Everytime J looks at a mattress on the street she sees this image. The photo appeared in Saturday’s Age. The title of the article was Torture 21st Century Inquisitors. There was no reference made to the photo in the story, no title and no credit.
J recognized it immediately; anybody who has been to Cambodia’s Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh can never forget that bed. No mattress, no body, no compassion.
(The Age Review March 5th 2005)
Taking L to school again, there are more mattresses in the street, these ones are wrecked. They are old St Kilda. Itinerant community, lots of short term rentals, people moving on but leaving a piece of their intimate history behind.
J thinks of all the times she’s seen some poor bugger camped out on a mouldy old piece of discarded bed in the park. Maybe that same mattress had been a site of love and comfort for a small child. Maybe in another life this poor bugger also had bed where there was love and comfort. But maybe the opposite was true. You don’t see people sleeping out so much now. St Kilda’s changing. J gets distracted by the springs they look so good and you wouldn’t find this stuff in… … …
More mattresses… about eight of them out the front of an old mansion, there are 2 men cleaning up. J asks if she can take a picture but starts firing off questions instead. Has this place been sold? The younger man says it used to be a boarding house. Did your family own it?
“Yes. Vlad is my uncle he lived here and was the Manager”.
Vlad says “finished, liquidated, no more.”
How many people lived there? “Twelve” comes the answer.
Have they all found new places?
“Yes, but there are two that haven’t moved on yet…”
J is getting pushier by the minute. Did you live there as a kid? “No” comes the reply.
Where are you going to live Vlad?
He says “liquidated, finished, no more”
They tell J she can take anything she wants. She is invited into the backyard. The only thing she takes is a photo. On the way out she takes a peep into the grand hallway as she passes, it’s gorgeous. J wonders how many people will live there in the building’s next incarnation.