Bedroom crime scene, details unknown, c1940s
Apr 30th, 2008 by Caleb Williams
Domestic violence shocks us for a number of understandable reasons. Not least because the home, usually a place of shelter and love, becomes cruelly violated, turned into a site of moral disaster by its touch. And as familiar as I have become with the raw and uncensored evidence of wrongdoing the archive is so full of, I nonetheless continue to be startled whenever I discover an image relating to an assault or homicide in a bedroom. The bedroom normally speaking is a place to shrug off the troubles of the world, to sleep, dream, rest and make love: a setting where our truest, least-guarded, most vulnerable selves desire to dwell in a situation of complete security.
There are few things more ‘loaded’ in their evocation of love gone wrong, or more suggestive of jealousy, rage, and revenge brutally enacted, than the copiously bloodstained sheets and pillowcases of a recently occupied double bed.
If we look closely at the image above, there are traces to be found of the bedroom’s recent inhabitants, a male and female couple. Draped across the metal bed-head several articles of female apparel, underclothes, a ‘slip’, and a zippered dress. While just beyond it, next to the doorway onto the covered verandah, we find a male army uniform – a dangling tunic with corporal’s stripes and a pair of trousers. To the left of the bed, more clothes, and what look’s like a small traveling case.
What has happened here? The image is not dated and lacks documentation. With the true facts yet to be determined, the urge to supply narrative, to surmise and speculate takes hold. It’s the 1940s … wartime Sydney, a soldier comes home … he’s been ‘celebrating’ … perhaps he’s drunk as a skunk … in the privacy of the bedroom with his lover, his wife or his ‘pick-up’ for the night, an argument occurs – it starts off slowly, but mounts in intensity, there’s accusation, blame, justification and retort – a struggle involving a blunt object followed by a hideous explosion, and then finally this: the mutely accusatory aftermath in chilling black and white.