Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

I no longer feel bitter that I have no one to whom I can pass on the Snakish words. On the contrary, I feel a gloating pleasure. Let them live without Snakish, those future generations of humans, whom I will never see, nor would I want to! Stupid, poor little insects, I don’t envy them. Of course they don’t know what they’re missing by not knowing Snakish — but I do. I know much more besides, but my foolish successors will never be able to know those things.

Such a thought gives me pleasure. I try to imagine just such a new world as I lie for hours in my cave — a world without Snakish. Sometimes I laugh to myself, because that future seems so ridiculous to me; it’s a world in which I have no place. Strange and unpleasant.

I am not bitter about the past. For me it is already too far away. The people whom I knew and loved then have by now become just pictures on the wall of Pirre and Rääk’s cave. I look at them but I don’t feel anything.

That early morning when I was carried up to the village I was far from such peace of mind. I snarled and shrieked like a wolf cub and cursed everyone I saw, until one scruffy villager gave me such a bludgeon across the chops that some of my teeth flew out. Then I fell quiet and only spat blood, but the rage boiled within me as before, and I felt no pain, in either my smashed mouth or my limbs being cut to ribbons by cords.

My screams, however, were as nothing beside the roaring that broke out when the gang of snake incinerators finally reached Johannes’s house and could behold all the work and effort that Ülgas the Sage had that night committed indoors. Elder Johannes ran up to me, shook me, and screamed, “You killed them! You bit them to death! You’re a werewolf. I’ve known it all along!”

I was not surprised or enraged by these accusations; I had been anticipating them. I didn’t intend to answer Johannes at all, but since he wouldn’t leave me alone and kept on tugging at me, I mumbled through bloody lips: “Leave me alone, you idiot. I didn’t kill them. It was a mad old bugger like you, and if it satisfies you, then I’ve already torn out his entrails. He’s paid for his evils and one day you will too.”

“You or some other pagan from the forest, what does it matter?” bellowed Johannes. “You’re all werewolves! What’s wrong with you? What evil spell forces you to do such horrible things?”

“Never mind. Let’s toss him into the fire and burn him,” said Jaakop.

“We will, but what use is that to Magdaleena and her son, who was a little knight besides?” wailed Johannes. “No revenge will save them.”

“You’re right there, old man,” I said, thinking of Ülgas. I could have killed him a hundred times; it would be of no use to Magdaleena or Toomas. It was in every sense an unequal exchange: the life of a miserable mad sage counted for nothing to anyone; not a single man or beast mourned him. He should have been dead long ago, but instead he went around killing those who should have lived.

People came and wrung their hands, weeping to heaven. They were certainly wondering how all those gods and jesuses, on whose help they counted and for whose protective support they had moved out of the forest, could now suddenly allow such a dreadful crime to happen. Especially on the same night when they had been so abundantly burning snakes in accordance with their God’s commands. I knew it wasn’t hard at all to find answers to their troubled questions. I had after all lived for years in the forest with Ülgas and remembered well the ease with which he explained everything to Tambet, using for that purpose the invented sprites and his own wily understanding. The villagers didn’t trouble themselves for long about it; thanks to Johannes they had an explanation.

Naturally I turned out to be the guilty party. God could not allow an unchristened pagan to live in the village, someone who was, moreover, a werewolf, and as a punishment for this he withdrew his protecting hand from Magdaleena. As for little Toomas, God did not punish him, but indeed blessed him. The little child of a foreign knight was simply so dear to God that he called him to him with all speed and sat him on his knee. The villagers were of course only too happy to believe that hogwash, just as the late Tambet had taken as pure gold everything that spilled from between the slovenly teeth of Ülgas. There was no longer any need to worry about this little child; he was in good hands. In fact they felt a secret pride that such a baby had been born right here, in a simple Estonian village. They spoke of a miracle, and they discussed whether the child’s old clothes might be used to keep foxes away from chickens.

Magdaleena was of course mourned, but everybody agreed that one must not stray from God’s commands and that my acceptance into the house was a great sin. Since I was conveniently within reach, they all came, together and one by one, to spit on me, and piled up a tall heap of brushwood, on top of which they intended to roast me.

This pyre, however, reminded me of the bonfire at my wedding, which I had built myself from the remains of the grove. On that occasion my mother was cooking venison on it; now there was no more mother, and these dullards were unable to catch deer with their wretched spears — so they had nothing left to roast but me.

I wasn’t afraid of death — and why should I be, after all these gruesome events? — but I would have liked to carry on raging. At least I would have liked to do away with Elder Johannes for good, as well as my old friend Pärtel, whom I was now more inclined to call Peetrus. I would have liked to pour out my rage, to harry and plunder, and not to just be burnt to a crisp as a helpless lump on a pyre. But I was very tightly tied up, so that I couldn’t even move. Only my mouth was free, but just now Snakish was of no avail. It would have no effect on the obtuse minds of the villagers.

The men grabbed me and hauled me toward the pile of brushwood. I saw that Peetrus was holding one of my legs and I said, “Who could have guessed that one day you would throw Ints on an ants’ nest and me on a pyre?”

“What can be done,” replied Peetrus. “Everyone chooses their own fate. I invited you to the village long ago, but you came too late and you remained wild.”

“Do you really believe I’m a werewolf?” I asked, now in Snakish. “You know that werewolves don’t exist!”

For a while Peetrus didn’t answer, and I believed that he didn’t understand the Snakish words anymore.

“Today in the world they believe that they do exist,” he said suddenly, but in human language, not Snakish, as evidently his tongue, gone soft with village food, couldn’t pronounce it any longer. “All the new people believe it. Therefore so do I.”

“What are you talking about, Peetrus?” asked Jaakop, who was holding my other leg. He hadn’t understood my question.

“I’m saying that werewolves are horrible monsters,” shouted Peetrus. “Over you go!”

I flew into the heap of brushwood. The sun was shining on my face; I turned my face aside and saw my grandfather flying over the village buildings.

The first one he got hold of was Jaakop, who was just then preparing to light the pyre. Grandfather grabbed him by the head, heaved him into the sky with him, and sank his fangs into the man’s neck. Jaakop fell convulsing back to the ground and within a moment he was dead.

Then Grandfather grasped an ax tied to his belt and wielded it up and down several times. The villagers screamed and fled in horror in all directions.

“Are you dead, Leemet?” shouted Grandfather.

“No, Grandfather, I’m alive!” I shouted back. “Just tied up. Set me free!”