Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

That train of thought seemed repulsive to me. My only consolation was that I could nonetheless acknowledge it.

And yet I yearned for Magdaleena. I liked her. In fact I was in love with her.

How repellent it all was! How good it would be to smolder in a fever, without a single thought, without a single doubt!

While I was at war with myself in the bushes, the girls and the village elder were dealing with the sheep. Or rather with their absence. The traces in the grass left no doubt that the sheep had fallen victim to wolves.

“But I drew a sacred ring around them with my belt,” wept one girl. “It was supposed to help!”

“It does help,” Johannes assured her. “But it protects only against ordinary wolves who are subject to God’s commands. In the case of a werewolf, a belt is no help; Satan helps it to jump over it.”

“Did a werewolf come here then?” screamed the other girl, shrieking with terror.

“There’s no other explanation for the sheep disappearing,” replied the village elder. “The church belt keeps all ordinary wild animals away; that wisdom has been known for centuries in Germany and in the holy city of Rome. Consequently it must have been a werewolf doing the mischief here.”

“Can’t Jesus do anything about it?” sobbed the second girl.

“Oh, he can!” said Johannes, consoling her. “But against a werewolf you need more effective weapons than a belt. I’ll have to consult with the holy monks and ask what they recommend doing. There must surely be some prayer or relic to ward off that servant of Satan.”

“I’m afraid!” said the first girl. “Let’s go home!”

“Yes,” agreed Johannes. “A shame about the sheep; we don’t have any more of them in the village. But God will help us in time!”

They set off, and I stretched out to look at them leave, to see more of Magdaleena before she disappeared from view. But Magdaleena did not go to the village. She said something to her father, turned aside, and started going a different way. Then she slowed down her pace, looked around, as if wanting to make sure that her father and the other girls no longer saw her, and ran back to the edge of the forest. I thought she had lost something, but to my great surprise I heard Magdaleena quietly calling: “Leemet! Are you there? Leemet!”

I got up and stepped out of the bushes.

“Hello,” I said. “Did you see me?”

“No, but I knew you must be somewhere nearby,” replied Magdaleena, coming up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders. She looked into my eyes and smiled slyly. I felt her scent and it made me weak in the knees. I pulled Magdaleena to my breast and kissed her.

Magdaleena didn’t resist; I felt her licking my lips with her tongue.

“You killed the sheep!” she whispered.

I pushed her away in amazement. “What did you say?”

“Your lips don’t have the taste of blood, but I know it was you,” giggled Magdaleena, as if anticipating a lot of fun. “You know how to change into a werewolf. Who else does?”

“I told you, a human being can’t change into a wolf. That’s rubbish,” I explained. “They were quite ordinary wolves that ate up the sheep. I saw them myself.”

It was clear that Magdaleena didn’t believe me.

“I understand that you can’t tell me all your secrets,” she said. “In church, too, there’s plenty that I don’t understand, because the monks talk in Latin. Powerful spells have to be well hidden away. I don’t want you to teach me to change into a werewolf anymore. I don’t have time for that. But I want you to teach my child.”

“Your child?” I repeated, astonished. “You have a child, Magdaleena?”

“Not yet, but I soon will!” replied the girl. “Listen, I’ll tell you. I don’t want to keep it secret, and besides, it’s not something that can be hidden. It can’t be hidden; quite soon it will be clear to everyone how things are with me. I’m so happy! You know it happened that last evening when you and I saw each other. You went off to the forest and I walked back toward the village. Do you remember, just before that we’d seen a knight riding by so grandly on his stallion? Can you imagine? As I was trudging back to the village I met him again! This time he came right up to me. I bowed and greeted him in German. I don’t know much German, but enough to greet someone. The knight stopped his horse, looked at me, and asked me my name. I was so excited I could hardly reply. I’d never talked to a knight before. I told him my name and then the knight took me by the chin and looked at my face. He tousled my hair, felt my breasts, and then — can you believe it? — pulled me onto his horse’s back and carried me straight to his castle. How splendid everything was there! Pure silver drinking cups, a bed covered with expensive drapes … He slept with me! Leemet, you understand a foreign knight slept with me! He made a child inside me!”

I looked at Magdaleena as she glowed with pleasure as if she were demented, but I have to admit that her story aroused me and I would gladly have liked to follow the knight’s example. In some way Magdaleena now seemed a lot more worldly. If a foreign iron man had been allowed to fondle her hair and breasts, then why not me too? The only thing that slightly disturbed me was the knowledge of the child hidden inside the girl; it was as if a third person was looking on, keeping a watchful eye on Magdaleena.

“So do you live in the castle now?” I asked. “You’re this knight’s lover?”

“No, what do you mean?” chuckled Magdaleena. “Of course he took me home the next morning. Why would he keep me at the castle? There are so many village girls that he can make happy. Although I hope he won’t. I haven’t heard of any other girl from our village getting into a knight’s castle. I’m the only one he chose. I’m the only one he gave a child to! You understand, Leemet. I’m giving birth to a jesus!”

“I don’t understand, no. Is this jesus of yours something like a sprite? God, or whatever you call him in your village.”

“Yes, he’s a god, but the knights are God’s friends and pupils. To me they’re as good as Jesus himself. God has taught them all sorts of wisdom and made them strong and handsome. He can do that to us too, if we all listen to his word, but it takes time. The child I’m carrying in my womb will be like them from birth, because his father is one of the jesuses! His blood is flowing in my child! Jesus’s blood! What a privilege that is for me, what an honor! He’ll become a knight and I think he’ll start speaking German right from childhood like his father. Fortunately he’s sure to learn Estonian as well, because I’m his mother. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to talk properly to my own child. That would be sad!”

Magdaleena shook her head and carried on talking.

“My father is terribly glad too,” she said. “For him it’s enormously important for our family to get ahead as much as possible. He was born in the forest himself, but I’m a village girl, and my child will go out into the wide world and become a famous man. Maybe he’ll even go to the holy city of Rome and settle down there. Why not? He won’t be a peasant anymore, he’ll be a jesus, and jesuses rule the world right now.”

“Congratulations from me too, then,” I mumbled. I was beginning to feel that I wouldn’t get to sleep with Magdaleena after all. What could a forest boy like me do for her, when she already had an actual jesus, a future ruler of the world, living in her tummy? Clearly it was the fashion these days to get your child from a knight, not from some stale Snakish-talking man. Again I felt that my insides stank of decay; the stink was so strong that it was downright incomprehensible that Magdaleena couldn’t smell it.