Aunt Mira’s Pancakes

In this village, in a now largely lost world, it almost never rained in summer. A blessing for the spoiled city folk, a curse for the villagers here.

“Eee-eee-eee! How can it not stop here, how can it not stop?!” grumbles a grandmother, leaning on her hoe and staring at the large rain cloud, which, as usual, carefully skirts around their settlement. Once again, they’ll have to water abundantly in the evening and run with grandpa from one irrigation ditch to another, digging small barriers to guide the water. Rarely ― very rarely― the cloud will take pity and stop, to grant life-giving grace to the parched earth.

Like it does today.

The dark clouds have occupied every centimetre of the skies, it seems. Thunder crashes, lightning flashes, and the first large drops the size of walnuts fall on the dirt road. Thump-thump-thump. Nature takes a deep, lengthy breath, and the animals scatter under trees and in improvised shelters. Thump-thump-bam-thump-bam! The drumming intensifies, and a few late villagers rush through their yards, covered with some piece of clothing, gathering tools and implements in their sheds. Now the rain suddenly pours, as if a dam wall had burst in the skies. And God, sitting on the cloud, stroking his long white beard, chuckles, and says:

“You wanted rain, didn’t you?! Here’s your rain!!”

And it pours down like a flood. Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum! Thrum-da-ra-ra-ra-da! The dirt village road soaks through in minutes, and puddles meters long form. The meadow’s yellowed grass at the village’s edge drinks and shivers, drinks and shivers, until it soaks up so much that it glows with a green light again. The leaves of the fruit trees in people’s gardens and those of the Big Walnut, before buried in dust, suddenly gleam dark green. The irrigation ditches throughout the gardens will soon overflow, and many young plants slump even now as if drowned― peppers, watermelons, melons… But even the city folk knows this is only temporary. Once the rain stops, the “drowned” will quickly revive.

Three children have found shelter from the stormy rain under the roof of a house, that belongs to a distant neighbour, Aunt Mira. They have chased a Balkan green lizard through the bush on both sides of the dirt road until the storm surprised them. Now they sit on a bench under Aunt Mira’s roomy roof, shivering a little. The children have largely managed to stay dry, but two of the three, Rada and Boris, are starving. There is never enough to eat in their houses.

“You can come in, children!” ― a soft, cheerful voice calls through the kitchen window just above their bench. Now the owner of the voice, Aunt Mira appears on it, and the first thing you see from her is not her face, but her wild, flyway hair. She has let it from the loose bun she wears for garden work, surely to dry it and now it spills in enormous bundles on her shoulders, the colour of freshly dug earth.

“No! No! We are good here, thanks” ― answer the children together shy, and almost scared. They have been taught not to enter other people’s houses without an excellent reason. It is a gesture to the women in their communist reality, who, to all their work for government and garden, also swallow the greatest chunk of the household chores.

“Oh, come on! Your Uncle Dimo is at work, and my children are with their grandma. And I took vacation to harvest the late cherries, we are going to sell them in the capital. But yes, am all alone. I could do with some company.” ― still cheerful and tenderly invites them Aunt Mira, now attempting to force all this hair in a bun again.

“No, thank you, Aunt Mira. It will surely stop soon”, murmur the children shyly, and it is then that Rada’s and Boris’ stomachs begin to growl loudly. So loudly, that the dozing dog in the nearby kennel opens his eyes and lifts his head. An eyebrow arches on Aunt Mira’s face, just the one.

“Well, then ― wait here”, she says and disappears in the house.

Sparrows huddle in the eaves of the roof of the house opposite them, shaking out their feathers with worrisome chirps. A whole curtain of water now falls from Aunt Mira’s roof as well, yet the children remain sheltered in front of her kitchen window― a small oasis amid the coоl, wet reality.

From inside the house rushed sounds come: the clanking of cutlery, the beating of something against porcelain walls, the woosh and hiss of the gas stove’s flame. Rada and Boris now hold their stomachs, a little ashamed in front of their friend Ana, who always has enough to eat. The two are no siblings, but they share many things ― bruises and scars from their alcoholic home, the near starvation sometimes, the wild determination to stay outside as long as possible…

“Here you go, children!”

Aunt Mira reappears at the kitchen window, apron tied over her old work trousers, climbs onto something, and hands them a plate with… three warm pancakes. Boris and Rada stare wide-eyed. Boris’ mouth waters, and he swallows loudly. Only Ana grins from ear to ear and reaches for one. The other two just inhale the warm, cinnamon-scented aroma of the thin treats.

“Unfortunately, there’s no sugar left to sprinkle on them,” the cloud of earth-coloured hair pops up through the window again. “But they’re good to eat as they are. Come on, take them!” Aunt Mira smiles softly, noticing Boris’ and Rada’s shyness. The boy lets his friend take the second pancake, then quickly grabs the third, rolls it up like he’s seen Ana do, and devours it eagerly. The three children exchange glances and smile with mouths full, while the rain continues to pour, soaking the flowerbed in front of them. The pancakes are thin, warm, lightly charred, and heavenly in the storm.

Water flows down from the vines bedecking the entire yard and knocks down spider webs― true works of art. It spins the spiders in a furious whirlpool, from which not all will escape. If you look carefully, you will see the sparrows peeping out, huddling under the eaves, but they don’t dare venture into the drumbeat of the rain. Tra-da-da-da-da-dam! And so, they just chirp in place.

The children have barely finished eating, when Aunt Mira adventurously leans through the window again to collect the empty plate. By the time the kids manage to exchange a word, she returns with three more warm pancakes. Then three more. And three more.

It feels as if they’ve been sitting under her window for hours in the rain, devouring the thin, cinnamon treats. Soon the friends are no longer hungry, yet Boris and Rada can’t stop eating. And when they finally do, the memory warms them from within for decades to come.

Love that tastes like pancakes is indelible, they learn that day.

And now, suddenly, God remembers that there is still much work to do, and that the village is not the only one thirsty. He sweeps away the rain like a curtain, rolls the cloud into a bundle, mounts it, and drifts it in another direction, tossing one last smile down toward the village. And the village rises, soaked like a little puppy, shakes off the water, and rushes back to tending its work in the gardens ― Aunt Mira leading the way.

The village pauses for nothing. There’s no time.