at her in amazement. Hiie swam around the boat and cried, “Come on in! The water’s so warm!”

I didn’t like the idea of stripping off in front of Hiie, but it was impossible to refuse. Shyly I removed my jacket and trousers and lowered myself into the water so that the boat was between us.

For the first moment the sea was still very cold and I swam a few strokes quickly to get warm. Hiie’s wet and impish face approached me; we met and swam awhile side by side. The sea covered us, but I knew all the time that right beside me here swam a naked girl, and Hiie suddenly seemed so wonderful to me that I decided to marry her no matter what — and simply visit Magdaleena in the evenings.

I summoned up my courage, swam very close to Hiie, and kissed her nose. She laughed and kissed me back.

This excited me so much that I wanted to take her in my arms right there; I stopped swimming and the next moment sank under the water.

When I rose sputtering back to the surface, Hiie had swum to the boat and was laughing there.

“You’re not a fish!” she cried. “Come onto dry land.” She hauled herself back into the boat and sat there, naked and wet. Bathing had made her even more beautiful. Hiie had truly changed her skin, just like a snake, and this new Hiie, free from her parents, wolves, and all the problems of childhood, was so sweet, so tempting, so irresistible that I swam at my fastest speed to the boat and climbed up to her.

“Keep in mind that we’ve only got until the winter!” whispered Hiie when I kissed her. “Then we’ll be frozen stuck!”

“I know. Before the winter I’ll start rowing again.”

In fact I started rowing much earlier, on the afternoon of the same day. We had been sloshing in the middle of the sea all day, kissing, making love, swimming again, and climbing back into the boat, resting in each other’s arms and talking. I had never heard Hiie talking so much! Usually she was pretty silent, especially back when she used to play with me and Pärtel; it was always we boys who talked and thought up new games, while Hiie only looked at us with round eyes, enchanted at the mere fact that we had taken her into our gang, agreeing with everything that we had to offer.

She was our silent shadow, our little girl grasshopper, whose greatest wish was to keep on our tails — serious and absorbed, as if playing was an important task, to be done with as much care as possible, and as if she were afraid that if she accidentally made a mistake, she must be excluded from our company and would have to stay at home. But at home there was her father, who demanded silence while he meditated on his nation’s illustrious past, and the child’s foolish prattle disturbed him. It had been to Hiie’s advantage to remain as invisible as possible at home, for otherwise Tambet might be reminded, for example, that his daughter didn’t drink wolf’s milk — so it was best for Hiie to move on tiptoes. And so that is what she did, everywhere, always, until now, here in the boat, where she burst into bloom under my gaze. She rested in the crook of my arm, happy and naked, and just kept talking. She was like a fox cub who has suddenly got its eyes and is now greedily ogling the world, and crawling out of the den, instead of drowsily and helplessly lying beside her mother as before. Hiie chatted and laughed until I forced her into silence for a while with kisses, and then she would talk again. And I kept on listening and feeling her warm body against mine. It was one of the most beautiful days of my life: we were completely alone, far from all other people and animals, the sun warmed us, and there was not a cloud in the sky.