The Man Who Spoke Snakish (39 page)

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.

So I was left alone—with the Frog of the North. I have been his guardian for forty years now, and I’ve grown quite old. Lately I’ve been going out more and more rarely. I sleep a lot and I dream. Most often that I am a child again, sitting in Uncle Vootele’s cellar, and Uncle Vootele is teaching me Snakish. Then suddenly his face turns white, he falls spread-eagled, and dies, but I’m not dismayed. I crawl in under his flanks and I’m nice and warm. I don’t care about the rotting stench emanating from my uncle. It doesn’t upset me; it actually feels so familiar and secure. Then I wake up and I find myself beside the Frog of the North, but that same stink is still in my nostrils. I know that smell doesn’t come from the Frog of the North, for he is eternal; it comes from me, an old man.

I hiss a few Snakish words into the void, the same ones once taught to me by Uncle Vootele, and those words clear the air. Everything else in me may decay, but the Snakish words always remain fresh. The Snakish words and the peacefully dozing Frog of the North.

And I am not concerned about anything; I too can quite peacefully close my eyes on it all again. No one disturbs my sleep. We can rest undisturbed—the Frog of the North and the last man who spoke Snakish.