Clad in Crimson and Gold, the Fox

(From the Notes of Captain Greymoor)

I have a dream: I walk into a tailor’s shop. The house is very old — thick, solid walls. The tall wooden door opens easily, almost silently — as if it had just been oiled. Inside it smells of fabric, fresh-tanned leather, machine oil, and for some reason, apricots. Sewing machines stand along the wall — black Singers with gold lettering. In the corner — an old dressmaker’s mannequin.

An old tailor sits in the workshop. He’s sewing something by the window. He doesn’t raise his head when I enter. He just keeps working. His fingers move methodically, like a metronome.

“Come in,” he says. “You’re here about a suit?”

Honestly, I have no idea whether I’m here about a suit. I don’t remember how I ended up here at all. That happens in dreams.

“Yes,” I say. “Probably.”

The old man nods, sets his work aside, and stands up. He gestures for me to follow him deeper into the workshop. Behind shelves stacked with fabric stands a large cabinet made of dark wood. The old man lays his hand on the door and pauses. He listens. I listen too.

Voices are coming from inside. Many voices. They’re talking among themselves — quietly, but distinctly. Like a radio tuned to several stations at once. Someone is complaining. Someone is laughing. Someone is humming a melody I’m sure I’ve heard before.

The old man opens the cabinet. The voices fall silent, almost respectfully.

Inside, there are suits hanging. At first glance, not many — five, maybe seven. A gray business suit. A black dress. A blue blazer. Everything neat, in the front, at eye level.

But when I look closer — there are more of them. Behind the first row a second one emerges. Behind the second — a third. Further in the depth — a white toga with a red border. A linen tunic. A hooded cloak. A beaded loincloth.

I think of the East — and see a kimono. Silk, with cranes.

I think of the Victorian era — and a corseted dress appears.

The cabinet doesn’t look deep, but it holds as many costumes as needed. The word “set” comes to mind. In the mathematical sense.

“Choose carefully,” the old man says. “A costume is not just clothing. It’s more than a mask, more than a role, more than even a way of life. It is, one might say, fate. You understand?”

I don’t. But I nod. In situations like this, nodding is best.

I stand before the cabinet…

She turns her face and says:

I saw a fox yesterday. No, that’s not right. I met a fox. Or it met me — I’m not sure which is correct.

I was sitting on the porch, drinking coffee. An ordinary day, an ordinary October. Leaves falling, wind chasing them across the yard. And suddenly — there she is. Red. Standing at the edge of the clearing and looking. Not at me — into me. As if she sees something inside.

I remembered a book. It had something about the observer effect. In short: the observer influences what’s happening. Just by looking. Imagine that, Mur — they assume it’s always clear who is the observer, who is the subject, who is the object. Who watches, and who is being watched.

With the fox, that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t…

I look at her — and she looks at me. And at some point I stop understanding: which of us is the observer? Who’s influencing whom? Maybe I appeared in her world, not she in mine? Maybe she is observing me, not I her? She observes me — and I change?

Yes, Mur… You see a fox, or the fox sees you — that’s a question that resolves only when you realize autumn has already arrived and is already inside you. That you’re not entirely human anymore. That you’ve absorbed this October, this gold of leaves, this crimson of sunsets, this scent of smoke and wet earth.

Now you yourself are crimson. Yourself — gold. Yourself — October.

Or is it already November? I don’t remember. Months flow strangely this time of year.

And then the boundary dissolves completely. You no longer know where the fox ends and you begin. Where autumn ends and your body begins. You’re just standing in the forest, feeling something red stir inside, something wild, something with sharp little teeth and quick paws.

(Or maybe you’re the fox? And she’s you? Or maybe you’re both autumn, just from different sides?)

I finished my coffee. The fox left into the thicket. Or I left — I don’t remember.

But since then I feel: something has changed. Something red seems to have stayed inside.

Uniforms, jackets, dresses — none of them attract me at all. I tell the old man: I’d like to try something original. That thing deep inside — is it fur, or red velvet? I reach out and…

And… Here it is, the point where reality cracks like a nut. But no — there is no point. There is a red streak — across — diagonally — through the forest, which is no longer a forest, but the memory of a forest, the memory of green madness burned to ashes and now pretending to be trees.

The fox moves at a trot.

(Or is it you?)

You follow her — no, she follows you — no, both of you follow a third one, standing somewhere aside, but when you… you both… turn, there’s no one there, only the wind flipping the pages of the air, only someone’s breath writing signs on fallen leaves.

You don’t stop. You go after the fox, who goes after you, and both of you move toward the sunset, which is actually the sunrise, because in this October everything is reversed, everything turned inside out like a glove…

The fox turns.

She has your eyes.

(Or you have hers?)

“You know,” the fox says with a voice you recognize, though you’ve never heard it, “in this forest time doesn’t move forward or backward. It moves sideways. You understand? Sideways.”

In this forest, when foxes start speaking — it feels fairly natural. After all, why not?

You nod, though you understand nothing except that her fur smells of autumn, and autumn smells of farewell, and farewell is the only thing that cannot be postponed.

“I was looking for you,” you say. From the very beginning, when we were a single being, before they split us into parts — into human and beast, into October and memory.

And then — she unfolds.

She doesn’t walk away — she unfolds, like a fan unfolds, like a scroll unfurls, and you see that the fox was just one facet of something larger, multidimensional, something that cannot fit in "here". She unfolds into autumn — into falling leaves — into the memory of a sudden fine rain. She unfolds into the smell of smoke — into sunset — into yellow-red leaves on damp brick pavement.

She unfolds — and you see all sides at once — the fox-autumn-farewell-meeting — crimson-gold-fire-silence —

And you understand it was always the same thing. One being with different names.

The fox goes into the thicket — into the gold — into the crimson — into the impossible —

And you understand she never left, that she was always here, inside, a red pulse between heart and throat, an autumn knowledge that whatever burns, burns forever.

You stand alone in the forest.

(Or the two of you?)

She continues: “…And I thought: that’s how it all happens. You try something on — a fate, a role, someone else’s life — thinking it’s temporary. And then it turns out: you’re already inside. You already wear it. Nothing can be worn forever, but it also can’t be taken off completely. And who you’ll be afterward — that’s the question.”

I stand. We stand.

Two of us… three, four, in the infinity of dimensions where the fox is simultaneously running away and returning, where autumn is simultaneously beginning and ending, where you are simultaneously remembering and forgetting.

October closes the book. Or is it already November?

“How do you find the suit? Does it fit?” the old man closes the cabinet.

I stand before the mirror. A large mirror, wall-to-wall…

Note: Author’s translation from the original (В багрец и золото одетая лиса).