Monika Kompaníková – Slávko

In Monika Kompaníková's short story, a young man, Slávko, arrives at the home of his girlfriend, or at least of the girl he would like to make his girlfriend. He is a city boy, he has a mobile phone which glows bright in the gloom of the tiny house's single mounted light-bulb (which Slávko himself set up that very day). But he likes to roll in the grass, and he finds the girl's old-lady fashion charming, particularly because the dress is somewhat see-through. Without making too much of it, Kompaníková's story examines the squalid living conditions of the very poor, their twin shackles of liquor and poverty, and the abject conditions in which they live.

This is a grimy story. Dirt, muck, mud, filth, ooze, drips, stumps, 'matter', goo – these words form the foundation of Slávko. We learn very quickly that the girl and her mother are in a bad way, and the root cause of it is alcohol. “Today, Mama looks pretty bad” is the opening to the story, and Mama's “pretty bad” is certainly horrific:

Several months ago, she spread boiling hot dandelion honey on them. She went around for two months in bandages, each week they removed the putrefying blisters, pieces of skin went too, and they rubbed her arms with violet water. They still itch, especially where the knuckles chafe against each others, and Mama's hands are certainly boney enough.

Kompaníková avoids judging. Slávko, as the new arrival to the home, could act as a surrogate for the reader, to provide an introduction to and critique of their living conditions. Instead, Kompaníková has him appreciate the pleasures available – the girl's see-through dress, the alcohol, the mushrooms – and simply notice the muck and dirt. He is no more the narrator than any of the characters, though we experience brief moments with all of them. Kompaníková has drained the narration of judgement, criticism, condemnation or indulgence, which has the effect of reducing the effectiveness of the interactions between the three. Slávko is described thusly:

The boy from town, Slávko, arrived on the early morning train. He came like an apparition of the Virgin Mary, dropped from heaven right in front of the gate. He was all clean, cologned, shaved, and he was really afraid for his pants when he sat down on the bench outside. He walked around looking at the chicken conscientiously, and then went to kiss the girl on the cheek, as was appropriate, even though there was no one around to see.

And of the girl, she “looked like a salamander. An exotic animal in an exotic landscape”. The mother we have already been introduced to. We learn that the mother is embarrassed to use her work-slang around the home (and particularly Slávko), and we learn that Slávko wishes to assist them more, but feels put out in his role as the guest of the house. And the girl? She is training to become her mother, though there are flashes that she wishes for a better, though perhaps impossible, life. Words like “magic” appear in her sections, and of course the exotic animal referenced above. Kompaníková's narrator acts as a video camera, recording the detail of what is occurring without placing judgement or adding commentary. Because the characters have had their personalities leeched in this way (ie we aren't privy to their thoughts, and they don't speak much to one another), Kompaníková is forced to walk the perilous line between caricature and archetype, a line she only just manages to navigate successfully.

The mother is the strongest character of the three. Her force of self permeates the house, we sense it's state of disaray and disrepair as an extension of her own life. The other two are interlopers, observers but not participants. The girl, if she can, will escape – but she won't escape with Slávko. And the young man himself? He'll leave soon enough, and he'll take his phone with him, and the help he can provide. The mother won't notice much, for her head is fuzzed from years of abusing the bottle. The girl will wonder about the world, but she won't do much about it. Life will go on.

Monika Kompaníková's story is difficult to recommend. It doesn't have a message – and certainly isn't required to – but it's lack of commentary on the situation as provided leaves the reader searching for a direction. In a longer piece, this build-up of the house, the three characters, and the dirty, poor world in which the two women live, could work up to some sort of payoff in the sense of an aesthetic representation of “how it really is” in that part of the world. As a short piece, we aren't given enough blocks with which to build an edifice of any significance. The writing is very good, and what's on the page remains interesting and enticing. But it doesn't go anywhere, or at least, it doesn't go in any one direction far enough. Not a failure, but I am hesitant to call it a success.

See Also

Other stories from the The Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. XXX, #2 Slovak Fiction issue include:
---Hochel, Braňo - My Best Story
---Johanides, Ján - Berlin in the Afternoon, at a Quarter to Winter
---Juráňová, Jana - Clips
---Karvaš, Peter - Xerox of a Document about One Half of (the Art of) Life
---Kovalyk, Uršuľa - Mrs. Agnes's Bathroom
---Rankov, Pavol - The Period in Which We Live
---Šimko, Dušan - Excursion to Dubrovnik

Also of interest:
---Other titles under review from The Dalkey Archive Press
---Index of short stories under review