Read Online The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk - Free Book Online Page B

the trees ended and an open plain began, in the middle of which a narrow path meandered. And on that path a monk was walking.
    When I was very small I thought that monks were the wives of the iron men, since they wore the same kinds of wide dresses that women do. True, they weren’t very good-looking, and I did wonder why the iron men had such ugly spouses. The iron men didn’t look nice either, and as a little boy I was sure that their faces were made of iron and that they had no noses or mouths. Only later did I see iron men taking their helmets off, and I understood that they were also human. Likewise, I also once happened to see a monk pissing, and I ran to Uncle Vootele, breathless with anxiety, my eyes burning in my head: “Uncle, Uncle! The monk has a willy!”
    “Of course, all men have them,” answered Uncle Vootele.
    “Is the monk a man then? I thought she was an iron man’s wife.”
    Uncle Vootele laughed and assured me that wasn’t so. At first I couldn’t believe him and put forward some counterclaims.
    “But they have tits. I’ve seen them bouncing under their dresses. And they’re pregnant too. Surely a man can’t be pregnant?”
    “They’re not pregnant, and they don’t have tits either. They’re simply very fat, the fat runs around them like resin on a spruce.”
    The monk who was now striding along the path was also fat. He noticed me and slowed his pace, but then obviously thought I was alone and didn’t present any danger. He didn’t see Ints, because he was hidden in the grass. But the monk did immediately see the ring on my finger. He stared at it and said something in his own language.
    “I don’t understand,” I replied, and hissed the same in Snakish, but the monk didn’t understand either language. He came up to me, squinting at my ring, looked around quickly, and seeing that the coast was clear, grabbed me with one hand by the scruff of the neck, while his other hand pulled the ring off my finger.
    I hissed the strongest Snakish words into his face, but since the monk didn’t understand them, they had no effect on him. He was like the hedgehog who could calmly attack an adder, since his stupid head defended him from all the Snakish words. The monk gave me a smack on the back of the head and pushed me away, at the same time putting the ring in his mouth—apparently to hide and defend a precious thing from others.
    I was hissing frantically and wanted to bite the monk, but Ints got in ahead of me. The monk screamed with pain and collapsed, with two bleeding spots on his shin.
    Now he was much lower, and Ints managed to bite him on the throat. The adder jumped; the monk screamed and grabbed with his hand, but that didn’t help. Two little fang marks reddened on his neck, right on a vein.
    “Thanks, Ints. But I want my ring back!” I said.
    “Let’s wait until he dies, then we’ll take it from his mouth,” suggested Ints. We went back into the forest, for the monk’spainful yells and moans were disturbing us, and we stretched out happily in the cool of the trees, until everything went quiet. Then we came out of the forest. The monk was dead, but when I prized his jaws open, to my great disappointment the creature’s mouth was empty.
    “He’s swallowed it,” said Ints.
    “What shall we do now?” I cried. “He’s dead now, which means that he won’t shit anymore. Are we supposed to wait until he rots away?”
    “Cut him to pieces,” suggested Ints.
    “I don’t have such a big knife,” I said. “Just a little sheath knife, I’d be sawing all day with that. And I can’t drag him home; he’s terribly fat and heavy. And I can’t leave him here and go home for a knife, because meanwhile someone might come by and take him away or eat him up—and then I’ll be without my ring. But, say, Ints, couldn’t you squeeze inside him? He’s so big that there’d be easily room for you to crawl in. Then maybe you could bring the ring out in your mouth.”
    “I