from HIGH SUMMER by Colette Fellous, translated from the French by Helen Vassallo

I have a secret. I know that it remains hidden in the summer, but where, when, why, which one? I stumble into it too often, I’d like to understand, rediscover, go back, everything happened too quickly. The sky is a perfect white in my head and I think I might need to whitewash my life, like a spring clean, to see its colours more clearly. Shuffle the cards, cut, deal and start to play. Look in the corners, behind things, between the pages, with this one rule I want to set out for myself: run through all the summers of my life, until I find what I hid. Run, sneak myself in everywhere, into every summer. Whatever I find will surely have its place and its own truth. Don’t stop, never stop, let the cards play out, they know the way better than I do. By heart.

                              *

Today I am twenty and one season. Paris is glittering, everything moving and weaving, sirens, traffic jams, buses, taxis, it is 1970, July, late afternoon, blazing sunshine on the Boulevard de Sébastopol. My dress is very short, black with little red and white flowers, I don’t remember which bag I’m carrying, maybe none, empty-handed, I’m getting closer, I look for the number, these boots were made for walking blasting from the window of an Austin convertible, I look round thinking oh I love that song so much. And I’m nervous. There is so much inside our bodies that is invisible, something immense lives within us I know, and randomly attached to it are all of these words, big and small, running endlessly through our veins, and then there we are just walking along in red sandals down the boulevard of whatever city we happen to be in, not knowing anything, between Paris and Sevastopol, I, we, you, they, there is so much that’s invisible in the stories we carry I mean, I’m so dizzy all of a sudden, I, we, you, they, and then I stumble, there we are, I’ve found it, there it is.

The day before, I had fainted while changing lines at Châtelet. It was ten days since I had found out I was pregnant. Home pregnancy tests were a relatively new thing, those colours that indicated what was quietly happening inside your body. You waited a minute or two and then just like that: life. I had checked the result five times, I didn’t want to believe it. It was the start of summer, I was living right on the big Croix-Rouge intersection, in a nice little room at number 3 rue de Grenelle, and I would listen to Bach’s BWV31 cantata, “Der Himmel lacht, die Erde jubilieret” over and over, with Kurt Bauer conducting and a child’s voice belting out the recitative: I was held captive by that voice, I even wanted to be that voice. If it was very quiet and my eyes were closed, if I let the song slip beneath my skin, sometimes I could even believe I was that child. At around six in the evening, I would go down and have a peppermint soda or half a shandy at the Bar de la Croix-Rouge. It was so hot, I’d sit on a stool at the bar, watching people’s faces, their body language, in the very café where I had just met the man I loved. I had bought the test at my local pharmacy, Drugstore Saint-Germain. And yes, I was pregnant, my heart was already beating faster and starting to make another heart. I was so hot, I was adrift; I wasn’t really alone, but my whirlwind body still had to face the news alone. The rooftops of Saint Germain out of the window, the neighbours’ cane-worked balcony, the blue teapot from Tozeur, the dried jasmine petals, the books by Lautréamont and Blanchot, everything had dropped away from that room, all that was left was this one undeniable thing: an invisible new life inside me, that had asked for nothing, and that I could not yet feel. I had to do something. It was Babette who got the address for me. She lived near Sèvres-Babylone like me, she was thirty-eight already and when her children were at school she would slip her arm into mine and take me on a walk up to Montparnasse or to see José Bénazéraf films at the Vieux-Colombier cinema. She used to call me Bill. One morning, she wrote down the doctor’s name in my red notebook and said quietly, I’ve heard he’s good, he’ll be able to help you, my dear sweet Bill.

I was right on time for the appointment on Boulevard de Sébastopol, at a building on the left side of the street if you’re walking towards the Gare de l’Est. Unsteady but on time. Back then Paris was still grimy, in fact that’s what I’d fallen in love with when I arrived in the summer of 1967, this distinctive aura that seemed to come straight from the pages of a Victor Hugo novel, when I used to savour his books on Amilcar beach, my right hand brushing away the giant ants that came wandering over the pages. Paris, magnetic city, here you are at last, at last I can touch you, talk to you, tell your stories. Infinite city, city that I’ve invoked so many times, a prayer whispered on the sand or in the school playground, beside the orange trees, eating my chocolate brioche.

Big double door, right-hand staircase, yes the name is clearly marked, there it is.

Second floor, a burgundy velvet carpet on gilt-edged stairs, it made me feel safer straight away, I felt sure that this man would be able to help me: I didn’t hesitate, I rang the bell. I’ve forgotten the name and the number, but the copper bell still casts a glow over every one of those late-afternoon seconds. Carefully crafted, with a pearlized pink marble border. The lampshades were faded, the light was dull, and in the entrance hall that served as a waiting room, women were reading knitting whispering, cocooned by orangey faux linen wallpaper, it smelled of musty washing and last night’s soup. I said bonjour in a tiny voice, I already wanted to leave. The door opened, the doctor will see you now mademoiselle. A large mahogany desk, tall windows looking out over the boulevard, black leather armchairs that jarred with the furniture in the entrance hall and, to the right, all of the gynaecological implements staring out at me, gleaming, please take a seat, tell me how I can be of assistance. There was something about him that reminded me of one of my headmasters at the Lycée Carnot, or a school inspector, I don’t quite remember. I explained. I was calm now, determined, smiling. Shy but uncomplaining.

OK, I understand, don’t worry, I know what to do. His shirt was very white, I tried to focus on it so as not to look at him.

You do know that abortion is against the law? But I have a system that’ll help you, I’ll explain it to you, but you have to listen very carefully, are you ready?

He stroked his pipe as he spoke and the whole room smelt of Amsterdamer tobacco, a strange smell for a doctor’s surgery, but oh well, I wasn’t there to judge him, he was wearing an octagonal diamond on the little finger of his right hand, a bit odd I suppose. His face was lit up by a big mushroom-shaped orange lamp, I’d seen the same one in a shop that sold sofas, on the boulevard, on my way there. He was clearly in no hurry and I thought about all the women waiting out in the entrance hall, there was something in his voice that bothered me.

Please go on, I said.

Are you sure, are you ready to see it through?

I said yes, of course, I’m too young to have a baby.

All right then, this is how it will work. I have a clinic in the ninth arrondissement and I can do the procedure there, but to be admitted into the clinic legally, you need to be bleeding and come as an emergency, you understand? Here’s what you have to do. You put a little blood in your knickers, it’s easy to get hold of, you can go to any butcher and ask for it. And then straight away, you call one of my colleagues, I’ll give you his number, he’ll know what’s going on, he’s used to it, you say you’re bleeding heavily and he’ll tell you to go to my clinic immediately. Did you get all that, do you need me to go over it again?

I smiled, I said it seemed a bit convoluted, the blood from the butcher, calling the colleague, it was like something out of a film, almost farcical: I mean, isn’t there another way? I thought of Marnie’s face in the Hitchcock film, I was starting to drift off, to want to escape my body, to leave it to struggle on alone with its emotions, its embryos and its romantic misadventures, I wanted to be far away, lost anywhere, but serene. To melt into the invisible substance of time. It wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to abandon my body and run away.

No, there’s no other way I can do it, and you don’t really have much of a choice, you know full well that this isn’t allowed. He looked at the black telephone, shiny and threatening, he wanted to scare me. I can assure you that my method works very well, and don’t worry, everything is sanitised, no infections or repercussions. As for the cost, it’s three thousand francs but if you go to bed with me, right now, I can close the door, don’t worry, no-one will ever know, then it will be half price. One thousand five hundred. He went over to the door, turned the key and with a nod of his head indicated that we’d be just fine on the examination table. I was reeling, what was this? He was so sure of himself, moving casually, face composed, voice measured, I’m still a good-looking man, aren’t I? He had it all set up impeccably. I thought about the women knitting reading whispering, in the half light of the waiting room, surrounded by the pungent smell of neglected everyday things; about all the fallen women all over the world, in picture books, yes, that was it, I was trapped in a picture book. I was dizzy, it had got gradually darker outside, the light had turned grey and pink, but it was strange, all I saw was sparks of sunshine, huge flames, scraps of life burning in a wasteland, the smell of a plague that hung over the plains all the way to the desert. I was blinded. My head was just a book with stained pages. I tried to call to mind any old strip of beach to chase away what I had just heard, Amilcar, Dermech, Salammbô, Gammarth, Saïda, Raoued, I called all these names to come to my aid. The eucalyptus leaves came travelling to me across the years, majestically and with great indifference they lined a dusty road, heat rising from it. It was high summer everywhere. Mimosa branches hanging over a low whitewashed wall, a cat toying with a half-dead lizard, pushing it with its right paw and enjoying the sight of its struggle, I felt the cat smile and raise its head towards me, because it knew that for a while now I’d been watching it through the ornate spirals of a wrought-iron grille, I’m a good-looking cat aren’t I? The oars of a red boat cleaving through the sea towards the horizon slowly, regularly, in, out, like breathing. I saw the name of the café on the beach: L’Amphitrite. But none of it worked: even the most dazzling experiences I’d had up to that point were no use to me, no matter how hard I tried to call to mind those moments that were permanently swirling around in my memory, well I say memory but really I mean somewhere else I can’t describe, yes, no matter how hard I tried to call them to mind, I could feel them detach and fade away, as soon as they appeared. I saw them fall instantly into darkness without even taking the time to come to life again. As if they were jumping out of a window. I was alone, with nothing to protect me.

And so I said quietly to the bloke (because suddenly he had become a bloke): we’ll see, I need to think about it.

And I left, holding back my tears so that he wouldn’t see me cry. He pointed towards the way out, a different door, just behind his desk: that way, please. Everything was so carefully orchestrated, I didn’t even have to walk back past the women in the waiting room. The door opened out onto the back staircase, no red carpet but the wood was well polished, the steps a little narrower.

                         *

And, in a stroke of luck, that’s how I got to see London. I took the Silver Arrow train one morning from the Gare du Nord. In the compartment there were three soldiers playing belote, I enjoyed watching them quietly, another man sitting by the window with his arms crossed was watching the card game too. And then somehow six and a half hours later I arrived at a hotel near St James’s Square that had five wide white steps, an elegant portico, tartan slipcovers on the benches and armchairs in the basement breakfast room. The smell of gingerbread wafted through the corridors, it was like being on holiday, I hadn’t brought proper luggage, just the braided black bag I used for dance classes, it still smelled of ballet slippers and rosin. It was all-included: the night in the hotel, the operation, the meals, I didn’t have to worry about anything so the voice over the phone had told me, just the train and boat, this time it was Brigitte who had given me the address: in London, at least it’s legal and they do it properly, forget about that lowlife on the Boulevard de Sébastopol.

When I woke up, everything was white, I remember not recognising my own voice, I was weeping softly, little baby sobs, and above my face there was a doctor wearing gold-rimmed spectacles smiling at me, he stroked my hair saying that everything had gone well, that it was over, I just needed to rest a little now. I asked him if he could pass me my embroidered Indian shirt, the white one, it was in my bag, if it was no trouble, thank you. A red-haired nurse brought a tray carrying a green salad mixed with yoghurt and raisins, it seemed so exotic to me that I smiled shyly at her. She asked if she could draw the curtains for the night, I said I was happy as it was, I liked looking at the trees, thank you very much, she was so beautiful. In the end I was happy to be there, calm, alone, in an unknown city, after all I was only twenty years old, and admittedly I was in hospital but I was fine. And still alive, even if... With this gently vibrating world I had yet to discover: how large, how tranquil, how vast it was. And the little thirty-millimetre body that I had abandoned in a sprawling capital city. I chewed everything very slowly, the slightly sweet taste was soothing. On the other side of the window were long branches, the thrum of light traffic, a veiled sun, a different language in the corridors, I breathed carefully so I wouldn’t break anything else inside my body, I wasn’t thinking about anyone.

Plein été by Colette Fellous © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2007

Author and translator bios:

Helen Vassallo is a British Maltese translator and Associate Professor of French and Translation at the University of Exeter (UK). She has published translations of Leïla Slimani’s short stories, two plays and a novel by Darina Al Joundi, and an autobiographical essay by Margarita García Robayo. She is currently translating a collection of Renée Vivien’s prose poems.

Colette Fellous is a French-Tunisian writer and radio producer. She has written more than twenty novels, most of which are creative non-fiction. High Summer (Plein été, 2007) is the third of a loose trilogy of books that explore her past and traumas, and was preceded by Avenue de France (2001) and Aujourd’hui (2005), for which she received the Prix Marguerite Duras.

© Colette Fellous. Translation © Helen Vassallo, 2026. All rights reserved.

home