For two years, Martin makes multiple trips to England, taking the van on the ferry from Roscoff to Plymouth, driving around Cornwall and Devon, buying furniture and knickknacks at jumble sales, and bringing the truckloads back to Louise, who cleans and polishes everything, repairs what needs mending, and arranges, displays, and sells—but not very much.
The problem is French people are not terribly interested in buying old English stuff when they have plenty of their own old French stuff lying around. These are rural people, people who do not discard things lightly, and their houses are already jam-packed with generations of goods. After three years and a gallant effort, Martin and Louise close shop, which brings them back to the bank. That’s the bad news.
They pay back the loan, but there is a dispute over their credit card payments. The next time Martin goes to the bank, he discovers his account balance is substantially reduced. He asks about his missing money and is told he owes it, and the bank took it—no hearing, notice, letter, appeal—it’s gone. The next day Martin returns to close his account before they can take any more and finds he’s already a day late and more than a few euros short.
With powers like these, no wonder banks are so willing to make loans—and no wonder people all over France accept my check without ID. After I sign it, any mistake is mine, and any mistake, and I’m dead. Like Sally.
She’s English and has lived in Plobien for years. She got married in the village and patronizes all the local stores. She’s fluent in French and has a doctorate from a French university. Everyone knows and likes her—she’s the Perle Mesta of Plobien—and she bounces a few checks and goes over her overdraft limit, and her bank cuts her off in a snap. That’s it. Over. No more. Au revoir. This is the bank she’s banked with from the start. All those smiling, young, happy-to-see-you bonjouring-and-bonne journéeing tellers don’t mean a thing. Neither does knowing the bank officers or Monsieur le Président. She writes a few checks for a few more euros than her overdraft allowance, and her account is shut. It takes her a long, long time with lots of forms signed and promises made before another bank will open an account for her.
From this, I understand French people are serious about their money in ways not comprehensible in the U.S. And I also understand this: if it takes Sally, who is French-fluent and a long-term resident, a long time to find another bank, it would take me forever. Even Madame P, I’m sure, could not break that barrier. Sally’s story is a lesson learned, and I hope not repeated—at least by me. From that moment on, the bottom line moves to the top, which is why the first thing I do the first day I’m in Plobien is go to my bank in Loscoat.
Getting Money from My Local Bank
In the U.S., I’ve been going to the same bank for fifteen years. It’s been bought and changed names three times, but the same tellers and manager are still there. This is Oakland, a city of four hundred thousand people. In Loscoat, a village of six thousand people, the tellers change every year, in the middle of the year, even during the summer.
Still, I expect someone from the previous year to be there. After all, we shook hands, exchanged news and stories, laughed, became friendly—and I’m looking forward to seeing them and catching up on the events of the year.
I walk in, look around, and don’t see any familiar faces. There’s a new, younger, smiling face at the counter waiting to greet me.
“Bonjour,” I say, putting out my hand to shake. The good news is there’s always a young, seemingly younger every year, teller or trainee or intern in the bank who speaks English very well. The bad news is he or she is never there when I am. I can’t tell if this new, younger teller—the one I just said “bonjour” to—is the one who speaks English, and from my “bonjour,” he probably can’t tell I don’t speak French. I begin, as I do every summer, full of hope.
“Parlez vous anglais?” I ask, hoping he is the designated English speaker of the year.
“Non.”
“C’est le personne ici parlez anglais?”
“Non. Elle est malade aujourd’hui.”
“Bon.” I mean “good, I understand,” not “good, she’s sick,” but there’s no way I can explain that, so I hand him my checkbook, saying, “S’il vous plaît, Monsieur, le total.”
He doesn’t move.
I reverse it. “Le total, s’il vous plaît, Monsieur,” and make a writing motion with my hand . . . I later learn the word I want is le solde, not “total.”
The lad taps my account number into the computer, writes a number on a piece of paper, and shows it to me. It’s lower than I thought (it’s always lower than I think), but it’s in the ballpark (it’s always in the ballpark), and not far enough away to quibble about even if I could.
“Merci,” I say, “merci beaucoup.”
“De rien,” he replies, pleased to have helped and ready to move on.
I tear a check from my checkbook that I’ve already made out to myself and hand it to him—just as I did all last summer—and say, “S’il vous plaît.” I do it this way, fill it out in the safety and privacy of my house, because when I’m in a hurry, I usually do it wrong. I write the name of the party to be paid on the top line—in this case me, Mark Greenside—which works fine in the U.S., but not in France, where the party to be paid is the second line. In France, the top line is the amount, which is another reason to write the check at home—I have to look the number up, like “deux cent quatre-vingt dix-huit” for 298 euros. And that’s not the trickiest part. The trickiest part is on the bottom of the check, the place and the date, which I usually reverse in two ways: on the line where it says Fait à (made at) I write the date where I should write the place, and on the line for date, where it says Le, I write the place. Worst are the days and months. In the U.S., dates are written m/d/y. In France, it’s d/m/y. So when I write 7/27/12, it’s a date that doesn’t exist. This is why I fill out the check before I get to the bank. It’s embarrassing being a grown man with a house and bank account who is unable to write a check or know the date. It’s also suspicious.
In the U.S., a drowsy, unshaven stranger walking into a bank with a checkbook and fully made out check would be detained. The teller would think the check has been lost or stolen, and the stranger would have to answer a gazillion questions and show a dozen pieces of identity. In France, the tellers are thankful. It’s one less task for them to do. In Oakland, every time I enter the bank is like the first time, and by the time I leave—after I’ve refused to take out a loan or get a money market account—they act as if they hope it’s the last. Not in France, or at least in Brittany. Here, they act as if they’ve known me for life. The lad looks at the check I just gave him, says, “Bon,” and hands it back to me saying something I don’t understand.
Now it’s my turn not to move.
“Monsieur,” he says, and points to the sign on his desk, Information, and indicates I need to get in line to see a teller, which was what I did two years ago. I’d walk in, say “bonjour” to the person behind the Information desk, and wait in a wedge for a teller who was sitting behind a desk. Then last year, while I was waiting in wedge for the teller, I was told to go to the Information desk, where I handed the person my already made-out check and got cash. For the remainder of the summer, I did that. Now, it seems, I have to go back to the teller . . .
I get in line, which really is a line, not a wedge, because only one person is ahead of me. Unfortunately, she wants to go through all of her records going back to the war—Two, I hope not One. In the U.S., they’d open another desk or send this person somewhere else, or just sit there laughing. In France, they do what’s necessary. It’s 11:45. The bank closes at 12:15 for the obligatory lunch, and the line behind me is becoming a wedge. It doesn’t matter. No one cares but me, and I’m doing my best to hide it.
Finally, she leaves. I leap forward, hand the young lass my check and say, “Bonjour.”
She says, “Bonjour,” and quickly begins doing paperwork. I’ve never seen anyone enter numbers so quickly. She prints a pie
ce of paper, gives it to me to sign—which I do—and gives me a receipt. Perfect: fast, efficient, pleasant, and pretty, but no money. I look at the receipt. It’s a deposit slip. She’s deposited my check from this bank into my account at this bank. If only it were so easy . . .
“Madame,” I say. I know I should say “mademoiselle,” but I can’t. It makes me feel like Humbert Humbert. “C’est moi.” I point at the name on the check and then at me. “Je voudrais d’argent.” I want money. In the U.S., that would probably bring out the security guard. Here, there is no security guard, and everyone is patient beyond reason. She looks at me like, well, duh, who doesn’t? I try again. “Je voudrais cashe le cheque . . . Changer le monnaie . . . ” Miraculously, it works. She redoes the paperwork, gives me something to sign—there’s always something to sign, something to prove whatever errors there are, are mine, not hers, the bank’s, God’s, or the world’s. I sign, and she hands me two hundred euros and wishes me “bonne journée.” I thank her and leave as fast as I can, managing to avoid eye contact with the wedge of people now out the door.
The rest of the summer I do the same. I walk into the bank, wait in line or wedge until it’s my turn, then go to the teller and say, “Bonjour,” shake hands, and hand over my check, which is already made out to me. The teller then begins the paperwork, gives me the waiver of all my rights to sign, shakes my hand, hands me my money, and I leave, both of us singing hallelujah, hallelujah, “Bonne journée.” Très simple, and that’s how it is until the day I need twenty-five hundred euros, about three thousand dollars, to pay Martin for work he’s done on the house.
I enter the bank as usual with my check filled out, announce “Bonjour,” and hand it to the smiling teller behind the desk.
He says, “Bonjour,” looks at the check, and his face crinkles. It’s like watching a Renoir turn into a Picasso. “Un moment,” he says, and walks to an older teller, a girl of twenty-five, sitting at another desk. She takes the check, leaving the woman she was working with, who is now glaring at me like she hates me, and goes to an office in the back of the bank—always a sign of trouble. If they go to the back, it’s doom. Sometimes they never return. After a few minutes, I see the girl go from the back office to another office further back. Finally, all of them, the now not-so-smiling fellow, the older twenty-five-year-old girl, two men I’ve never seen before, one dressed like casual Friday, the other like opening night at the opera, no one over thirty, come toward me. The fellow in front, casual Friday, is holding my check. He hands it to me and says, “Demain.”
“Demain? Tomorrow?”
“Oui.”
“Pourquoi?”
“C’est beaucoup. Je n’ai pas d’argent.”
Unbelievable! This is a bank, one of the largest in Europe, and they don’t have twenty-five hundred euros on hand. No wonder they don’t have security guards. Why bother? What are thieves going to steal, the desks? I want to ask Casual Friday, Monsieur Sportif, if they don’t have it today, why will they have it tomorrow? Where will it come from? And most important, what’s the cutoff, at what amount do I need to make my request in advance? Instead I say, “Demain matin,” planning to be there at nine sharp.
“Non. Après-midi.”
So much for the saying money never sleeps. “Bon,” I say.
“Bon,” Monsieur Sportif says.
“Bon,” says the girl.
“Bon,” says the boy.
The guy dressed like he’s going to the opera says, “Demain. Tomorrow. After midi.”
The next day at two o’clock, après-midi, I walk in. The fellow at the Information desk is not the fellow who was there yesterday, plus he has no Information. He directs me to the desk where the twenty-five-year-old girl was yesterday. She’s not there either. No one is. The bank seems empty. Yesterday it had no money, today it has only Mr. Information, who, at least as far as I’m concerned, has none. I sit on a comfortable leather chair and wait. I look at brochures for life insurance, house insurance, travel insurance, the bike race the bank is sponsoring, brochures on everything under the sun except banking, which is all I give a damn about. A young, well-tanned, shiny-faced, right out of a Norman Rockwell kid—how do they find them?—appears. In the U.S., everyone I know looks like a character out of a Hopper, and on a bad day, a Lucian Freud. The kid sits behind the desk and smiles. I’m bracing myself for the worst. He puts out his hand, and beams, “Hello.”
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
“Oui. Yes,” and he really does. We talk about his studies in England and travels to New York, New Orleans, and Florida. For some reason, every French person I’ve spoken to who has been to the U.S. has been to Florida. Not Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, L.A., or D.C.; not the Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, or the Tetons; but Florida—and not the Everglades, Little Havana, or Key West, but Orlando and Disney World. He asks how I like Brittany, Finistère, and Plobien, and I answer as effusively as he did about Orlando. Eventually, he gets to the point.
“In France it is normal,” (Ah! Normalement) when withdrawing large sums of money to make an appointment in advance.”
“How large?”
He shrugs. “It depends.”
“OK,” I say. “I understand,” though I don’t. “Next time. La prochaine fois.”
“Bon,” he says and he hands me an envelope thick with euros. I think he’s going to open the envelope and count the money. He doesn’t. He gives me the waiver to sign, which means if it’s not correct, I’m screwed. I know I should count the money, but I also know it would be rude. I’m in France, so I opt for manners—the right gesture—over prudence, and sign, but all I want to do is rush to the car and count my money.
“Merci,” I say, and stand, put my hand out to shake, and sit back down when he doesn’t get up.
“I see,” he says, “you have quite a bit of money in your checking account.”
“Oui.” I have about fifteen thousand dollars worth of euros to pay Martin for work he’s going to do on the house.
“It’s not safe.”
“What?”
“It’s not safe. It’s possible for a hacker to get into your account and take the money.”
This is my bank telling me this! Is it a secret? Does anyone else know? Does everyone else know? Is this a joke? “It’s insured, isn’t it? It’s protected?”
“Yes, yes, of course, but you should have it in a savings account.”
I don’t bother asking why a savings account at the same bank is safer—hacker-free—than a checking account, because I know there will be an answer and a reason that will make its own logical illogical sense to everyone except me.
“Also in savings, you’ll earn interest.”
“OK.” What the hell. I agree to put ten thousand dollars worth of euros into a savings account. Actually two savings accounts, because for another reason I’ll never know, the maximum amount I can put in one savings account is the equivalent of six thousand dollars.
So I now have a checking account I need to make an appointment to use, two savings accounts I have no idea how to access, and a PIN number I can’t remember. I leave the bank with what I hope is twenty-five hundred euros, totally bewildered, and the guy behind the desk is delighted. I’ve made his day.
Three weeks later, I go to the bank to get money for a stay at my friends Bob and Loni’s house on the Île aux Moines, where I’m dog-sitting for a week. I enter the bank, nonchalant, wait my turn in the wedge in front of the teller’s desk, and notice nobody looks familiar. I’m not surprised. It’s August, and all the regulars are on vacation. I step forward when it’s my turn, say, “Bonjour,” and hand the new younger person my check already made out to me for three hundred euros, about four hundred dollars.
The lad says, “Bonjour,” hands it back to me, and directs me to the front counter, which no longer has the Information sign, but is once again, as it was three years ago, a teller. This teller, I see, is for withdrawing money. The other teller, the wedge I was in, is for depositing mo
ney and problem solving. Upstairs or in the back is for loans. The order, simplicity, and clarity of the design are assuring. It doesn’t even bother me that I’ve already waited in one wedge, and now I’m waiting in another. This is France, and my turn will come. When it does, I step forward with aplomb, sing, “Bon-jour,” and give the pretty young girl behind the desk my already made-out check.
She hands it back to me without even looking at it.
“Non, non,” I say, thinking I’ve been through this before. “C’est moi,” and point to my name on the check and then myself, and hand it back to her, adding, “Je voudrais d’argent.”
“Oui, oui,” she says, and quickly hands it back to me, pointing to the checkbook sticking out of my shirt pocket.
“Oui. C’est moi.” No one has ever asked for identification before. “Parlez vous anglais?”
“Non.” Then, not knowing what else to do, she plucks the checkbook from my pocket and rapidly begins tapping numbers into the computer.
I get it. She doesn’t need my check, just the checkbook. No more wasting paper or writing out checks for withdrawals. It’s amazingly un-French: simple, clear, efficient, streamlined. For a moment I think Deutsche Bank must have bought Crédit Agricole. “Bonne journée,” she says, handing me my checkbook and a green plastic card.
All I can think is, please God, not something new. The girl smiles, relieved, thinking she’s made it through, and I’m gone. I stand there, dumbfounded. If I wasn’t a man and she wasn’t so young and pretty, I’d cry.
She takes the card from my hand, walks around her desk, and leads me to the foyer where there are three machines. They all have words and signs above them. Two are the same, the third is different. The girl goes to one of the two, slides the plastic card into a slot, showing me it goes red arrow facing in and up, saying, “Très simple, très simple.” I don’t know if she’s referring to the machine or me. She waits a few seconds and pushes one of the three buttons, but she’s blocking my view so I can’t see which one. All of a sudden money comes out. She hands it to me without counting it. I put it in my pocket without counting it—happy to be out of there with what I hope is enough money to get me through the week, and hoping I won’t have to get any more while I’m gone. If it’s difficult getting money from my own branch, I can’t even imagine how it will be somewhere else . . .
(Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living Page 10