Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France

by Bryan Hurt

  Behind the door is a gust of wind and a girl. The girl’s eyes are deep and blue as the firmament; her hair is wheat.

  She tells Tycho that she’s there to deliver the firewood. She apologizes that the delivery is late. “My father,” she says. “Sick,” she says.

  Tycho squints beyond her out the door. There are snowflakes in the moonlight, a horse attached to a cart. Tycho tells the girl to wait inside while he unloads the firewood. After he’s finished, he offers her redcurrant wine.

  The girl tells Tycho that her name is Kirsten Jørgensdatter; she’s fourteen years old and lives in the village with her father. But Tycho already knows all this. He’s seen her in church. He likes the way she wears her laced collars and cuffs, the way she braids her fingers when she prays. Her pale moon-shaped face.

  He asks about her father, Jørgen Hansen, and she tells Tycho that he has a fever.

  Tycho raises his glass and watches the fire through it, the smoke and logs rinsed red by the wine. He tells her that he once had an uncle named Jørgen. Then he tips back his glass and drains it, drinking to her Jørgen’s health.

  By the time they’ve finished the bottle, the fire has burned down to its embers. The moose leans against the wall, snoring.

  Kirsten yawns and says that she should be going. She says that she shouldn’t have left her father at home for so long.

  Outside the castle, clouds swirl above them. The world is silent, a held breath.

  Kirsten pulls up her hood and touches Tycho’s hand. She thanks him and tells him that she had a nice night.

  After she’s gone, Tycho remains in the courtyard. There’s the warm tingle on his hand where her hand touched his. The wall of clouds has split and for the first time all winter the stars are showing.

  Venus in ascension.

  Naked sky.

  11. IN RUT

  Tycho and Kirsten continue to make love all winter.

  But it’s love without kissing, love without hugging or handholding, love between a nobleman and a peasant girl. Chaste, forbidden, sixteenth-century love.

  Even after her father has recovered, Kirsten delivers wood to Tycho’s castle. They drink mulberry wine and Kirsten listens to Tycho talk about the universe. He tells her that the planets and the stars are forever isolated from one another, that they’re locked in separate crystalline spheres.

  He tells her that that’s what their love is. He is a planet, and she is a star.

  Who could understand it?

  No one, says Tycho. Not Otte Brahe, not Beate Bille, not Aunt Inger, not Jørgen Hansen, not Aristotle or Ptolemy.

  Tycho tells Kirsten that the universe has an order to it. He tells her that their love breaks every law.

  Then in March comes news that seems to affirm this.

  Tycho receives a letter from Germany, from the University of Rostock, three hundred kilometers south of Kirsten. He’s been accepted to study with the great astronomer Heinrich Brucaeus.

  Brucaeus’s De motu primo libri tres is one of Tycho’s favorites.

  There was no one he wanted to study with more.

  12. THE HEAVENS PROVIDE

  Tycho consults all of his books. He rereads the Almagest, the Tetrabiblos, the Handy Tables, the Metaphysics. Should he choose love or the university? Kirsten or the stars?

  In a rare concurrence, the books all say the same thing. They agree that when Jupiter is in Sagittarius, the heavens signify optimism about the future and foreign travel. But in late-spring, when the king of planets is traveling between Sagittarius and Aries, the stars also signal innovation, new ventures, and expansion.

  Tycho’s decision is not to make a decision. The books seem to tell him that he doesn’t need to choose between one love and the other. Because Jupiter is traveling, he can go to Germany and expand his family. He’s allowed to innovate; the old laws need not apply.

  Tycho marries Kirsten a month before school starts. He hires a chaplain from Gothenburg, who performs the ceremony in the castle’s chapel. It’s not a proper marriage, not exactly; rather, it’s a morganatic marriage. Marriage without dowry, without verbum, without Jørgen Hansen’s consent. It’s the only kind of marriage that the state will allow between a nobleman and a peasant. When Tycho dies, Kirsten won’t be able to inherit his property. Her children won’t be recognized as his heirs.

  Still it’s a love marriage. After Tycho says “I do” and Kirsten says “I do,” he carries his bride up to their bedroom. Kirsten’s gown trails on the steps behind them. Tycho smells the bundles of rosemary she’s tied to her sleeves.

  In the bedroom, Tycho unties her corset. He lifts her dress.

  There’s starry whiteness.

  A fourteen-year-old’s chest.

  13. MY MOON, MY MAN

  Tycho leaves for Rostock the next day.

  He kisses his bride without waking her, pushes her hair behind her ears, and leaves an envelope next to her head.

  Next, Tycho says goodbye to his moose. He strokes the moose’s antlers and feeds it redcurrants. He tells the moose to mind Kirsten while he’s gone.

  Moose bugles sadly.

  Then Tycho rides a horse to Gothenburg. He boards a boat and sails to Copenhagen. He boards another boat and sails away.

  Back at Knudstrup, Kirsten wakes up and hears the moose bugling in the courtyard. She finds the envelope, opens it, and reads the poem that Tycho’s written for her.

  She rereads the part about how when they look at the stars at night they’ll be looking at the same stars and so will always be together.

  We live so far apart, and yet the beams of radiant Olympus join our eyes at last.

  She stands at the window and searches the sky for some object to fix her eyes upon. She finds the white crescent of the moon hanging above the horizon and stares at it.

  She wonders what good it is being married to Tycho if he could just as happily be married to moonbeams instead.

  14. THE FAMOUS STORY OF TYCHO’S NOSE

  At last the boat arrives at Rostock. Tycho watches the city’s skyline appear on the horizon. As it draws closer, the roofs, like sharp teeth, chew into the sky.

  Above the skyline is the vestige of last night’s moon. He traces its crescent with his eyes and imagines Kirsten doing the same.

  When the boat finally docks, Tycho hires a coach to drive him to Brucaeus’s castle, where Brucaeus is throwing a feast for his newest student. At the feast there’s eel, olla podrida, and half a kid.

  Tycho is introduced to another Danish student who’s come to the university to learn from the great astronomer. His name is Manderup Parsbjerg; he has hair like a storm cloud and eyes that match.

  Tycho and Parsbjerg sit across from each other at the feast table. They talk about the universe. “What about Copernicus?” asks Parsbjerg.

  “Please,” says Tycho. He leans across the table and pours Parsbjerg more wine. Tycho says that Copernicus may have had some good ideas, but that he really couldn’t believe the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun.

  Tycho tops off his wine. He watches it dribble over the top of his cup. “And what about the crystalline spheres?” he says. He asks what about the birds? What about the clouds? He asks Parsbjerg to explain to him how humans and other animals could stand on an Earth that’s spinning through the universe like a top.

  He pours himself more wine.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” says Tycho.

  Tycho tells Parsbjerg that he thinks that the sun rotates around the Earth and that everything else rotates around the sun. He places his cup in the center of the table and tells Parsbjerg that the cup is the Earth. Then he sets the wine bottle next to it. The wine bottle is the sun.

  Tycho pushes the wine bottle around the cup.

  Then he takes Parsbjerg’s cup and places it next to the wine bottle. The cup, he says, is everything else.

  Tycho pushes the wine bottle around his cup and Parsbjerg’s cup around the wine bottle. He tells Parsbjerg that his model of the univer
se is the only one that makes complete mathematical sense. Soon, he says, it will explain all of the cosmic mysteries. Parallax, retrograde motion, planetary drift.

  “The mechanics of the universe explained,” he says. He pounds the table to emphasize his point. His cup, Parsbjerg’s cup, and the wine bottle all tumble over. A tide of red wine crashes into Parsbjerg’s lap.

  When Parsbjerg returns to the table, he removes his gloves, leans forward, and slaps Tycho’s cheek.

  “A duel,” he says. He slaps the other cheek. “The harbor,” he says.

  15. THE FAMOUS STORY, CONTINUED

  Dark rain hisses down on the cobblestones. There are seagulls asleep in the water, the swaying outlines of ships.

  Parsbjerg drinks wine straight from the bottle. “Ready?” he says.

  Tycho nods.

  The two men touch swords. Then Parsbjerg cuts the nose off Tycho’s face.

  He swings his sword and smashes it through skin and cartilage. The sword slices a chunk off the bridge and cleaves through the entire tip.

  Tycho’s nose falls to the ground. His sword clatters down next to it.

  Tycho’s not far behind.

  16. UNCLE JØRGEN

  —stupidest thing.

  Tycho groans. He opens his eyes and sees that he’s still on the boat, that he’s still sailing back home to Knudstrup. The ghost of Uncle Jørgen is still hovering above his bed.

  Tycho groans again.

  Beyond stupid, says the ghost. What were you thinking? he says. You’ve always been a horrible duelist. Could never tell pommel from tip.

  The ghost tugs on his beard.

  Booby, he says.

  Blockhead.

  Tycho squeezes his eyes closed. He feels the boat plunge underneath him and smells the dung-smelling poultice covering his face.

  Clodpole, says the ghost.

  Tycho’s physician enters the cabin, and the ghost blinks out of existence. The physician checks Tycho’s wound and replaces his poultice with a new one. He feeds Tycho a spoonful of camphor and ground elk hoof.

  After the physician leaves, the ghost comes back.

  Dunderhead, says the ghost.

  Idiot.

  Beef for brains.

  17. KNUDSTRUP REVISITED

  Moron.

  Wretch.

  The ghost floats at the foot of Tycho’s bed. Outside the sun is rising above the wheat fields. Orange light creeps into the room.

  Tycho covers his ears. “You’re not here,” he says.

  No, says the ghost. Your nose is the only thing that’s not here.

  There’s a knock on the door, and the ghost drifts toward it. He tells Tycho to open the door. He tells Tycho to let Kirsten in. So she can finally see what you’ve done to your face, he says.

  Since Tycho’s returned to Knudstrup, he hasn’t seen Kirsten. Except for his physician, he hasn’t seen anyone at all. He won’t even look at himself in a mirror. He just probes the wound with his fingers, feeling the strange new flatness of his face.

  Kirsten knocks again.

  The ghost begins phasing through the door, passing in and out. Coward, says the ghost.

  Chicken liver.

  “Go away,” says Tycho. “Leave me alone,” he says.

  Outside, Kirsten sets the tray of food on the floor and collects the old one. It’s still full of Tycho’s favorite things: smoked ox tongue, dogfish, Corbeil peaches. Tycho’s barely taken a bite. After she delivers the tray to the kitchen, she tells Tycho’s visitors that his condition hasn’t changed.

  Aunt Inger, Otte Brahe, Beate Bille, even King Frederick. They’ve all come to the castle to see Tycho. But Tycho won’t see any of them. He’s told Kirsten to turn them all away.

  “I’m a monster,” he yelled through the door, when Kirsten told him that the king had arrived. “I’ll never see a living person again,” he said.

  The ghost agreed.

  Worse than a monster, said the ghost, because even a monster has a nose.

  18. THE MOOSE

  Kirsten tells the king that Tycho won’t see him.

  “A shame,” says the king. He tells Kirsten that he’s already contacted his best surgeon. Tycho’s not the first person to have lost his nose in a duel. He tells her to tell Tycho that there are things the surgeon can do.

  On his way out, the king stops by the stables to visit the moose. It’s been more than two years since he’s seen the animal that saved his life. He has to squint into the shadows to find it. The moose is standing deep in the barn, beneath the hayloft. It’s mangy, gaunt, and surrounded by flies.

  The king extends an apple and the moose steps forward.

  Moose grunts and bares its teeth.

  The king drops the apple. He recalls the once majestic animal, how it pushed through the waves like a zephyr. It was the finest moose in all of Denmark.

  Now it’s this.

  19. MORE OF THE SAME

  Time passes.

  How much? For Tycho it doesn’t matter. It could be a week; it could be a month. Tycho doesn’t leave his bedroom. He drinks until unconscious, wakes up, and pours himself another cup.

  Outside his window, he watches Kirsten and her father working in the garden. They’ve planted tulips, hyacinths, and tomato plants. The sky is big and orange above them. There are towering cumulous clouds.

  Tycho checks his wine bottle. Is it chardonnay? Chablis? Since the accident, everything tastes different. All of the flavors are muted, more diffuse.

  The ghost hovers next to him. Accident, says the ghost. Give me a break, the ghost says. He asks Tycho if his decision to duel Parsbjerg was an accident. Was it an accident when he decided to draw his sword?

  Tycho tips the rest of the wine into his cup. He sees Kirsten looking up at his window. She smiles and waves.

  In his hurry to close the curtains, Tycho knocks over his cup. Wine spreads across his table. It soaks through his ephemerides, his astronomy books and notebooks, everything that Tycho has been checking and double-checking to see which of the universe’s signs he must have misread. Does it matter that Kirsten is a Virgo? What do the Handy Tables say about marrying in May?

  Wine drips into Tycho’s lap.

  Look at you, says the ghost. How could you hope to correct the universe? The ghost asks Tycho how he could even hope to correct his life.

  For Tycho the ghost has a point. A father who’s not a father. A wife who’s not a wife. A nose that’s not a nose. A moose that’s not a moose. How do you correct something like that?

  20. THE TYCHONIC SYSTEM

  A day or so passes and the king’s surgeon arrives to fix Tycho’s nose. He offers to make Tycho a prosthetic. In exchange, the king wants Tycho’s moose. The king writes in a letter that he wants to honor the noble animal. He has a spot for it in his stables. He feels that he owes much to the moose and that he hasn’t given it enough. In the letter, the king says that he wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to give Tycho counsel, but he confides that even a king knows what it’s like to experience loss. He urges Tycho to take care of Kirsten. He reminds Tycho that, in many ways, she’s all that he has.

  And even Tycho is able to understand the king’s implication: That Kirsten is all that he has left. That even she won’t continue forever to suffer his neglect.

  But instead of leaving his room and joining her in the garden to plant tulips, Tycho remains in his chair.

  After the surgeon measures him for his prosthetic nose, he pours himself another glass of wine, ignores the ghost, and strokes his past.

  For Tycho the past is his moose: the heroic moose, the compassionate moose, the moose that slept by the fire and let itself be decorated with bows. On the day the moose rescued King Frederick, Tycho was regaling the moose once again with stories of the eclipse. While they walked beneath the evergreens, Tycho was telling the moose about the blackness of the moon’s umbra, about how the moon had overpowered the sun.

  He told the moose that during the eclipse the stars shined with full
intensity and that even the birds refused to take flight.

  He told the moose about how he gazed up at the sky as the moon sliced across the face of the sun and turned day into night, proving to everyone who saw it that everything was reversible and that nothing was fixed.

  Then he recalled how the moon continued on its trajectory, sliding past the sun. The stars disappeared, the sunlight returned, and the birds took flight again, the reversal reversed.

  Their wings clapped as they lifted off and drifted away.

  THE FOURTH MAN

  It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it, and I don’t care.

  —Pablo Picasso on news of the first moon landing, quoted in the New York Times, July 21, 1969

  #1

  When the first man came back from the moon, everyone in America threw him a parade. There were forty-two parades in total. All of the women wanted to have his babies. All of the men wanted to shake his hand.

  #2

  The second man sat in the backs of red convertibles with the first man. They wore gold medals around their necks and went from parade to parade smiling and wiping confetti from their hair.

  #3

  Four months later, when the third man stepped out of his shuttle he was lifted onto the shoulders of his colleagues. NASA rocket scientists who had never carried anything heavier than decimal points lifted him above their heads and carried him into decontamination. When he got out, Tom Wolfe wrote a book about him. He never paid for a beer again.

  #4

  When the fourth man emerged from the spaceship, he was greeted by no one. He stood at the top of the metal staircase and watched the NASA rocket scientists carry the third man away. He unclasped his helmet and stepped aside for the NASA janitors who were already pushing their buckets into the rocket, eager to clean up the mess that he and the third man had made while in space.