Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest Read online

  After about two or three weeks, the whole village decided that the poor boy had come down with whoopitis, and everyone was very careful not to get close to him. Finally, things became so unpleasant that even his parents gave up on him: they were shamed by the whole village and they were ashamed of him, and also made sure that his younger brothers and sisters didn't get too close to him and catch his disease.

  And so, in the end, his parents and all the grown-ups let him wander around the forest alone, as free as the wind and the water, both day and night. Eeorrrriarrr, the man said suddenly in a different voice, and in a moment, a bear with thick, tangled brown fur came out of the bushes, rubbed its heavy head against the man's hand, looked at Matti and Maya with damp beary eyes that were full of curiosity, affection, friendship, shy modesty, and a slight sense of wonder, as if those eyes wanted to explain and say, Sorry, don't be angry, I just don't understand what all this is, I'm very sad to say that I don't understand anything, forgive me, don't expect anything from me; after all, I'm just a bear.

  Then the bear turned over and lay down clumsily on its broad back, its legs waving in the air, and began to rub its fur on the carpet of grass and make all sorts of humming sounds in a dark brown bass voice, a deep but warm, wintry voice. Matti quickly retreated three or four steps and tried to pull Maya by the arm, but Maya jerked her arm out of his grasp this time too: Enough, let me go! Matti, run home if that's what you want, no one is forcing you to stay. But I for one want to get to know this place.

  And the man said, You're Maya. You're Matti. I'll introduce myself too: I'm Nehi. I'm the Mountain Demon. The sorcerer. And now, meet Shigi. You don't have to be afraid of Shigi. He's a slightly childish bear, a bear that suddenly starts to dance in the middle of a rainstorm, or tries to swat flies with his too-short tail, or hides for hours among the river plants and splashes all the animals that pass by. Shigi. Stop interrupting. I'm in the middle of a story here.

  As time went on, the man continued his story: I also learned the language of pigeons, crickets, frogs, goats, fish, and bees. And a few months later, after I disappeared and went off all by myself to live the life of a mountain boy in the forest, I tried to learn more and more animal languages. It wasn't hard, because the languages of animals and birds have many fewer words than the languages of people, and they have only the present tense, there's no past or future at all, and they have only verbs, nouns, and interjections, no other forms.

  With the years, I realized that animals sometimes lie too, to escape danger or to show off, or to mislead their prey, or to frighten others, and sometimes just to charm when they're courting. Like we all do.

  Creatures even have special words that express joy, excitement, amazement, and pleasure. And the creatures that are considered mute—for instance, butterflies, fireflies, fish, snails—even they have certain words that aren't spoken out loud but are conveyed by all sorts of small vibrations that reach the listener only through the skin, fur, or feathers, not through the ears. Those vibrations are like the gentle ripples made by a leaf that falls onto the smooth surface of a lake when the water is very calm and still.

  Other creatures even have certain words that resemble prayer: special words of thanks for the sunlight, and other words of thanks for gusting wind, for rain, soil, plants, light, warmth, food, smells, and water. And they have words of longing. But none of the creatures' languages have any words meant to humiliate or ridicule. No, not that.

  If you'd like, Maya and Matti, the man said, and gently laid his heavy, tired hands on the back of a small goat that had come and curled up to rest in Shigi's brown fur, if you'd like, we'll try to teach them to you too, slowly. The way we taught Nimi, who found his way to us before you. Yes, Nimi the Owl, Nimi with the constantly runny nose, the one everyone down below says has whoopitis. But deep in your hearts, Maya and Matti, you have both known for a long time that there is no such illness in the world. Whoopitis was invented only to keep people from getting close. To isolate people. And in fact, from now on, you two will be our guests, mine and all the creatures that live with me here in the garden of our mountain home.

  Because you're staying here. With us.

  The man was silent for a moment, then in a different voice, said with a kind of firm quietness that left no room for refusal or argument: Now follow me.

  And he didn't wait to see whether they would come or not, but turned around and began walking serenely toward the house, and he didn't look back, but kept talking to them from where he'd left off. He told them that many years ago, he had loved a girl in his class, Emanuella, but he never told her he loved her, so it was unrequited love. Nor did he tell anyone else about his secret love, because he was afraid that everyone, and especially Emanuella herself, would insult and ridicule and humiliate him twice as much if they found out.

  When Matti and Maya and Shigi the bear and the little goat Sisa followed the man into the house, the children saw that it wasn't a castle at all, just one large, high-ceilinged room, a warm room built entirely of unpolished wooden beams and furnished only with simple and essential furniture, pieces sawed from tree trunks and strong branches still covered in their rough bark.

  The man sat Maya and Matti down on either side of a solid and slightly clumsy table made of thick planks of wood, and the bear and the goat curled up together and fell asleep under it. Then he continued his story: One rainy, foggy winter night, he got up and ran away from the village and his home. At first, he hid in the forests, and then found himself a place here on the mountain, among the animals that all loved him and helped him and took care of him, because down below, people hurt animals too. Sometimes they even abused them.

  And so, on that other rainy, foggy night, we all climbed up the mountain forest in a long procession, the man said, because the animals decided to come and live here with me. Now come to the window and get to know the place where you'll be staying from now on: All sorts of exotic fruit grow here, and the clear snow water flows in that brook with the sound of a mountain flute. See the small pool over there? In a little while, you can both take your clothes off and swim in it. Don't be shy with each other. Here, there is no shame in being naked: we are always naked under our clothes, but from the time we're little, we're taught to be ashamed of the truth and take pride in lies. And they train us not to be happy about what we have, but only about what we have that others don't. And even worse, they teach us from the moment we're born to believe all sorts of poisonous ideas that always begin with the words "After all, everyone..."

  The man smiled sadly to himself and thought about that for a little while.

  But here, he went on, the only shameful thing is ridicule.

  And suddenly he added in a different, darker, hushed voice: And yet it sometimes happens, it happens to me almost every night, that I wake up and go down below to take revenge on them in the dark. To terrify them all to death. To glitter suddenly like a skeleton in their windowpanes after they've turned off the lights. Or scrape across the floors and shake the roof beams to give them nightmares. Or to wake them soaked in cold sweat, thinking they have whoopitis too. And once every few years, I draw children to me here. Like Nimi the Owl. Or you.

  25

  Maya hesitated a moment before she asked her questions, cautiously: But why did you actually decide to run away? Why didn't you ever try to find yourself at least one friend or two? Or a girlfriend? How come you didn't think you should at least try to change something? Or change yourself? You were never curious enough to try to figure out what exactly it was about you that made others mock you? Why you? Too many questions? No? My mother gets cross with me all the time—why do you always ask so many questions, stop it, every one of your questions puts another crack in the walls of our house.

  The man didn't look at Maya or Matti, and he took his time in answering too, glancing bitterly at the tips of his fingers, at his large, dark nails. Then he answered all of Maya's questions with five words: It was hard for me.

  A moment later, he adde
d, I used to ask questions all the time too. But the questions just made them mock me even more. Until there were so many cracks that I didn't have a house left.

  Matti said, Maya. Enough.

  But Maya answered him angrily, Why, Matti? Why is it enough? He's so full of self-pity that he's completely forgetting that he himself caused the disaster in our village. Even now, after so many years, when you ask him why he ran away, he avoids giving an answer.

  Matti said, But Nimi ran away too. And so did the animals themselves. But you know how it is when the abuse starts. And the mockery. Sometimes I think about running away from them too, from everyone, from home, my parents, the other children, the grownups, my sisters, everyone, and let them think I have whoopitis. To run away and live all by myself in a cave in the forest so no one can tell me do this and don't do that, and aren't you ashamed of yourself.

  Maya's answer to this was, But when you dream about running away, Matti, you don't think about taking with you everything that grows. Or the water. Or the light. And you don't dream about how to come back at night and take revenge on everyone.

  There was silence. Until Nehi said, But in fact, you both ran away too. And now the whole village is frantic because of you, and your parents are shattered and in despair.

  26

  And so the two children sat in the home of Nehi the Mountain Demon all evening. And the evening went on and on as if it were under a spell, and for hours the soft evening light caressed them. After the evening light came the twilight, and after an immeasurable time, the dusk of sunset began, and that dusk went on and on and never ended, but flickered and painted the vast sky in a rainbow of gentle hues, as if up here even time itself had been erased. Wiped away. Forever.

  The inside of the house confirmed what the children had seen from the outside, that it was not a fortress, only a low, wide building made of thick logs, entirely surrounded by a garden. Matti and Maya strolled through the garden and went back into the house and ate and drank and talked. That was because, right after Nehi frightened them, he tried to make up for it by being nice to them, by offering them luscious fruit to eat, the likes of which they had never tasted before. Then they went out to the garden again to be with the animals, birds, insects, and reptiles. The light faded slowly, but darkness held back. The evening itself came and went, drifting slowly from one flower bed to the other along the garden paths, a hesitant kind of evening that didn't want to be and didn't want to cease.

  It was neither day nor night.

  And Matti thought, I don't remember but I haven't completely forgotten that I was here once at a time that was a little like this, a time that wasn't day and wasn't night, not light but not not-light, and in fact, there was no time, but the opposite of time, and all around me was tenderness and caring. A dream? In an illness? When I was little? In the delirium of a high fever? When I was still nursing? Or even earlier, before I was born?

  Nehi, when he was still the child called Na'aman, always took pity on animals and made sure to feed them, even the flies and the ants and the fish in the river, when he was only four or five years old.

  And in the village, they made fun of you for that too, Maya said.

  She didn't say the words as a question, but as something she knew.

  And Matti said, They still haven't forgotten that, but they don't remember it either. Maybe there should be another word, a special word that includes both remembering and forgetting: sometimes, out of the blue, a mother or father in the village imitates animal or bird sounds for their child. But a minute later, they regret it and correct themselves and explain that animals are merely a fairy tale. Then they sigh because our teacher, Emanuella, confuses us so much with all those crazy animal stories out of her poor head.

  When Matti said there should be a word that would mean both remembering and forgetting, Maya thought about her mother, Lilia, who scatters bread crumbs at the end of the day for birds that aren't there and tosses slices of bread into the river for fish that vanished a long time ago. And how the day was approaching its end. And how right now, her mother was standing alone on the riverbank. And soon they'll start to be very worried about us. Or maybe there, down below, many days and nights, sunrises and sunsets, have passed, and everyone has already given up on us, and it's only here that time has stopped? And the river itself, Maya thought, that river never rests, day in and day out it churns, twisting among the yards in the village, racing stubbornly onward to the valley, rushing bubbling down the slope, white foam on its banks, as if running away from us, downward to some peaceful valley, and stops in our village for a moment only to curse it.

  Maya said, We'll have to go back soon. They'll be worried about us there. They'll think something terrible has happened.

  Matti said, Just a little while longer. Till the end of his story.

  And the man suggested, We'll ask the darkness to hold off a while longer. We agreed with the evening a long time ago that it would approach slowly.

  27

  Maya said, But you did a terrible thing to us by taking all the animals away. And you took animals that no one was ever cruel to. You even took animals that were loved, that were happy to be part of the family, like Almon's dog, for instance, and Emanuella's cat and her three kittens. In my opinion, kidnapping the animals was even crueler than the ridicule you suffered. And you, when you decided to take revenge, did you stop for even a minute to ask who you were really taking revenge on? The ones who made fun of you? The ones who abused their animals? Or were you taking revenge on Almon and Solina and my mother and Emanuella, who you still say you loved?

  Na'aman raised his shoulders and seemed to be trying to bury his neck and head between them. As if he had suddenly become ugly right in front of their eyes. And his hands began to dart about, searching for something, as if begging to be released from being hands, to be hidden, to be free to escape from their owner and never come back. And when Maya mentioned Emanuella's name, there suddenly appeared at the corners of Nehi's mouth a sort of grin that looked both forlorn and slightly malicious, a twitch of meanness that at the same time begged for a bit of sympathy.

  What, you don't like it here? he said, suddenly hurt. You don't want to stay? Just a little longer? Okay. Go. I don't care. Go. After all, I'm not alone here. Go. I'll hold back the darkness so it doesn't overtake you before you reach home. Go. It doesn't matter. Go. If I really wanted revenge, I could keep you here with me forever. Or at least I could counter your questions with a few difficult ones of my own. Why, for example, do all of you let your parents shut you up every time you try to find out what really happened before you were born? Why do you always let them change the subject and talk about other things? Maybe it's because you didn't really want to find out, to know? Maybe you were even afraid to know? Because it's easier to be lied to and not have the burden of all your parents' secrets placed on your young shoulders? Not just the two of you, but all the children of the village? How convenient it was for you to have your parents keep their shame and guilt to themselves and not taint you as well. Isn't that so? Or maybe you even guessed what the truth was, but your guess frightened you too much. Because if your guess was correct, then suddenly, from this day on, no one will be allowed to hurt or ridicule anyone else. And how would we live and amuse ourselves without occasionally humiliating someone? Without a touch of abuse, without mockery, without occasionally stepping on someone else?

  Maya said, Look, Nehi, you yourself are mocking the rest of us now. And you're rather enjoying it, aren't you?

  28

  Na'aman was so lonely that he learned to speak to animals in their own tongues. Several years later, when the entire village began saying he had whoopitis and kept their distance from him and threw stones and pieces of roof tiles at him from farther off, he found himself a cave in the mountains and lived there alone, surviving on mushrooms and berries. Only sometimes, at night, he would wait till all the villagers were safely shut up in their houses, then he would go down to drift like a shadow through the
narrow streets of the dark village.

  To this day, he still goes down there. In the dark. Goes down only when everyone is behind their iron shutters and iron bolts. Goes down to roam the village because he's sad up here, despite his love for the creatures, despite all the wonders of the mountain.

  In the dark of the moonless night, he wanders through the empty, narrow streets. And sometimes, he and Nimi tiptoe around together, approaching one house or another, peeping between the slats of the shutters to watch families quietly immersed in their last, peaceful preparations for sleep.

  Because it's pleasant to listen through the curtains to the bedtime story a father is reading to his daughter, or to a mother sitting on the corner of her little son's bed humming a lullaby that brings a sudden ache to Nehi's old heart. And sometimes he likes listening through a half-closed window to the sleepy bedtime conversations between tired couples as they drink their nightly tea in the warmth of their room. Or when they sit and read in the silence of the night or when the people living in one of the houses occasionally exchange a few words that break Nehi's heart and bring tears to Nimi's eyes, simple words like: You know, you look really lovely in that flowered robe. Or: I'm so glad you finally went down and fixed the cellar steps today, thank you. Or: That bedtime story you told the boy tonight was beautiful and it reminded me of my childhood.

  So he wanders among the deserted yards at night for two or three hours, alone, and sometimes with Nimi, until the last light in the village is turned off in Almon's window. Because I'm jealous. Jealous of them because of all the things they have that I never had and never will have.