German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

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“Within every effort there has to be calm,” she recites for him. “Always, in every pose,
you have to stop just before the effort becomes pain.”
“Sometimes I think…a bird, for example,” he says.
“Yes, what about it?”
“To fly, it has to keep flapping its wings, right?”
“Definitely,” she agrees gravely.
“I’m not talking about gliding,” he says fussily, and her ear opens a little at the sound
of the new word. “There are birds that glide without making any effort, but I’m talking
about a bird that has to make an effort to fly up.”
“Okay.” Nili shrugs, wondering where he himself is flying with this.
“And a bird that lives, say, for a year? Two?”
“Let’s say.”
“And all that time it has to make an effort with its wings, otherwise it’ll fall?”
“Definitely.”
“But maybe once, like one time in its whole life, it happens that it can fly up high, the
highest — for maybe a whole minute — without making any effort at all with its wings?”
She leans forward, shrinking the crease between her eyes, sensing something
approaching. “And how exactly does that happen?”
He takes on a mysterious expression. “It gets it from the air.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Like once in every bird’s life, the air lets it fly up without making any effort.”
She blinks. What is it with these aerodynamic theories all of a sudden?
But he’s very serious and focused. “It’s like . . .” He searches for an example, his fingers
moving, pulling something from the air. “It’s like, say . . . a holiday bonus, like the
air is giving it a bonus. A discount. Once in a lifetime.”
“Oh.” Nili laughs with sudden comprehension. “And does it know, the bird? Does it
understand?”
He falters. “That’s what I keep wondering. `Cause if it doesn’t understand, then it’s
like the air’s efforts are wasted on it, no?”
“I guess so,” she answers, delighted.
“And if it does understand, then . . . No, that can’t be . . . No. It must not understand,
`cause it’s just a bird, with a bird brain. Sure.” He gets excited; now that he’s made up
his mind, his face lights up. “It’s something the air does just for fun!”
From the great relief on his face she guesses how long the question has preoccupied
him.
“It doesn’t even realize it at all! Just that suddenly it feels light, but it’s the air that
decides: Okay, now you. Playing with its birds, you see?”
Do I see? Nili wonders, looking at him contemplatively.
“And by the way,” he adds gravely after a minute, “it’s the same with the sea and the
fishes.”
From Her Body Knows, by David Grossman
Front Cover Photos: Grapes on the vine and in hand at Selbach-Oster, 2005 vintage.
Photos by Hannah Selbach.