Just a few days after meeting the love of his life, Reitmajer the architect met with great misfortune: one summer’s evening in the year of our Lord 1921, while lying on the grass beside the Štěkeň weir, he was kicked right in the balls. Those responsible for this act were a group of flirtatious, pot-bellied little communists covered in blood, vomit and ice cream, envious examples of “le petit communiste”. It was “coitus interruptus radicalis”. (Coitus interruptus was Judita’s condition sine qua non if she were to sleep with Reitmajer at all; the condition of sine qua non copulare, we might perhaps say, so that if the interruption could come about in a different, less painful way… And so on). First of all the communists kicked the architect in the head and then between the legs.
At the hospital in Strakonice, which Reitmajer and Judita got to on the back of a brewery truck that was returning from delivering beer to the surrounding villages, the doctors examined Reitmajer and told him that he would never be able to have children. But as for erectile function, that should remain the same.
Although Judita never once visited Reitmajer in hospital, the architect’s interest was undiminished, and no sooner had the doctors allowed him to go home than he was trying to win over Judita again. He posted a crazy note in her letter box in Baar Street telling her, without a hint of self-esteem, about his new indisposition or rather disposition. “Indisposition or disposition? It depends how you look at it!” were Reitmajer’s exact words. “It would definitely be an advantage for you. I’ll never be able to, or have to, depending on how you look at it, have children, Judita!”
What was Judita supposed to say to that? “That guy’s crazy, Muffi,” explained the beautiful woman to her dog, promptly throwing Reitmajer’s note in the bin.
One morning in November, Reitmajer finally ventured through the gate into Judita’s garden. Judita quickly opened the window and shouted into the garden: “Lunatic! Lunatic! Impotent! Impotent!”
(Translated by Graeme Dibble)