(My translation of Karel Poláček’s short story Osudy jednoho smokingu, which was published in Lidové noviny on 5 March 1939 and, in book form, in Soudničky [Little Stories from the Courts] in 1999)
Prague Regional Court
4 March 1939
Dick Sakulajda is a good-looking young fellow who has recently graduated from business school. At present he’s selling typewriters, playing second fiddle in a group, and supporting his mother financially. He’s a good lad and deserves better luck than he’s had so far.
Bessie – full name: Alžběta Vyťápla – is a personable young lady. Slim, blue-eyed, and with a turned-up nose, she sews gloves, loves modern dance and had started learning English but gave that up in favour of trying to become a film star. Her father, however, threatened to give her what for if she dared do such a thing, and her mother said they hadn’t brought her up to be a floozy. So, as film stardom was a no-go, she would have liked to date an airman but, as no airmen were available at that moment, she made do with Dick, who took her to the cinema and tea dances.
And so their courtship continued. Dick, who was straightforward but rather sentimental, loved her to bits. Bessie intimated to her friends that she could have had any number of suitors, but she wasn’t bothered about them, even though Dick wasn’t all that much fun and certainly wasn’t a man of the world. So she kept going to see him. He’d make a pot of tea and play some of the latest records on his gramophone.
***
Time went by, until the day when Dick’s flat was burgled. Amongst other things, the thief had stolen his opera glasses, his How to Do Magic book, his watch, and several items of clothing, including his dinner jacket. Whoever had done it evidently knew where to find what.
Dick was furious, but eventually managed to calm himself down a bit: no use crying over spilt milk etc. But it was difficult, in particular, to get over the loss of his dinner jacket. Just to think of everything he’d been through with that coat! … sweating in it when he did his final exams, going to his friend’s wedding, being photographed with his fellow musicians. It was imbued with so many memories – too many to tell. It was as if he’d lost a close family member. He just couldn’t get it out of his head.
***
Once more, time went by until the day when something remarkable happened. Dick had taken Bessie to a 5 o’clock tea dance. In between stepping out for foxtrot, swing and other such delights, they sat at a little table, where she drank vermouth and he sipped a grenadine cocktail. And while he was sipping his grenadine cocktail, and watching the couples dancing, he noticed a little fellow with a slight limp, who was doing his best to guide his large, stunningly beautiful partner round the dancefloor. The little fellow seemed familiar, or rather, not exactly the little fellow himself, but something about him – something that seemed very familiar. Dick couldn’t work out what it was, so he just kept staring and racking his brain.
Then he thought he heard a plaintive voice:“Dick, my old friend! Don’t you remember me?!”
Dick turned around to try and locate where the voice was coming from, until he realised it was coming from the little fellow’s dinner jacket. The jacket continued:
“Dick, Dick! I don’t deserve this. You soaked me with sweat when you couldn’t work out that actuarial maths question in your exam, and now you don’t even want to know me. Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?!”
Now, Dick’s not one to be ashamed of his old dinner jacket, so he got up, stopped the little fellow in his twirling and whirling, and asked him how he came to be wearing that jacket. At first, the little fellow was indignant: what sort of manners was that? he’d come here to enjoy a dance, to forget everyday cares, and here he was, all of a sudden, being interrogated as if he was in a police station! But it wasn’t long before the little fellow said he had nothing to hide and that he bought the dinner jacket at Jakub Parťas’s junk shop. He then gave Dick the address of the shop and wished him well, before leading his partner into a tango.
When Dick returned to Bessie, he found her out of sorts. She said she wasn’t enjoying it any more and that she had to meet a lady friend; and off she went. Whereupon Dick went straight to the police.
***
It should be pointed out that Mr Parťas was notorious for buying and selling stolen goods; and, indeed, almost all of Dick’s things were found in his shop. But Dick was in for an unpleasant surprise, not to say disillusionment: it turned out it was Bessie who’d stolen his things and sold them to Mr Parťas.
♥♣♦♠
