Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“Does cutting off your tail really seem so bad?” I exclaimed. “A modern person doesn’t need one. Don’t scream horribly now, like some savage! What must the noble knights think of you if you can’t behave like a civilized person? Now don’t look back at all; keep looking forward! You still have your nose to sniff the wind. What more do you need? Farewell, village elder, and good luck!”

I ran off, suppressing my laughter, but I could hear Johannes’s dreadful screaming for a long time afterward.

he prank with Johannes’s arse put me in a good mood. I strolled along homeward, humming an old Primate song, but the events of that night had not ended yet.

Somebody was calling me in Snakish. At first I thought it was some adder that had escaped incineration. I hissed back, looking for snakes, but instead I saw Meeme, who, as always, loomed out from among the tussocks.

His existence had completely slipped my mind. So, my sister and I were not the last humans! There was also Meeme, although calling him human seemed a bit of an exaggeration. He had lost his last outlines, and when I stepped closer, I couldn’t tell exactly where his body ended and the moss began. The darkness that prevailed in the forest was partly to blame for this, but Meeme really did appear to have dissolved into nature. He was like a melted snowdrift. The same moss that grew under and alongside him also grew on him. Besides, he seemed not to have moved from the spot for a long time, because he was covered by a thick layer of autumn leaves. His face was as dark as the soil and cracked in places, and his eyes glistened at me from that carapace like dewdrops.

“You’re still alive,” said Meeme, and his voice sounded muffled, as if from underground, and it was hard to understand his words; they seemed to have collapsed in his mouth. “I didn’t dare to hope that I’d see you again.”

“So you wanted to see me?” I asked, anticipating when Meeme would raise his inseparable wineskin to his lips, take a sip, and choke a cough. I thought that might clear his throat a little, so it would be easier for me to understand what he said. But Meeme didn’t drink, and to tell the truth I couldn’t have said whether he even had hands or whether they’d rotted away so he’d have nothing to hold his wine vessel with.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I thought you should still be alive after all, and you’d turn up before I finally disintegrate, so I want to tell you something. Not that it’s important; no, it’s all senseless. But that’s the way.”

“What did you want to tell me?” I asked.

“About the Frog of the North,” said Meeme.

This was unexpected. I crouched down by Meeme and immediately sensed traces of that rotting stench that emanated from his decomposing body. I shrank away in disgust and Meeme grinned, noticing this, with his moldy mouth.

“Stinks, eh?” he asked. “Stinks! I myself don’t notice anything anymore, but I know I don’t actually exist. I have rotted away. For a few months I haven’t moved from here; I haven’t eaten or drunk. I don’t even remember the taste of wine anymore, and if anyone poured it into my mouth, it would soak into the ground like rain, because I don’t have a back any longer. I can feel plants sprouting inside me; in the spring they’ll grow right through me like shrubs, and the goats will eat them without noticing a dead human lying under their hooves. I can’t feel my arms or legs anymore. My head has still held out, because it’s as hard as rock, but if you’d come a few days later, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. I wouldn’t have been sad, because what I have to say isn’t that important. You see I was a watchman. And before dying the watchmen have to choose a successor. As you understand, that isn’t hard for me to do; apart from you, there’s no one. You don’t have to go to the trouble if you don’t want to. The Frog of the North can get by without you. I haven’t been to see him for years. But still I thought that if I should happen to meet you again, I’d tell you, and see what you’re doing. It’s all the same to me.”

“How will I find the Frog of the North?” I asked, excited.

“You remember that ring I once gave you?” asked Meeme. “Yes, of course you remember. You came to ask me about it, but then I didn’t have a reason to give you an answer. The watchman is only allowed to reveal his secret before his death. Actually I shouldn’t have given you that key either, because you were still a child and you might have lost it, but that didn’t concern me. All this was senseless anyway. Everything had come to an end long ago and it made no difference whether I was the last watchman or if anyone else came after me. This is only the death rattle and after that comes silence anyway, and the Frog of the North will sleep his own eternal sleep in complete isolation. Maybe I even hoped that you would lose the key; then this foolishness would end sooner. Tell me, have you lost your key?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t seen that ring for a long time, but it must still be in Mother’s shack. I’m sure I’ll find it. How is it used?”

“It’s not to do with the ring. That is only a useless trinket, pulled off the finger of some foreigner who was killed. But around the ring was a pouch — thin and so light that the slightest wind could carry it away. The ring was put in that bag as a weight, to keep the bag in place. Do you still have that pouch?”

“Yes, definitely,” I assured him. “What is it about the pouch?”

“It was made from the skin of the Frog of the North,” replied Meeme. “Once every ten thousand years the Frog of the North sheds his skin; he has already done it countless times and will go on doing it. From that skin the watchman must cut out a tiny piece, which he presents to his successor. That is the key. It will lead you to the Frog of the North.”

“How?”

“You have to eat that skin. After that everything happens by itself.”

“I’ll search for that pouch this very night,” I promised. “More than anything in this world I’ve wanted to see the Frog of the North and now it will be possible.”

“Don’t forget that he will never see you. He’s asleep and there’s nothing that would wake him. It’s a useless, silly task that you’re taking on, and I’d recommend you rather to throw that bit of skin in the fire and give up the whole thing. I had to tell you, but you don’t have to obey me.”

“But I want to see him!”

“Then off you go. Be happy, and give my greetings to that being. You’ll have the happiness of dying with his help.”

He closed his eyes. That was the last time I saw him alive, because I rushed straight to my mother’s hovel to look for the ring and the pouch, and when several days later I happened upon that place again, Meeme was no longer speaking. His face had crumbled away, and there was nothing left of him but a soggy substance, a puddle among the bushes that you could hop over if you didn’t want to get your feet wet.

I hurried homeward and found my own dwelling, silent and cool. It was long since anyone had lit a fire in the inglenook, and the smell of roast meat, which had never left the walls of our home, and that always made your mouth water as soon as you stepped over the threshold, had now vanished. Although I had thought that seeing my home again could not move me, I felt something catching in my throat as I looked at that dark and empty room. But for the moment I was still too occupied by my wish to find the Frog of the North, so there was no time for giving in to sad memories. I started rummaging in chests and drawers, and after a few moments the ring and its pouch were in my hands.