Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Impatiently I shook the ring out of its precious skin and it rolled with a clink onto the floor like useless rubbish. I studied the pouch, stroked it with my fingers, and came to the threshold to inspect the skin of the Frog of the North better in the moonlight. The little strip of skin was really thin; if you raised it to your eyes, the moon shone clearly through it. I was so excited that it was hard to breathe. I folded the piece of skin into a tiny square and put it in my mouth. I didn’t even have to swallow it; the skin of the Frog of the North seemed to dissolve on my tongue. I held my breath and waited to see what would happen to me next. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my body had suddenly caught fire, or if I had grown all at once to the height of the highest trees in the forest. But nothing happened to me. I was still standing on the threshold of my old home with the moon shining on me, but I knew where the Frog of the North was sleeping.

That knowledge did not come to me as an unexpected blow and did not invade my brain as a flash of lightning. It simply seemed to occur to me — like something you have long ago forgotten and quite by chance comes back to your mind. It was roughly: Oh yes, how could I have forgotten such a simple thing in the meantime? I had been seeking the Frog of the North throughout the forest, but his hiding place was so easy to discover! It almost wasn’t a hiding place at all; after eating the piece of skin it appeared to me that anyone could easily stumble on the Frog of the North; he was right here. Throughout my life I had been walking past the mouth of the cave beyond which he was sleeping his eternal sleep, and I had never thought to step inside.

I closed the door of my own home behind me and stepped in from the opening that yawned right opposite my old shack — which I had nevertheless never paid heed to before. A wide passage led me straight ahead, slowly descending into the depths of the earth. A light glimmered ahead of me. It was warm and gentle and didn’t become too bright or dazzling even as I approached it. The Frog of the North was glowing like a smoldering fire.

Now I saw him. He really did exist, this famous Frog of the North of whom I’d heard so much and whom I’d longed to meet ever since I was a child. He was even bigger and more splendid than I had ever been able to imagine, majestic and awe-inspiring. I made a circuit around him, excited and happy. I was finally here! I hadn’t dared to hope that I would after all one day see the Frog of the North: even Uncle Vootele had said he had disappeared forever and would never rise again. No human being was supposed to ever get to see him again, yet I had seen him all the same.

The Frog of the North was lying on his stomach, the great wings on his back neatly folded together, his eyes closed. His enormous claws had sunk into the soft sand. The Frog of the North was asleep, and his sleep was peaceful and deep. This was not an aged creature, dozing through its last days toward death, too feeble and tired to move its heavy eyelids. No, the Frog of the North was large and strong; he still had plenty of life force in him, and one could only imagine what he might still be capable of, if any power could wake him up.

But there was no such power. Thousands of Snakish words uttered in unison might have driven him to mysterious dreams, but only I, his last watchman, his last guardian, still existed. Everyone else had found some more interesting activity; they were already living in a new world, where the Frog of the North was only a figure of ancient legends that grandmothers told in the evenings by their spinning wheels.

I crouched beside the Frog of the North and stroked him, patted his strong yet so smooth skin. He was very warm, and when I pressed my back against him, I felt pleasure. I had a good and certain feeling when I leaned against this sleeping giant. I knew that I could even climb up on his back; it wouldn’t disturb the sleep of the Frog of the North. Nothing in this world could disturb or kill him. He was eternal — he was and he remained — yet at the same time he was separated from final dissolution by an extremely fragile thread, and that thread was myself. The world had turned away from him, betrayed and forgotten him, left the powerful Frog of the North in a vacuum. I was his only companion. After me he would have to disappear, because that of which no one knows anything, and which no one has ever seen, actually no longer exists. He was the living dead.

Yet how differently everything could have gone! I didn’t feel anger but helpless sadness when I thought of how simple it would have been for us to fight and win, if we had not in a wave of madness abandoned Snakish. For centuries that power had served us, hovering as a menacing yet protective storm cloud over our heads. This had been our secret weapon, which no one else was able to use or knew how to. Now we too were among the others, and the Frog of the North simply slept and slept and no one called on him.

But the world changes, some things fall into oblivion, some rise to the surface. The time for Snakish has passed; one day this new world with its gods and iron men will be forgotten, and something new will be invented.

I leaned against the Frog of the North and closed my eyes. I felt good here; I didn’t intend to ever leave here again.

Of course I did go outside the cave from time to time, if only to take care of the Frog of the North. I got the habit of washing him, so that his skin would glisten more beautifully. I wanted him to be as beautiful as possible, even though no one else apart from me was going to see him. I went to fetch food for myself, and sometimes I just went walking in the forest, to see the sun after a long time in the cave and breathe some fresh air. Incidentally, the cave of the Frog of the North had a strange quality: on leaving the cave you could emerge in any place in the forest, just where you wanted to go. Now I understood how Meeme had moved so unobtrusively. He was coming from the Frog of the North; he would leave the cave that no one apart from him noticed, and then crawl back there afterward. So now I finally had the key to that mystery as well.

Occasionally I went to visit my sister and her Mõmmi, but not too often, for the atmosphere in their cave was too depressing and the stink almost intolerable. Mõmmi was now so obese that the fat had gone to his brain and he no longer remembered Snakish, so he and Salme communicated only in mumbles. The last time I saw them they were lying in each other’s embrace; the cave was very dim, but I still remember their sad eyes peering at me out of the darkness. I don’t know whether they’re still alive or not, but I’m inclined to think that Mõmmi choked on his own fat and Salme faded away quietly beside his carcass. At any rate Mõmmi was the last bear who spoke Snakish; those creatures that nowadays come my way do carry out my orders with a growl of dismay, but are unable to reply. They have become ordinary wild animals. Everything is degenerating.

A few days after I found the Frog of the North, I went to visit Pirre and Rääk. I saw the Primates’ gaunt old forms resting in the highest branches and I called to them, but nobody replied, and I understood that they had either died or become too tired and feeble to open their mouths, which was the same thing. In the end they had held out well; their world, their story, had come to an end long ago. There they stayed, in the highest branches of their tree, all winter, like two little white furry snowdrifts. In the spring the tree went into leaf, and I didn’t see them again. And when winter came anew, the branches were once again empty and bare, as if no Primate had ever lived in the world.