Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“We’re stuck on some seaweed,” said Hiie.

I looked into the water and saw that the boat was surrounded by a strange gray substance that looked exactly like a furry skin grown onto the sea. I stretched out my hand to try to scrape it off the side of the boat and discovered to my surprise that this peculiar skin consisted of long hairs, each of which was about the thickness of a hay stalk and extended who knows where.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” I declared. “And even Uncle Vootele didn’t tell me that hairs can grow in the sea. You might almost think we were on the back of some animal.”

“We’re not on its back; we’re in its beard,” replied Hiie. “Look behind you. We’re on a fish’s beard, but it doesn’t seem to be a fierce one.”

I turned around quickly and saw an unprecedented scene. At a distance of several tens of boat lengths, amid the lapping waves, was the most extravagant creature you could imagine. It was a fish, but as big as a mountain, and evidently terribly old, for the whole sea was full of its long gray whiskers. Its greenish scales had over the years been covered by thousands of shells and other marine detritus, its huge fins dangled limply like the wings of some enormous bat, and its very old and very tired eyes looked at us fiercely, and yet also curiously. We stared back, and then this strange creature opened its mouth and hissed in clear Snakish, though mixed with several other unrecognizable words, apparently so ancient that nothing but a fish would understand them: “Good morning, humans! Where are you going to?”

“To Saaremaa,” I replied.

The fish blew away the whiskers that were floating into its mouth.

“It’s right in front of you,” he said. “You should be there by noon, though I wouldn’t dare to say that very certainly, because I’ve never seen humans in such a small boat before. Last time I came to the surface, three warships passed me, each one with at least forty rowers, and that time it seemed funny to me, for in previous years there were also many more of those ships. And now only one tiny boat and two humans. Well, well, what’s to be done. So it must be arranged that way that you are the humans who see me for the last time, and who I see for the last time.”

“Why the last time?” asked Hiie.

“Because this is the last time I come from the sea bottom for fresh air. I have come to the surface once every hundred years, but I can’t be bothered anymore. I’ve become old. Even today I thought a long time whether it was worth dragging myself out of my own comfortable lair and swimming here, but then I decided to let this be the last time. My beard has grown so long that it isn’t easy to carry it with me; it gets full of water and becomes a heavy burden even for me. But I did it anyway. Yes, the sea has been emptied. Where are all those humans who once used to speed around in ships? Is there some epidemic among you?”

I didn’t start explaining to the fish that many of us had moved to the villages, were growing rye, and no longer went in ships to distant lands like our forefathers. Yet still the iron men’s ships were moving about, and in ever-greater numbers. I asked the fish whether he had seen them.

“The iron men?” wondered the fish. “No, I haven’t encountered them. What a shame, I would have liked to see them, because I won’t be coming above the water anymore. Might they be passing by here today? I don’t have much time. I have to swim back soon to my cave, but maybe I’ll be lucky? What are they like?”

“Rather like humans, but with an iron coating,” I said. The fish plashed in astonishment.

“Never heard of it, never seen it,” he murmured. “I’ve been to the surface too rarely and many things have passed me by. Yet it seemed to me that every hundred years it’s best to get a little air. Everything was always just like the last time. The sea was full of warships and the Frog of the North was flying in the sky.”

“Have you seen the Frog of the North?” I shouted.

“Of course, many times!” replied the fish. “And not only seen, sometimes he’s landed on my back, to rest from flying. He was big and strong, but at that time I was even stronger and I could carry him without much effort. By now it would be beyond my powers. That’s not important, for I haven’t seen the Frog of the North for a long time. Do you know where he went?”

“He’s asleep,” I said. “And no one knows where.”

The fish exhaled approvingly.

“That’s right too. Sleep, rest, that’s good. I’ll soon be going to rest too; I’ll dive right down to the bottom, I’ll sink into my burrow, and I won’t come out again. My beard will cover me and I can doze in peace. A long, long sleep. I can feel how good it will be.”

He closed his old eyes and slowly moved his fins.

“I suppose I’ll go now,” he said then, opening his eyes. “I’ll have to go without seeing the iron men, but never mind. In my life I’ve seen so much: things to think about as I lie on the seafloor. To tell the truth I’m not especially interested in those men of iron. What do I lose if I don’t see them? Nothing. If you do meet them, tell them that the great fish Ahteneumion has gone down to the bottom. I won’t see them and they won’t even see me, and for them it’s the bigger loss.”

This idea seemed amusing to the old fish; he moved his tail and looked us in the eye.

“Just think, they’re always traveling around in their ships, these iron men of yours, but they can’t even guess that somewhere on the bottom of the sea I’m sleeping under my beard,” he said, bursting out laughing again. “They think there are only little fish and jellyfish and other rubbish like that in the sea, whatever is floating on the surface, but they can never know that I’m there too. Poor fools!”

Again he blew away the whiskers that floated into his mouth.

“Good-bye, I’m going now,” he said. “You were the last humans I saw and who met me. You know who Ahteneumion is and what he is doing. Others don’t. You are now the wisest people on earth. The last ones to see me. Farewell!”

The next moment the great fish dived. The water started to ripple and the boat almost capsized. The whiskers surged around us and I was afraid that they would drag us with the fish into the depths, where we, together with all our knowledge, would bleach away in Ahteneumion’s embrace. But it all turned out well: the beard vanished with its owner into the depths, the sea became calm, and we were alone.

“So now here we sit, the two wisest people on earth,” said Hiie. “The last ones to see the great fish.”

“It bothers me — to be the last of everything,” I replied. “In my family I’m the last man, the last boy in the forest. Now I’m also the last to see the giant fish. How does it happen that I’m always the last?”

“For me you’re the first,” said Hiie, kissing me, and after a little while, when we’d got dressed again, I rowed onward.

Actually I was of course also the last for her, but I didn’t know that then.

was pretty tired when we finally got to Saaremaa, and it immediately occurred to me that Grandfather hadn’t given us any clues about where to find Möigas the Sage. As always, here too I had the help of Snakish. I only needed to hiss a couple of times for a nice fat adder, head raised, to come crawling from among the junipers.

“I have to say I’m pretty surprised,” he said after the usual greetings and polite expressions. “I did see you landing, but it didn’t even occur to me that you might understand Snakish. Nowadays that is sadly very rare. All sorts of people come to the island, but there’s no talking to any of them; they might as well all be dumb and just babble incomprehensibly. So, in all honesty, I was quite amazed when I heard you calling. Things may be bad here with us, and yet there are still educated people in other places.”