"The small black-and-white photograph with serrated edges shows a young boy in an almost deserted street. In the distance one can barely make out two people sitting in front of a house's doorstep. The child has one hand on the handlebar of a wooden scooter. One of the straps of his dungarees has fallen from his shoulder. He wears a white shirt with sleeves rolled up above the elbows. He seems intrigued by something he is watching out of frame. Is it an insect, an anthill, a cat? I don't know. I don't remember. This little boy is me. In blue ink, at the very bottom of the picture, someone, no doubt my father, wrote 'Goulette May 56'. Seeing the dilapidated state of the street, I wonder how a scooter could ride there. La Goulette is a small town about ten kilometres from Tunis. My mother told me it was there that we spent our holidays. It seems families made a veritable exodus there in summer, loading cars and trucks with almost their entire home to furnish their holiday rentals. In 1956 I was four years old. I come back to this photograph that I have always kept with me since I rediscovered it. Did I know that a month later I would be on a plane taking me to Marseille and that after that stage my family would settle for good in Paris? Had I heard my parents speak of it?" M.S.