By Yudi Kravzov
The rain was falling heavily and the afternoon was beginning. My mother and I were in the kitchen with the sole purpose of pulling the recipe for Prince Albert cake out of the illegible recipe book passed down from Aunt Eva.
“Putting the eggs in the freezer doesn’t make sense; you’re reading something wrong,” my mother said to me a bit desperately.
While I was trying to decipher whether it said 800 or 300 grams, my mother, already bored, opened a bottle of mezcal.
At first she looked at me in surprise, but with the glass in hand, we began to reminisce about the “go-go” party she organized for my dad years ago, where, with wigs, platform shoes, false eyelashes, long boots, colored stockings, and mini-skirts, we transformed ourselves into total psychedelia.
“Do you remember how, to the rhythm of ‘Bule-Bule,’ we made the dance floor our own? More free than crazy, we got into a time capsule. We started drinking mezcal and with the DJ’s music, we were the Yé-Yé Girls, Gloria, and even La Popotitos.
We released anguish and vanity; we forgot the common laws and the intimate disasters of moral combat against sin and defeat. I knew I was capable of ordering my own destiny; I fled from myself and transported myself to another place, until a dragon brought me out of my trance, and I overcame ignorance and darkness with the words of Rilke: “All the dragons of our life are perhaps princesses who expect us to be beautiful and spirited. All the frightening things are perhaps nothing more than things without succor waiting for us to succor them.” Confident that the dragon is first and foremost in us, I flew in total plenitude.
We both drank for the first time. I shared with my mother, and this floating without judgment was, for me, a gift that life had been waiting for me.
In total confabulation, together, under the effect of mezcal, we made jokes and returned to Aunt Eva’s recipe. With several pastry books and loose recipe sheets, we discovered that it’s only the egg whites that are put in to cool so that they whip up well.
The effect went down as we anxiously waited for the cake to come out of the oven. I could see in my mother the reflection of who I am and who I have been through the years. I swear that in that instant I understood how we are the ones who run over time, trampling the seconds.
We turned off the oven, let the cake cool, finished assembling it, and, with the “munchies,” we both sucked on spatulas, spoons, balloons, and pans with leftover chocolate frosting, just like when I was a kid.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together, taking advantage of the fact that it was raining outside and we had plenty of time to spare.
